Fox Sports NW Plays Good Reporter Bad Reporter

Does Fox Sports NW have two hiring managers? One who is a brilliant mind, the other an evil genius...or just one with Jekyll and Hyde characteristics?

How else to explain an organization that employs one terrific sideline reporter (Brian Davis, who works Sonics telecasts) and one atrocious sideline reporter (Brad Adam, who works Mariner telecasts).

After every game, Davis (whose noticeable for his shiny, hairless head; the picture at right doesn't do it justice) corners a Sonic and asks insightful, unexpected questions that usually elicit an interesting answer from the interviewee. Often the questions are contextual to the game--about changes in defensive strategy, or offensive focus.

The reason why interviews with athletes are often boring is because they give the same clichèd answers over and over. But Davis ask questions that force players to think and give a real answer.

Brad Adam has a different tactic. He actually provides the clichè. Here, reported from memory, is what Adam "asked" Raul Ibanez last night after the Mariners broke their four-game losing streak with a win over Cleveland:

When you are on a losing streak, do you think about it on the field? Or are you just trying...well, obviously you are trying to win every game, but..."

Here Ibanez mercifully interrupted him and gave the standard answer about taking 'em one game at a time, etc. etc. snore, fall off couch, wake up hours later in pool of drool and Red Hook.

Sadly, Davis goes away for a few months when the Sonics season ends next week. But we've got to endure five more months of Adam. Or, more likely, five months of switching to radio once the game ends.