Mariners Begin Second Half of Season; Request a Do-over

Our Mariners begin the second half of the 2008 season hoping to avoid the history books. No team in history has lost 100 games in a season while fielding a team with a payroll over $100 million. (For that kind of cash, we could buy TWO hoops teams.)

The highlight of the season thus far (as Seattlest David reminds us) is that no one has been run-over by a train outside the stadium. And when 'at least no one died' is the rallying cry, our boys of summer have issues.

As for the current Mariners situation, Seattlest thinks the Chewbacca of local sports, the P-I's Art Thiel has said it best:

The pending legacy of a fourth last-place finish in five years, a seventh consecutive season without playoffs, and just four postseason appearances in 32 years, none of which included the World Series, screams irrelevance.

Legacy, schmegacy, Chewie. With our parents visiting in a few weeks, we'd just like some assurance that if we venture down to Safeco, we'll see a decent team play some decent ball while killing four hours of our parents' 168-hour stay. (Poppa Seattlest does love his garlic fries.) So what can we expect for the remainder of the season, aside from the likely-unpleasant ride home with our fry-laden father?

Well, we called up a guy named Tug, then sent him back to Tacoma. Richie Sexson is now wearing pinstripes, giving the NY headline writers some new material. "Sexson In the City"? Puh-leeze.

Oh yeah, we are looking for a new manager and GM. There's that.

Add to that a healthy dose of rumors and wishful-thinking about 'blowing up the team' and trading Ichiro and Ibanez and all the rest. But with huge amounts of TV revenue coming from Japan, we don't see Ichiro going anywhere. Besides, the Mariners have a 'Japan Night' celebration scheduled for Aug 4, just days after the July 31 trade deadline. (What a coincidence!) We can read the ramen on that one. Duh.

The team has its work cut out for it, clearly. But while City Hall has shown our sports teams no love recently, the county government is on the job. For it seems the smell emanating from SoDo isn't simply a result of on-field play. In fact, the County has recently begun an "Odor Control Project" in the area. From the signboard at the construction site:

For many years, residents, people working in the area and sports fans have complained about the sewer odor in the neighborhood.

Sure sounds like Safeco to us.

photo courtesy of Seattlest Flickr contributor Seattle Municipal Archives