Your Seattle Mariners played their biggest series in four seasons this week. With a chance to overtake the first place Angels if they could win three games, the Mariners won zero games. They got outscored 24-8. Ever see that thing they do at the zoo where hippos eat pumpkins? It was like that. Much of the blame is gonna come down on Mariner manager John McLaren, who took the interesting step of using his worst......

Rumors abound early this week concerning a most ghastly notion, a dark vision that has kept us sleepless: reportedly, both the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies called Mariners GM Bill Bavasi over the weekend to inquire about a potential trade for Ichiro. Candidates for the swap included Roy Oswalt from Houston and some insulting combination of Bobby Abreu, Cory Lidle, and Arthur Rhodes from Philly. Abreu and Lidle finally landed with the New York Yankees......

Ex-Houston Astros broadcaster Gene Elston is winner of the Ford Frick Broadcasting Award, and, as such, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer. Elston beat out nine other finalists for the award, including the only one who deserves it, Mariner broadcaster Dave Niehaus. Niehaus was also a finalist last year, when he inexplicably lost out to noted malapropist Jerry Coleman. Coleman chose to use language, considered the greatest triumph of the human......

Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus, who has been with the team since its inception, has once again been snubbed by the Hall of Fame. Niehaus was a finalist for the Ford C. Frick award, which is given to baseball's best broadcasters. This year's winner is, inexplicably, the San Diego Padres' Jerry Coleman. Coleman has long been regarded as one of baseball's worst announcers, prone to such verbal infelicities as: "Rich Folkers is throwing up in......