First, hitting coach Jeff Pentland was fired, then General Manager Bill Bavasi was shown the door, and yesterday it was John McLaren's turn to up the state's unemployment rate. All casualties of the worst record in baseball. Since Lou Piniella got frustrated with the front office and left following the 2002 season, President Chuck Armstrong and CEO Howard Lincoln have hired a series of "yes men" which they could control. This is what they get.......

The Seattle Times is reporting that Mariner Manager John McLaren has been fired and replaced with bench coach Jim Riggleman. McLaren was named manager following Mike Hargrove's resignation last July. Riggleman becomes the fourth manager since Lou Piniella left after the 2002 season. Richie Sexson still has a job.......

Photo by Anthony Macaluso/AnimalNY Gothamist was shocked when someone scaled the 52-story New York Times building's exterior on Thursday. And then Gothamist was shocked again when a second person scaled the building six hours later. Shanghaiist was amused by a wild and wacky publicity stunt by a Chinese acupuncturist who stuck 2,008 needles in his head to welcome the Olympics.Torontoist featured dozens of dramatic photos from Newmindspace's downtown pillow fight.Phillyist encouraged its readers to......

"We're playing our (BODY PART) off every day and got nothing to show for it. I'm tired of (VERB ENDING IN -ING) losing, I'm tired of getting my (NOUN) beat, and so have those guys. We gotta change this (NOUN) around and get after it. And only we can do it. The fans are (ADJECTIVE) off, and I'm (ADJECTIVE) off and the players are (ADJECTIVE FOR USELESS) off. And that's the way it is...I'm tired......

The Mariners announced yesterday that Manager John McLaren and General Manager Bill Bavasi will both be back next year. McLaren took over in mid-season, the team was 40-41 under his guidance. 2008 will be Bavasi's fourth year as Mariners GM. Out in blogland, they've been calling for McLaren's head since the M's went on a 15 of 17 losing jag, one of the biggest collapses by a contending team in baseball history. The main complaint:......

Well, that was spectacular. From the heady days of August 25th, when the M's were three up in the wild card and only one back in the division, had won two straight in Texas, when we were all excited about Blue-za-palooza or whatever the fuck it was...to now, after 11 losses in 12 games, when we're all pretty much in wait 'till next year mode. You've all seen the boat sink, here are the numbers.......

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......

Both the Mariners and the Sounders are in second place in their respective divisions, and both played the teams ahead of them last night. We'd promised a friend we'd go to the Sounders game as they were playing their archrivals, the hated Portland Timbers. The Sounders dominated throughout, they had more speed than Portland, and more energy. Frenchy Sebastian Le Toux provided much of the latter, he flew all over the field. By the second......

KOMO-1000 is reporting that today's game will be Mike Hargrove's last as Mariner manager. John McLaren will take over on a permanent basis. Hargrove will appear at a press conference at 11:30 to explain. You can look to my sports-only blog for updates if you must have them.......