Northwest Sports: In the Morning

If we keep getting weekends as nice as the last one, I don't really care what the Mariners do the rest of the way. Maybe they, too, were inspired by the sun, they won consecutive games for the first time in a month. I had Sunday's game on the radio as I lounged in a hammock in my backyard. Dave Niehaus was as spectacularly dramatic as usual, and Rick Rizzs even came through with some trenchant commentary, noting that Jose Lopez' game-winning hit was slapped the other way. Nice hitting by Lopez, who leads the M's in average at .307. (Though, with five walks all year, his OPB is only .312).

Jeff Clement was sent back down to Tacoma. Art Thiel writes that Clement--just like all the other M's--was pressing. Jeremy Reed, who's hitting .367/.594 at Tacoma, is going to be called up, reports the Times, though the M's haven't made an official announcement yet. USS Mariner would like to see Reed in LF and Ibanez at DH, which would vastly improve the M's defense, but instead it'll be Reed on the bench and Vidro as DH. Agreed--this is terrible.

Ichiro's 291st steal as a Mariner pushed him past Julio Cruz for the franchise lead (2nd item). Cruz had held the record since May 15, 1978, when his 26th steal as a Mariner pushed him past Dave Collins (who'd had 25 steals in '77) on the year-plus-old franchise leaderboard. Gotta be the longest-held M's record, right?

The Storm won their opener despite being down nine in the second half--though the big news in the WNBA was Candace Parker's ridonkulous debut, a near triple-double. Jayda Evans compares it to the debut of Oscar Robertson.

The UW men's rowing team swept the Pac-10 championships. The news was less good on the diamond--the UW baseball team got swept by #3 ASU, severely damaging their NCAA tourney hopes, and the Husky women got bounced out of the NCAA tourney, losing 2-1 in a regional championship game to Houston.

The Ducks won the men's Pac-10 track championship in an exciting finish, writes Ken Goe.

The NBA draft lottery is tomorrow, and the Times' Percy Allen has a story on potential Sonic Michael Beasley, with whom Kevin Durant is very close: "He sort of lived with me almost. He would come over before school, after school, stay late and then leave. [Our relationship] is very tight. We're brothers. We tell each other we love each other. We've been through a lot. Almost the same things."

Bob Condotta notes that Jake Locker is a 75-1 shot to win the Heisman.