Northwest Sports: In the Morning

If you're in town this weekend, you'd be dumb not to go to the "Rip the Cut" basketball tourney at Cleveland High (3rd item). Scheduled to play: Shawn Kemp, Brandon Roy, Nate Robinson, Jamal Crawford, Aaron Brooks, and high-school phenom Tony Wroten. Also: Will Conroy, Tre Simmons, Eldridge Recasner, Doug Wrenn, C.J. Giles. There will be three different games, at 9am, 11am, and noon, the cost is $8 total. Seriously? Wow. Holy shit. I've already agreed to go camping with my girlfriend--if there were any chance of going to this without causing her to break up with me, I would.

I neglected to link to John Canzano's interview with Barack Obama about sports. Canzano asked Obama whether, if he played one-on-one hoops with McCain, what the score would be. Obama's response: "15-zip. But if it were bowling, maybe he'd whup me."...

John McLaren shows the keen mind that got him hired when discussing yesterday's game with Geoff Baker: "When you're behind 9-1, it's not good." ...

The Tigers were basically swinging at everything Washburn threw, and hitting it everywhere. Not a good sign for Wash ...

The Mariners http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2004431074_marinote22.html">DFAed Cha Seung Baek for the stated reason that the bullpen is worn out. Although, as USS Mariner points out, no it isn't. On the bright side, Dickey's coming up. Knuckleballer! ...

If you bought peanuts outside Safeco Field from a blind guy, you may want to know that that guy, Pete Hayden, died Saturday. Hayden also sold ice cream at Stan Sayres pits during the hydro races. Friends hope some of his regular customers come to a memorial services--date/time TBA.

The new managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants, William Neukom, is a Seattle resident, the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for state attorney general in 1980, and longtime legal counsel to Microsoft. He gets to dig out from under the Zito signing--have fun with that! Larry Stone interviews him--apparently he could've bought into the Mariners, but couldn't shake his love for his hometown team. That's awesome. ...

Adjusting to talented teammates shouldn't be a problem for Lauren Jackson, writes Jayda Evans. She (Jackson) spent the spring playing for a Russian team with even more talent that this Storm team.

In the Bud Withers column that mentions the "Rip the Cut" tourney, is a note that the WCC is talking with ESPN about moving their weekly Monday Night Gonzaga WCC game of the week to Thursday, where they'd directly compete with the Pac-10. CONFERENCE CATFIGHT!

Eugene's own Nate Jaqua made the US National Team roster for their international friendly at England on May 28.