The Seattle Mariners just aren’t very much fun to watch this year. In fact, it’s a down-right chore to sit through a game, even for the staunchest of sports fans.
Some would compare it to watching paint dry. I, however, am not that kind.
I would have to say it is similar to listening to a baby with colic wailing its lungs out while watching Kate Gosselin dance. Or maybe even the other way around — listening to Kate Gosselin cry while watching a baby dance.
Either way, it’s not “Avatar” and I’m not heading to the microwave to heat up the buttered popcorn when I see Chone Figgins stepping to the dish.
The Mariners’ offense is Ambien. It knocks people out, especially the franchise’s prodigal son (ba-da-dum).
Before starting a series against the Tampa Bay Rays Friday night, Seattle was hitting a robust .231 as a team — a number that somehow was not the worst in the league. The Houston Astros are also tearing the cover off the ball at a .229 clip.
And if “chicks dig the long ball,” like the famous 1990s commercial claims, then there aren’t too many females hanging around Safeco Field. Because Seattle was dead last in Major League Baseball in home runs. In fact, entering their East Coast road trip, Chicago White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko had one more home run (13) than the entire Mariners roster. Seattle has since “exploded” with four homers during a three-game series with Baltimore. But, you get my point.
Putred.
But the on-field performance of the Mariners has taken a back-burner existence during the past few weeks. The Seattle clubhouse has become a mid-day soap opera. The writers over at “Desperate Housewives” could pen a complete season.
Tonight on “As the Mariners’ World Turns,” a volatile left fielder melts down after striking out with the bases loaded, then takes hiatus from the team. Also, a newly-signed weirdo fails to make contact on a squeeze bunt, leaves clubhouse on a bike, gets cut and is now playing beer league softball. And finally, the biggest star in franchise history, the man single-handedly responsible for the construction of Safeco Field, was ratted out for sleeping in a La-Z-Boy during a game.
Now this is drama.
Troubled outfielder Milton Bradley was placed on the restricted list last week after he left Safeco Field without permission in the middle of a Mariners’ game. A day later, Bradley tells the team that he needs some counseling to help his emotional issues.
Former left fielder Eric Byrnes rode right off the Mariners’ bench and onto a softball diamond after getting released, literally. Byrnes, who is getting paid $10 million this year by the Arizona Diamondbacks, is currently playing softball for a team sponsored by Dutch Goose, a beer pub in Menlo Park, Calif.
“I can’t wait for my first hit,” Byrnes was quoted as saying. “I’m going to ask for the ball.”
But the biggest subplot in “As the Mariners’ World Turns” pertains to Ken Griffey Jr’.s sleeping habits, not to mention his ever-increasing habit of swinging and missing. A News Tribune blog post earlier this week quoted two different players as saying Griffey wasn’t called on to pinch hit late in a game because he’d gone back into the clubhouse and had fallen asleep.
That isn’t helped by the fact that Griffey was hitting .208 at the time with no home runs and just two doubles through the first month of the season.
We will see how this ever-changing soap opera unfolds. Hopefully, the Mariners are just setting the stage for the dashing soap hunk (Ichiro) to lead their offense back to relevance and the American League West title.
But, for now, I would keep chasing the 5-Hour Energy with a Jolt Cola and a Red Bull to stay awake during a Mariners game. I’m sure Griffey is doing the same.
In other sports news:
• Seattle Sounders FC did something pretty cool earlier this week. Following the team’s worst home loss, Sounders management announced it will refund its 32,000 season-ticket holders for making them sit through a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of the Los Angeles Galaxy.
“We’re in this for the long haul. We need them (the fans) to be in it for the long haul,” Adrian Hanauer, the team’s co-owner and general manager, said in a statement Sunday. “That wasn’t Sounders soccer. And it was quite frankly embarrassing, humiliating, and they don’t deserve that.”
I find the Sounders’ gesture very refreshing in today’s greed-driven professional sports landscape. I would advise the Mariners to do something similar, but that just wouldn’t be economically feasible.
The shear volume of refunds would cut into Milton Bradley’s $11 million salary.
• Former Seattle City Councilmember Judy Nicastro and a few other colleagues are in the planning stages of an initiative that could, she says, bring the NBA back to Seattle. If passed by King County voters in the fall, the measure would create a stadium district to fund the renovation of Key Arena or build a new stadium, paving the way for the Sonics back in Seattle.
Don’t break out the champagne and old Jack Sikma jerseys just yet. However, this can be only viewed as a good sign that bringing the NBA back to Seattle isn’t a dead issue.
