Tag Archives: mariners

News, Politics, Transportation

New Stadium Notion Leaves Port, the Ms Feeling Congested Even Before Tunnel Toll

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View of Seattle's stadium district from Smith Tower (Photo: MvB)

During the great deep-bore tunnel debate that passed away of old age last year, you could always count on the Mariners and the Port of Seattle to stand with the pro-tunnel crowd. Nothing about the twists and turns the Viaduct Replacement project took seemed to faze them. Smaller capacity? No problem. Tolls? Loved it.

Even when it became clear that the tunnel would be unfriendly to larger freight, offer no downtown connectivity for smaller freight, and dump its cars out in SoDo, where they would compete with freight moving from the port to I-5, Port leadership couldn’t see a problem.

They and the Mariners would back the Washington Department of Transportation and the Seattle City Council, even though both entities had, ten years ago, made it clear that they didn’t care all that much about congestion in SoDo, unless it was a pro-tunnel talking point. Art Thiel tells a funny story:

As far back as 2002, the city of Seattle knew the traffic/freight problems were so bad in SoDo after the construction of the two stadiums that something had to be done. An overpass was proposed for South Lander Street that would be the southerly bookend to the overpass at what became Edgar Martinez Way.

That was to be the second of three “east-west, grade separated connectors” (as the Port remembers) to mitigate stadium district congestion. (Only one was built, but, in fairness, at .333 WSDOT is still outdoing the Ms.) “According to city sources and news accounts,” writes Thiel, “funding [for the overpass] was diverted to the Mercer Street project.”

But, faced with years of tunnel-construction and Viaduct-destruction, the Port and Mariners have decided a new stadium is a bridge too far. Why? Fears of traffic congestion. Here is a delightful section of the Port’s letter to all and sundry in which they discover that they never got their promised east-west connectors, that tolls divert traffic, and that they forgot to demand meaningful construction mitigation:

Of special concern is the intersection of 1st Avenue South and South Atlantic Street, a critical point on the route for trucks destined for the Port of Seattle and the area’s main access point to I-90 and I-5. The SODO area lacks good east-west traffic movement today, and direct freeway access is limited. I-90 is carrying more traffic as drivers avoid tolls on SR 520 and Viaduct construction is diverting more vehicles onto 1st Avenue S.

Staring fixedly at the long-closed barn door, the Port also writes: “We do not believe that the traffic analysis conducted for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement contemplated a new traffic generator like a sports arena. We would ask that a new traffic study consider impacts on tunnel operations as well as the south-end connections to and from SR 99.”

Yes, that would have been worth studying, wouldn’t it? Extra traffic in the stadium district? (But–I forget now–can you at the Port point to me when in the last ten years of tunnel debate you asked about the not-implausible scenario where SoDo traffic might increase by 8,700 vehicles? Or did you avoid doing that because it was already clear that the “affordable” tunnel wasn’t going to add capacity, or transfer it to transit?)

Perhaps, you protest, but a whole new stadium? It was a little off the radar. Granted, but growing SoDo traffic volumes? No. That was not off anyone’s radar. And in their letter the Mariners are happy to prove to you they knew about it–while doing nothing to demand their bait-and-switched mitigation back, as that would have added to the tunnel’s financial downside:

We have seen a dramatic increase of traffic, and loss of parking in this neighborhood over the past twelve years. Terminal 46 has become one of the West Coast’s busiest container terminals, with truck traffic that often backs up to the freeway ramps. I-90 traffic has increased dramatically with the tolling of SR-520, creating evening rush hour backups on Edgar Martinez Drive. Game day traffic coming in on I-90 already backs up onto the freeway prior to most games.

Let’s let Art Thiel and SportsPress Northwest have the last word on the merits of refusing a new stadium because of failing to fund earlier transportation plans:

Further study? Oh, hell no. The city already studied it 10 years ago and identified the problem. All that has happened is that traffic has gotten worse, and will get worse with the replacement of the viaduct with the tunnel. As the new tolling on the 520 bridge has demonstrated, drivers will go to great lengths to avoid the toll. Same for the tunnel toll. They will pour over the streets of SoDo to get around paying for the hole in the mud.

News, Sports

One Year Ago: “Mariners Broadcaster Dave Niehaus Dies, and an Era Dies With Him”

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On the one-year anniversary of the death of Dave Niehaus, the voice of the Mariners baseball team since its founding, we republish Seth Kolloen’s obituary and remember.

“I can’t imagine not doing it. I can imagine not doing it, but you might as well dig a hole and put me in it.” — Dave Niehaus, 2008.

I heard the old-fashioned way, from the disbelieving exclamation of a downtown bartender. “Didja hear? Dave Niehaus died.” See, I had my pupils dilated this afternoon, and I hadn’t been able to read the several text messages from longtime friends telling me that Hall-of-Famer Niehaus, the Mariners’ radio and TV voice since the franchise’s first pitch 34 summers ago, was gone.

Tens of thousands of us grew up with Niehaus’ voice, an annual feature of Seattle life as steady and predictable as October rain. Niehaus’ baritone resonated though my childhood–under my blanket, as I defied my parents’ orders to go to bed. His voice was part of my teenage years–in beater cars, as my friends and I drove around town. It filled my young adulthood–through Manhattan pay phone receivers, when I’d call 1-800-MY-MARINERS to hear game highlights. And the sound was still there my early 30s–I’d pull a radio out onto my porch, turn on Niehaus, and listen to that voice for what I knew, at his age, might be the last time. I made a point to do so during this season’s last game. Macabre, I know. Glad I did.

Seemed appropriate to hear about Niehaus’ death at a bar, since when he started his career, that’s how sports news spread. Born in Depression-era Indiana, Niehaus lived through four media revolutions, from radio to television to cable to the Internet. And because of those revolutions, no sports media figure in this town will ever have Niehaus’ influence.

For most of Niehaus’ career, Mariner fans saw our team through his eyes–literally, as so few games were televised. The Mariners’ first season, 1977, only 17 of 162 games were on TV. As late as 1994, only 71 games were scheduled for TV broadcasts. Now, we watch the games on TV at the gym with the sound down, or spy the internet gamecast, or follow the score on our phones. Then, Niehaus was often our only live link to the team.

Niehaus did television well, but he preferred radio, and would broadcast the final four innings–that is, the most dramatic ones–over that medium.

“Get out the rye bread and the mustard this time Grandma, it is a grand salami!” — Dave Niehaus, 1995.

Niehaus’ best talent was an actor’s knack for using his voice to intensify the drama of the game. With the outcome in the balance, a pitch that came in below a batter’s knees was not “low for ball one.” It was a growled “LLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOWWW, ballone.” His strikeout call mirrored the fast action of an unsuccessful swing: “SwingAnAMiss for strike three.” His legendary home run call evoked the theoretical infinity of a baseball field: “That ball will fly, fly away.”

Niehaus was not a smooth, effortless talker like the best baseball broadcaster, the Dodgers’ Vin Scully. The above call of Edgar Martinez’ 1995 playoff grand slam is perhaps Niehaus’ most famous–and he flubbed it. His usual line was “It’s Grand Salami Time.” But in the excitement of the moment, he spat out “time” before he meant to. Likewise, his ejaculation after Randy Johnson’s strikeout won the M’s the 1995 A.L. West title was a grammatical nightmare: “And Randy looks to the sky, that is covered by the dome, and bedlam, as the Mariners now erupt. 19 long years of frustration is over.”

A poet Niehaus wasn’t. But baseball, no matter how many snobs try to tell you otherwise, is not poetry. It’s fun. It’s heartbreak. It’s life. “My style is to be honest,” Niehaus told the Seattle Times two years ago. “And hopefully entertaining.”

Nothing is more trivial than someone mourning their lost childhood, and I’m not going to do it here. I’m an adult, and happy to be one, but given that I was born here in 1976, and have listened to Mariner baseball since I was old enough to turn a radio dial, you know I’m going to be using more than my usual share of tissue tonight.

Niehaus didn’t want to retire, and in the end he didn’t have to. No doubt the brutal travel schedule of a major league baseball team, which wears even on athletes in peak condition, helped hasten his end. With my apologies to his family, I’m glad he got his wish.

For me, this call, Niehaus’ description of Edgar Martinez’ game-winning hit in the 1995 divisional series against the Yankees, will always be my favorite. I know it by heart, and it still gives me chills.

“Here comes Junior to third base, they’re gonna wave him in! The throw to the plate will be late, the Mariners are going to play for the American League Championship! I don’t believe it! It just continues! My, oh my!” — Dave Niehaus, 1995

Yup, there are those chills again. You’re right, Dave. It just continues. My, oh my.

News, Sports

M’s like “like high-priced Confederate battlefield actors slowly marching towards futility”

"mariners vs. phillies" courtesy of ozmafan in our Flickr pool

Guest contribute John Hieger joins us to wax eloquent about the Mariners, as they set a franchise-worst record of 15 losses in a row.

David Letterman uses an old joke every May about knowing it’s spring in New York because the Mets are already eliminated from playoff contention. For Seattle Mariners fans it’s closer to the solstice, lucky us. If you get three months of competitive baseball or sunny weather here you’ve had a great summer–elsewhere expectations for both are doubled, but we aren’t elsewhere.

Most seasons, games cease to carry meaning past the halfway point: 24 of the M’s 35 seasons have ended with losing records. The box office stays open and the team keeps suiting up like high-priced Confederate battlefield actors slowly marching towards futility in yet another lost campaign laden with the same predestined letdown of previous summers.

The only fan “value” summer ball here offers is developing young talent–which sucks when you’re paying the same price as games that should matter–worthless moral victories like Ichiro stats, and seeing which player gets demoralized fastest. People who enjoy bullying visibly beleaguered third baseman Chone Figgins can continue getting their bitter rocks off but at some point harassing a depressed millionaire gets old.

The parole board of fandom sees the M’s as repeat offenders and I don’t think I want to know somebody who would literally define themselves as a non-bandwagon Mariners fan at this point. The “true believer” M’s fan is mentally akin to somebody who watches Old Yeller every day and still expects the dog to make it. How many tears is enough?

In almost every other scenario I deplore bandwagon fans, but when a person stays in an abusive relationship, society tells us it’s sad. When a fan stays in an emotionally consuming, expensive relationship only to be let down year-in-and-year-out, we say they are loyal. If there’s such a thing as battered fan syndrome the patsy in right field with the “In Z We Trust” banner has it in spades.

No reasonable person can spend three-plus hours a night five times a week for the next several months watching the Mariners slowly die when they could apply the same amount of time to earning an MBA or mastering Cantonese.

Sounders fans say they wouldn’t pay to watch Sigi Schmid field benchwarmers against premier league competition again, why would anyone pay to see the M’s in person this year, when once again the season was lost at the halfway point? If the answer is anything other than being an involved parent you have too much time and money.

Nostalgia marketing gimmicks got old after the Griffey Reunion Tour. Bobbleheads are just plastic Chinese crap, they aren’t victory trophies. I knew when the GM signed his stunt double Jack Cust to fix our power gap this off-season that management had already quit, but like a seasoned tease the M’s reeled me in as they do every year for a brief spring fling before predictably breaking my heart with their annual bedwetting.

I can think of few prospects more depressing than having to live with something three months after it dies, which is what a full season of M’s dedication requires. The garbage doesn’t smell any better if you wait to take it out, so put the Root Sports broadcasts on the curb where it belongs.

News, Sports

How Bad Are The Mariners? We Survey The Decades.

Image: Seattle.Mariners.MLB.com

I’ve been attending Seattle Mariners games, six to a dozen a year, since 1976. Back then the team was so bad they handed out free tickets to high school kids who got a qualifying grade point average of 3.00. In 1979, the smart kids got savvy enough to pass on this generous offer forcing the Mariners down to 2.75.

In the ensuing three decades I’ve seen some good baseball, but on balance, it’s been a consistently bad product on the field.

But I’ve never seen as hapless a team as I saw yesterday, July 17th, at Safeco Field. The final was the Texas Rangers 3, your Seattle Mariners 1. For the record, in a four-game series, the Mariners scored just two runs. Two. As in one, then two.

Now consider that for a moment. I’ve seen games in the ’70s and ’80s with some players so unknown Bill James can’t get a big enough sample to put into his massive encyclopedia of baseball. I’ve seen losses that would send you screaming into the night. I’ve lived through Mike Schooler, for heaven’s sake.

I lived through the Dick Williams years. Sat in awe at the incredible managerial tenures of Del Crandal (93-131 record), Chuck Cottier (98-119) and Jim Lefebvre (does anyone remember the Lefebvre Belebvre bumper stickers? Well, I had one).

And yesterday was the worst game I’ve ever seen the hometown nine play.

It wasn’t just that they lost, I’ve seen plenty of losses. It was how they lost. They got good pitching from Blake Beavans who gave up three runs. They’ve had great pitching all year, really.

It’s just they can’t hit. I mean, hell, we all know that. But yesterday was different. Not only couldn’t they hit, for three innings they couldn’t get the ball out of the infield. Soft grounders fell like rain. (Which was also falling, for the record.)

Texas Ranger pitcher Mitch Moreland, a .500 record on the year, had a career day. He tossed 106 pitches in 7.2 innings, but only had 83 at the end of seven. Twice he pitched less than 10 pitches an inning, and got three grounders to short each time.

The Mariners weren’t just bad. They were barely professional. Few balls were hit with power. It was pop-ups and soft grounders all afternoon.

Most fans can probably understand the need for this team to rebuild and the need to bring up young players and watch them mature into stars. But the Mariner product on the field wasn’t just inept, it was boring.  The stadium was as quiet as a funeral service with the crowd cheering only when the Mariners scored their lone run, and when news about the FIFA Women’s World Cup played on the big screen.

The team’s leadership must have known it was going to be bad. The whole game was filled with mindless distractions like electronic hat tricks, hydro races, dancing grounds crews, and some lame base-stealing bit with a kid rushing onto the field, grabbing a base and running back through a door in the outfield. All this stuff plays a lot better when you don’t look at the last three guys in the order and realize that the highest batting average is .202. Maybe they should have put the kid in. At least he can run.

I don’t demand instant change. But I demand a product that at the very least draws some scrutiny when they are on the field. And I know players go into slumps, but season long slumps may indicate a stunning lack of talent. The manager Eric Wedge keeps talking about the young kids getting a good sample size of opportunities at the plate. Fair enough. But we are in July and pretty soon that sample size is gonna start looking like a pink slip.

Have you ever really watched paint dry? I mean really watched it? Because, you know, it changes colors and the brush strokes slowly disappear and the wall starts to get a nice even color. Compared to yesterday’s game, drying paint looks pretty damn good.

News, Sports

Ichiro in a Nosedive

Ichiro at bat

Last Friday, I went around the office and gave seven random people a simple prompt: “Name a player on the Mariners.” The responses:

1 – “Ichiro.”
2 – “Ichiro!”
3 – “Ichiro.”
4 – “Does Erik Bedard still pitch for the Mariners? I was purposefully not saying Ichiro.”
5 – “Alex Rodriguez? The Mariner Moose?”
6 – “Isn’t there some guy named Felix Hernandez?”
7 – “Ichiro.”

For most Seattleites–and especially for casual fans–Ichiro is the Mariners. Certainly he has been one of the few seaworthy salts on the ship, with enough Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers in his 11-year Mariner career to turn a pirate green. Or a Pirate. This season, though, Ichiro has been titanic. I mean, Titanic.

After an Ichiro-like April, the hit king’s production has plummeted. Coming into the season, Ichiro had a career .331 batting average–that is, non-sports-fans, he got a hit in 33 percent of his at bats. This year, Ichiro’s batting average is just .262. More ominously, he doesn’t have a single home run.

Power comes from bat speed, and Ichiro’s homerlessness indicates that his bat may be slowing. A slower bat doesn’t just keep your fly balls in the park, it also sucks the sting from your line drives. Which brings us to another troubling stat: Ichiro’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP). This stat tells us how well a hitter does when he hits the ball at fielders (that is, when he doesn’t hit a home run or strike out). Ichiro, because of his speed and scorching line drives, is usually near the top of the league. This year he’s sixty points below his career average.

Sometimes, cratering BABIP indicates a player is just having bad luck. (As Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis put it in Bull Durham: “Baseball is a lot like life. The line drives are caught, the squibblers go for base hits.”) But other times, as in the case of former Mariner Richie Sexson, it indicates a toxic loss of bat speed. And for Ichiro, who gets many hits by beating the tardy throws of infielders, it may indicate that his foot speed is declining as well.

Enough tacking, let’s get down to it: Is Ichiro finished? Of course, there’s no way to tell.

In July of 1995, the 38-year-old future Hall-of-Famer Paul Molitor was hitting just .224, more than 80 points below his career average. Molitor was openly considering retirement. The next year, after signing with his hometown Minnesota Twins for what was expected to be a one-year farewell tour, Molitor batted .341 and smacked 225 hits, the most in his MLB career.

At age 36, future Hall-of-Famer (and former Walla Walla Padre!) Tony Gwynn hit just 3 home runs, his worst output in 13 seasons. The next year a 37-year-old Gwynn pounded 17 home runs, a career-high. He then totaled double-digit homers at age 38 and 39.

Then again, there’s Pete Rose, who suffered his power outage at age 38. Rose went into a slow decline from there, holding a job mostly because of reputation and his ongoing (ultimately successful) chase of Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record.

I think Ichiro is going to pull out of this slump. He’s in terrific shape, and we’ve seen players like that last longer and longer in baseball. He seems to be heating up, with two hits in each of the past four games. Still, there’s no Doppler radar for the rough seas of the baseball world. We’ll all just have wait and see what’s over the next wave.

News, Sports

Mariners Change Format from Oldies to Experimental

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Mike Wilson
New Mariner Mike Wilson

At the dawn of this baseball season, I assured you that the Mariners would suck less than they did last year. A couple of weeks ago, this prediction looked as ludicrous as my royal wedding hat, but a spurt of stellar play has brought the Mariners within spitting distance of first place.

This is not to say that the team has been suck-free. Indeed, some suckitude of Shop-Vac-esque proportions has been perpetrated by several players.

Two of these–former All-Star LF Milton Bradley and veteran CF Ryan Langerhans (aka two-thirds of the Mariners’ opening day outfield) have been canned. (Somewhat ruthlessly, as they get their pink slips just before that highlight of every major leaguer’s season, a road trip to Baltimore and Cleveland). Minor league outfielders Mike Wilson and Carlos Peguero have been promoted from AAA Tacoma to replace them.

Lots of times, baseball teams keep veteran players around because they “do the little things,” “know how to play the game,” and can “provide leadership in the clubhouse.” Bradley wasn’t doing any of this. He was instead missing cutoff men and getting ejected–he’s been booted twice this month. Bradley also embarrassed his employers when, over the offseason, he was accused of pegging his wife in the face with a wine glass. The look on manager Eric Wedge’s face in this Elaine Thompson photo pretty much sums up how the Mariners were feeling about Bradley. Don’t sob too much for Uncle Miltie–he’ll get his full $12 million salary this season.

You might say that Mariners are inching toward a youth movement. But that’s not really the case. New M’s outfielders Wilson and Peguero aren’t top prospects. At 27, Wilson isn’t a prospect at all–but he has been crushing the ball at AAA Tacoma. The 24-year-old Peguero was up with the Mariners briefly this season and looked completely overmatched at the plate–he struck out five times in eleven at bats.

Really, Bradley and Langerhans were just so bad, the Mariners figure they might as well try someone new. They don’t expect Wilson and Peguero to do much better–if they did, Bradley and Langerhans never would’ve made the team. The two will share time in LF to start (Wilson bats right-handed, Peguero lefty), and gradually encroach on Jack Cust’s playing time at DH if he too continues to struggle.

We’ll be rooting hard for Wilson, a six-foot-two, 245 lb. former football prospect who gets his first shot at the majors after eight-plus years in the Mariners’ minor league system. It may be the only shot he gets.

Either Wilson or Peguero (probably the latter) will start tonight against Baltimore righty Jake Arrieta. Fireballing Michael Pineda starts for the M’s, reason enough to watch the broadcast live from beautiful Camden Yards. Game starts at 4:05 p.m.