To paraphrase Frank, it was a very good day
A GRIP ON SPORTS
There are good days and bad days in baseball. Yesterday was a very good day. Read on.
• How often does this Mariner offense score four times in one inning? Not often is the correct answer. But that's what happened yesterday. And I missed it. Yep, in the middle of making dinner last night I flipped off the TV for just a few minutes. When I clicked it back on, it was 4-0 M's and dinner was officially perfect. Heck, I could have burned the meat and it still would have been perfect. I did get to see Mike Zunino's solo home run, though that's not a rarity. Either is a Zunino strike out, but we're trying to stay positive here. The 5-2 win at Cleveland, with Hisashi Iwakuma dealing as he usually does, made it a good day. But the news I saw on Twitter a while later made it a very good day. Vin Scully isn't retiring just yet. The long-time voice of the Dodgers will be back next year for his 66th season with the team. How long is that? Well, that stretches back to when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. That stretches back to the year before Ken Griffey was born. Ken Griffey, Sr. That stretches back to before I was even a glimmer in my dad's eye. Heck, Scully (pictured) was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame 32 years ago, before most of today's players were even born. And he still can describe the action as well as most. He's not what he was, sure, but no 86-year-old is. But he's still a joy to listen to and, with the advancements technology has brought us, you still can – even if you don't live in Los Angeles. Every once in a while I check in with a Dodger broadcast, if only to hear Vin say words "hello, everybody." And to hear Scully compare Clayton Kershaw's fastball to not only great fastballs in Dodger history but also to the works of Monet or Mozart. Like those artists, Scully has a gift and he's shared it for 65 years. Luckily for us, there will be a 66th.
• It was not a good football day. Not when a guy is injured. Especially when it's a guy who is coming back from injury. OK, that's makes it sound as if there is a hierarchy to season-ending injuries and there isn't. They are all bad. But when Anthony McCoy (pictured) jogged onto the practice field yesterday, he was enjoying the fruits of many hours of rehab, having torn his right Achilles tendon last season. A few hours later though, he left the field on a cart, suffering from what looks like another tough injury, this one to his left Achilles. Sometimes sports just seems so unfair.
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• WSU: Jacob Thorpe will hold a live chat here today, starting at 11 a.m., so there is that. If you have Cougar football questions, especially as they pertain to preseason practice, this is the place to be. Jacob answered a couple yesterday with this blog post. ... ESPN.com's Pac-12 blog picked out the key questions from media day for each Pac-12 North coach.
• EWU: The Eagles will open practice tomorrow – yes, it will still be July – but the big news yesterday is they will be playing at Texas Tech in 2017. Jim Allen had this blog post yesterday.
• Idaho: The Vandals' football team may not be playing in the Big Sky (just yet) but Idaho and Montana State will meet in the Kibbie Dome in 2016.
• Shock: Mike Washington (pictured) understands what it takes to be a professional athlete. He shared his thoughts on the matter with Jim Meehan, and Jim passed them along to us with this feature on the wide receiver who plays a lot bigger than his stature.
• Indians: The Spokane bullpen hasn't blown many games this season, but it did last night. Tom Clouse has the story of the Indians' 11-6 loss to Vancouver at Avista.
• Preps: With Mt. Spokane's 2-0 loss yesterday, there is no longer any Spokane-area teams still playing in the junior Legion baseball tournament.
• Seahawks: McCoy's injury, which put a damper over the ESPN-featured practice, wasn't the only not-so-good news for the Hawks. Whenever there is a need for a Debbie Downer look, we can always go to the Marshawn Lynch well. His holdout could be a big financial drag for him, as well as a strain on the Hawks' master plan. ... There was also a whole bunch of positive news yesterday, with the Hawks signing a few new players, including a veteran offensive tackle who just might step right into a starting spot. ... Of course, Pete Carroll had a lot to say about the good and the bad.
• Mariners: If there is anything more surprising about the M's lately than Dustin Ackley's hot streak, I would like to see it. Ackley (pictured), who hit leadoff yesterday because Lloyd McClendon was trying to jump-start the offense, had another multi-hit game. He also had a big two-run double in the four-run fourth inning. He's hitting about 1.000 in July (OK, that's an exaggeration). ... James Paxton could be back in the starting rotation as early as the weekend.
• Sounders: Seattle has performed poorly in matches before. Heck, the Sounders were god-awful in an early season match against Montreal. And they bounced back. The team expects the same thing to happen after Monday's 3-0 loss to Los Angeles. ... Sigi Schmid expects it as well. ... Chad Marshall hopes his back bounces back, and quickly.
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• That's it for today. I have to run upstairs. It is before 7 a.m. and the air conditioning just kicked in. Some windows are still open. My guess is it is really warm outside. And will be all day. Guess I need to hunker down near the icebox. For those of you younger than Vin Scully, that's what my dad used to call the refrigerator. After all, when he was young, it was an actual icebox. Until later ...
