John Blanchette

SEATTLE – You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, and you don’t nudge the King’s crown off his brow. Not on Opening Day, anyway.

SEATTLE – When bats and gloves were in season out in the side yard of the Olson residence in the Spokane Valley, the youthful imitations always flattered the Seattle Mariners. Junior. Edgar. Ole.

The walk-off home run Wednesday at Tyler Harvey’s warm off-to-bigger-things adieu came courtesy of Eastern Washington coach Jim Hayford, who jokingly called it the “first annual.” Annual?

He would cut radio commercials wearing his uniform and stirrup socks, and speed to practice in his wheat farmer’s overalls. Tossed out of a baseball game once, he hid under the stands beneath a blanket and sombrero and continued to flash signals. He taught generations to bunt and cover first, and he taught his best pitcher ballroom dancing. He’d zing an outfielder for playing a fly ball “like a blind dog in a meathouse” and then counsel another through a slump or a family crisis. He won 1,162 games, but that wasn’t what built the stadium that bears his name.

HOUSTON – The celebrating was done. Back at their hotel, the Gonzaga Bulldogs had already turned their thoughts to Duke and the 40 minutes that stand between them and the Final Four – not in a scouting-report kind of way, but just in the thinking-about-it kind of way. When Matt Santangelo spotted Gary Bell Jr. in the lobby, he knew that.

HOUSTON – The jokes about NRG Stadium were reaching roast temperature even before tipoff. How it was a four-dirigible garage. How the Uecker seats were in the next area code. How those black curtains hanging beyond the baskets were actually funeral shrouds for shooters. Gonzaga assistant coach Tommy Lloyd tried to cut the place down to size with the standby “Hoosiers” reference.

HOUSTON – Intense remedial tutoring has finally swayed a few knee-jerk logicians into grudging acceptance that UCLA’s unexpected run to the Sweet 16 does not validate the Bruins’ much lampooned invitation. Either it was or wasn’t justified on the merits on Selection Sunday, not by what’s happened since.

HOUSTON – At his self-described lowest point, when Eric McClellan was one of those national footnotes of disdain and weighed down by his own remorse, he didn’t so much lean on those close to him as solicit their belief. He did it with his friends, old coaches, his family – but mostly his mother.

The only thing that has Spokane more a-dither than two Gonzaga basketball teams reaching the NCAA’s Sweet 16 is how they did it. The Bulldogs women, under first-year head coach Lisa Fortier, won their way back to the regional in Spokane, knocking off host Oregon State in a house full of hostiles.

SEATTLE – You could see it when their eyes locked – Gary Bell Jr., Kyle Dranginis and Kevin Pangos – in the final 90 seconds, and broad smiles instantly creased each of their faces. You could see it in the hugs coach Mark Few laid on Pangos and Kyle Wiltjer, which surely left bruises if not vertebrae damage.

SEATTLE – Now that we’re done with the most underappreciated achievement in sports … Speaking, of course, about winning a round-of-64 game in the NCAA tournament.

SEATTLE – Never mind shortening the shot clock or moving the charge circle out a foot. The next rule tweak in the NCAA tournament should be the barnstormers’ special, allowing the winners to pick up a player from the losing team for the rest of their run. In fact, why not start now?

PORTLAND – Look out, bracket: Broadway Jim Hayford is in town. Eastern Washington’s head coach is either a calculating Barnum who’s found his audience in the NCAA basketball tournament, or making it up as he goes along.

PORTLAND, Ore. – The thrill of the miracle in Missoula had barely ebbed when the giddy wave of Selection Sunday washed over the Eastern Washington Eagles – and in particular their small Australian regiment who had no ready reference to any similar spectacle back home. “Maybe the election?” offered Felix Von Hofe.