A Grip on Sports: There is nothing strange about our July sports landscape this year
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Thank goodness it’s a Saturday. The weather is nearly perfect, the work week is over and the day is all yours. Get out and attack it. But before you go, check below.
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• Honestly, though, it won’t take you all that long. There is little going on in Spokane’s world of sports.
Gonzaga basketball never seems to stop, sure, and we do have more from the U19 World Cup in Greece. There is the Indians’ game, but they are playing in Oregon so even that’s a bit limited. And the M’s. Not, technically, Spokane’s team though you wouldn’t know it when they are playing well. Which means, of course, you know it these days.
In other words, nothing earth shattering on this extended July 4th weekend.
But like the postman, here we are, ready to deliver.
We have links for you. Not as many links as, say, Nov. 4 or Feb. 29, but we have a few. So grab a cup of coffee, maybe a doughnut or six and catch up with the local news. Then get your behind outside and enjoy the day. Soon enough it will be November or February and you’ll be wishing you spent more of July 6 in the sunshine.
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WSU: Around the Pac-12, everyone knows who is the most important player in the Oregon program heading into the fall. … Utah’s basketball team is going to be young. Really young. … It’s not often newspapers write editorials about the NCAA.
Gonzaga: For those of you wondering if there is a country that is immune to the Zags’ recruiting, we give you Mali’s Oumar Ballo. And for those of you who wondered what Mark Few and his staff were thinking, offering a player from that landlocked West Africa country, we give you Ballo’s performance from the U19 World Cup. The 6-foot-10 center had 21 points and 17 rebounds as Mali advanced to the tournament semifinals for the first time. … Larry Weir covers the Zags at the World Cup in his latest Press Box pod. … Former Gonzaga baseball player Pat Shine will pitch in baseball’s home run derby for the third time in four years. John Blanchette spoke with him as he prepared to serve up gopher balls to Christian Yelich in Cleveland next week. … Donny Daniels spent almost a decade as an assistant at GU. But before that, he worked at Utah. Now he’s back in Salt Lake City, though in an off-court role.
Indians: Spokane’s Ricky Vanasco was dominate last night and the Indians shut out Hillsboro 9-0 on the road. … Around the Northwest League, Everett won again in Eugene.
Preps: Chuck Stewart’s youth sports notebook includes soccer, softball, baseball and basketball news.
Mariners: The long slide to less-than-mediocrity continued Friday night with a 5-2 loss to the visiting A’s. … The M’s will soon have used their 35th pitcher of the season. … Gene Warnick has his Out of Right Field recap concerning another mind-numbing loss.
Sounders: Nico Loderio is back from his international duty, which is a good thing. The Sounders play in Columbus today.
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• That’s nine hours of my life I’ll never get back. But I don’t begrudge a second. OK, maybe that boring one in episode three. Still, Kim and I already finished the third season of “Stranger Things.” It made me appreciate the storytelling ability of a short TV series. You know how action movies always – always – spend the last third of their time in battle sequences, with only a few seconds devoted to, say, humor or anything else? Then it’s right back to decapitating the bad guy or something. Not a Netflix or Amazon or HBO show. They have the time to interject romance, long-winded jokes or even off-the-wall musical scenes in the middle of the climatic action sequence. It not only breaks the tension, it allows the viewer time to breath – or find another blanket to hide under after the dog steals the original one. A year and a half from now, I’ll be ready for season four. My guess is it will be based around Christmas 1985. Which means we will have to listen to Lionel Ritchie songs again. Oh, great. Until later …