A Grip on Sports: Baseball releases its schedule but the game is slowed by testing issues

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Every once in a while, it’s good to stop, look around and ask that time-honored question, “where are we?” Not that we are lost, mind you. Nope. But the way ahead looks a little muddled.

•••••••

• Where is baseball right now? In the middle of learning it can’t just give COVID-19 four wide ones and face the next hitter, that for sure. The virus reared up yesterday and knocked the game back a bit. Not by positives tests, though. By the game’s testing mechanism going on the fritz.

“Heck, it was a holiday weekend folks,” baseball seemed to be saying in the way of an excuse. “Give us a break.”

A handful of teams had to skip workouts due to test results being unavailable, which means baseball itself had failed its first test of the revised season. The result? A negative response by its players. As well it should be. If you can’t get the testing right before the games even began, how can the players trust their supervisors to get it right when they are traveling all over the country? No wonder every day veterans, with money in the bank and families at home, are opting out of playing the season.

Can you blame them?

• Speaking of playing the season, baseball announced the 60-game schedules yesterday. The Mariners will open on the road. In Houston. By then, maybe, the virus will have subsided a bit. If not, I know I wouldn’t want to make a business trip to a city in which the hospitals are overloaded, folks are hunkering down and it would test any bubble’s ability to keep the virus out.

Looking on the bright side, however, there won’t be any fans in the stands. And the Astros won’t have to bang on trash cans. They’ll just be able to yell to the hitter what pitch is coming.

Too soon?

• Russell Wilson spent a nice 15 months carrying around the moniker “highest-paid NFL player.” Now he can pass along the real green jacket – it’s made of dollar bills y’all – to Patrick Mahomes.

The Kansas City Chiefs hitched their wagon to Mahomes yesterday, giving him a 10-year contract that matches the GDP of many nations.

Why is this important? Well, money. In America. It’s always important. But in a football sense, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year with one of the best quarterbacks in the league at the helm. But with little money invested in the most-important position.

Sound familiar? And, like the Hawks, the quarterback has been paid. In Seattle’s case, the payments came after its back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. The Chiefs will still be good on Mahome’s salary for the next couple years, than it will begin to eat into the team’s ability to shore up other positions. So Kansas City fans better hope their team gets back to the promised land quickly.

If the Chiefs do, make the right decision down by the goal line, will ya? “What ifs” are terrible things.

• Before we move on to the links, we just wanted to thank those nice people who set off fireworks behind our house after midnight last night. Nothing better than being jarred awake by bright lights in the sky and loud booms. The adrenaline rush does wonders for our ability to sleep.

On the bright side, after an early, early morning of standing guard duty on the back deck, I’m almost done with my latest quarantine-filling book now.

•••

Gonzaga: It’s the time of year professional basketball players overseas find new teams to play for in the upcoming season. Kevin Pangos fills both of those boxes, as Jim Meehan’s story tells us. … Speaking of players from overseas, ICE’s new rules about online learning and foreign students, issued yesterday, may mean Gonzaga will have to make sure its campus is open to ensure a full basketball roster. And the Zags are not alone. … Elsewhere in the WCC, a famous former BYU player is looking for new home in Europe as well.

WSU: Paul Sorensen became known around these parts due to his football exploits at Washington State. He joined his friend Larry Weir yesterday and the conversation about football is at the core of the latest Press Box podcast. … Around the Pac-12 and college sports, the conference office is getting squeezed, financially. Maybe it’s time to move it out of San Francisco? I’m sure Nike could free up some inexpensive space on its campus for Larry Scott and his crew. The one thing this pandemic is showing big-time sports right now is the money may not be what it once was. … The true common thread among college athletics right now? Uncertainty. … Utah has a strong group of receivers. … Justin Wilcox seems to be doing well recruiting for California. … Oregon State had a clean testing slate last week. … In basketball news, a former Oregon player is headed to Central Florida.

EWU: Tyler Harvey left Eastern early hoping to earn a spot in the NBA. It didn’t happen. But he’s been playing in Europe since and doing well. This past season was different. Not that Harvey didn’t do well, but it was different in that the German league he played in competed in a bubble setting. He talked our Ryan Collingwood recently and Ryan has this story.

Golf: There will be a Lilac City Invitational this year. It will just be the last weekend of July instead of early June. Jim Meehan has more on how the tournament hopes to proceed at The Fairways in a few weeks. … A Portland-area golf pro and his children were among the victims in the Lake Coeur d’Alene plane crash over the weekend.

Mariners: The M’s schedule opens on the road, features earlier start times and 60 games. … Braden Bishop has a tough choice. His family has health problems. But he needs to play. … The Mariners avoided the coronavirus testing issues. … J.P. Crawford has a goal for the season. So does Justus Sheffield.

Seahawks: Heck with it. Sign Antonio Brown. And Josh Gordon. … As we mentioned above, Russell Wilson is no longer the highest-paid player.

Sounders: One of the teams in the Sounders’ MLS-restart tournament, FC Dallas, has withdrawn due to its multiple COVID-19 cases.

•••       

• One last reminder before we figure out a way to squeeze a nap into a packed schedule – the only hours my datebook is blank are 9, 10, 11, noon, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Wear your mask in public. And cover your nose. Please. Until later …