The Pac-12’s tombstone and ours might have something in common, including a list of who we blame

Your heritage defines, to some degree, who you are. In our case, being of Italian descent, we do a lot of talking with our hands. Which might explain using our fingers to communicate each morning. But we digress. Our most personality-defining characteristic comes from out father’s family. They immigrated to America from Sicily. Birthplace of the life-long grudge.

• To say we Sicilians never forget would be an understatement. Every day, while picking up seed pods from our deck, deposited there by the Maple tree our father planted almost 40 years ago, it hits me. Dad wanted a dirty tree to accompany our life journey. It’s his revenge for all the crud we gave him every time he told us to mow the back lawn.

He’s getting back at me from beyond the grave. Good for him. Ethnic heritage is important.

It’s something we have honored many times in this space over the years. And will continue to demonstrate.

The Pac-12 has broken into nine pieces and we’ve been taking names. We’ll hold a grudge until, well, until the conference is put back together. Which means, we’ll hold a grudge for eternity. Expect some sort of snarky remark about USC and its president, Carol Folt, on our tombstone.

But the Trojans aren’t the only ones who deserve some blame for the demise of a conference that accompanied our sporting life. Nope. As we said, we’ve been taking names.

Every story we read – today’s example comes from the L.A. Times and cemented our disdain for the duplicity of Folt concerning expansion while courting an exit to the Big Ten – cements our anger. And makes us want to, figuratively, create cement boots for each member of the conference and the conference hierarchy.

Larry Scott? On the list. Oh, the former commissioner’s Las Vegas butler is too, just for being an enabler.

Michael Crow? The Arizona State president is there as well, mainly because he was Scott’s biggest proponent, even after it became clear mistakes were made. We came this close to scratching out his name while ASU and Arizona delayed their Big 12 exit, but they capitulated, so it stays.

ESPN and Fox? The Worldwide Leader was atop the list until we learned about its $30 million media offer from a couple years ago. If the conference CEOs had sent commissioner George Kliavkoff back to the table with a charge to negotiate in good faith, who doesn’t believe the conference would have a $32 million a year contract right now? So, ESPN gets a pass. Fox, however, doesn’t. Every action the network has taken seems to have been aimed at destroying our demo … oops, that’s Fox News. Fox followed a similar playbook as regards the Pac-12, though the sports division was a lot more subtle. With that in mind, Fox is now No. 1 on our list, with three underlines. We’re so ticked, we may miss a few Seahawks’ games this season. There is no way we’re giving our eyeballs to the network’s ratings.

There are others of course, from Washington and Oregon to UCLA to, heck, Deion Sanders, Dallas’ sleeper cell in the conference as part of Texas’ half-century-long plan to delegitimize West Coast football.

The list isn’t finished either. If Stanford and California jettison Oregon State and Washington State while somehow finagling their way into the Big Ten or, even more stupidly, into the ACC, they’ll make it as well.

As for revenge, we’ve never been one to serve it cold. It’s just not in our nature. Or our genes.

• Hey, the Mariners won again last night and this afternoon. Pulling within a half-game of Toronto. Last night kept us on the edge of our seat all game. Heck, leading by a run with Bobby Witt Jr. at the plate and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, we were screaming at Scott Servais to give him the Barry Bonds treatment. Just walk him.

Servais didn’t listen. Imagine that. Witt grounded out.

Big deal. Servais is still on our list.

• We dodged one hot bullet, that’s for sure. Our air conditioner is off the injured list and back in the lineup, hitting cleanup. Cool. All it took was major surgery. And an investment in the Met’s realm. But you do what you have to do, right?