A Grip on Sports: More changes for the Pac-12, more wins for the M’s and more memories of Little League

A GRIP ON SPORTS • What are we thinking about this rainy Tuesday? Let’s see. It’s fun to look at the baseball standings once more. College football starts Saturday, except around here. Did Jen Cohen’s bosses at Washington knew she was talking with USC when they were making their Big Ten decisions? And do kids throw the ball faster these days or did Billy Hustedt hit the 80 mile-per-hour mark before radar guns?

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• Remember 1995? The year baseball was saved in Seattle? All the M’s were trying to do that stretch run was make the postseason. As the lone wild card. When you are 13 games back in your division on Aug. 2, that has to be the goal. Remember what happened? Yep, the Mariners came all the way back, catching, and passing, the Angels in the final weeks before winning the division in a winner-take-all extra game on Oct. 2.

We use the past to inform the present.

Seattle won again Monday, rolling over the disinterested Chicago White Sox 14-2 in the Windy City. But that wasn’t all that happened. In the desert, the Diamondback rallied and topped suddenly reeling Texas, 4-3 in 11 innings. When the M’s get to the ballpark today, they’ll be just two games back in the American League West. In third, sure, as Houston is a half-game ahead of them, but the division title (and a possible first-round playoff bye) is still in play.

Who would have thought that a few weeks ago. Not us. When Seattle was 50-50 after its first hundred games, we didn’t see any path to a 40-22 finish and 90 wins. Now, having gone 20-5 since, we wonder if the M’s can win 100.

And the American League West.

• It is called Week Zero. The week before Week One, of course, which under NCAA rules is supposed to be the start of the Division 1 college football season. Labor Day weekend.

But we know NCAA rules are more like suggestions, right? The idea of a waiver to begin a week early wasn’t even contemplated a decade ago. Now it seems all the rage. Which means there will be college football to watch Saturday, with games all the way from Ireland to Los Angeles. From early morning to late at night. What a country.

Nothing for WSU, though. Or any other Northwest school. We still believe in tradition around here. Just ask the powers that be at UW and Oregon.

• Speaking of Washington, the Huskies will have to find a new athletic director. You know that young person who used to go to Husky Stadium with her dad, feeling the thrill of college athletics first-hand? Bowing down to Washington forever? The one who said being UW’s athletic director was a dream come true?

Well, she’s leaving. Trading Seattle’s traffic jams for the city that patented them, Los Angeles. Home of the USC Trojans. From purple to cardinal. From public-school pompous to the private-school kind.

Not long ago, the University of Washington made a decision – in concert, reportedly, with Oregon – that was the last nail in the Pac-12 coffin. On one fateful Thursday night, the Huskies decided to bolt for the Big Ten, following the example set a year earlier by UCLA and, yes, Cohen’s new employer, USC. Conspiracy nuts might just believe there is some correlation. That the Trojans, not satisfied with leaving the conference that had the audacity years ago to steal their birthright, a greater share of conference’s revenue, decided to tear it down.

And hinted as much to the person they were about to hire. Crazy, right?

• There was that one kid in every Little League in the 1960s.

A kid bigger than his peers – much bigger – who fired the ball toward home plate at ungodly speeds. In Sierra Madre, his name was Billy Hustedt.

When we were 11, he pitched three times against our Red Sox team. Two six-inning perfect games and a three-inning, no-hit stint. (Not exactly “no-hit” though; he nailed us with a pitch and it hurt for a week.)

How hard did he throw? Who knows. Maybe 80 miles-per-hour, like Chinese Taipei righthander Fan Chen-Jun, who hit that mark on the radar gun in Williamsport this week.

But as only the Air Force and Highway Patrol cars had radar back then, we’ll never know. We can say this though. We faced, and caught, many guys who pitched in the major leagues in our career. And our memory of Billy still remains the same. None of them threw harder.

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WSU: The off-the-field news has dominated for weeks and weeks. Still is, what with Washington State athletic director Pat Chun mentioned by Jon Wilner in respect to the Huskies’ AD opening. But let’s focus on the field. At least let Greg Woods do that. He has a story on a big injury, as backup edge rusher Lawrence Falatea missing the season due to an ACL injury suffered last week. That changes Greg’s defensive two-deep projection he published today. … Oh, and Greg does have some thoughts on the off-the-field stuff as well. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, we had some conspiratorial thoughts this morning, more in jest than in seriousness. But Kirk Schulz has his own “who-killed-the-Pac” theories and they center on Fox, which is on our radar as well. Wilner has more on Schulz in today’s S-R. … As for Cohen’s defection from UW, and alignment with the hated Trojans, there is plenty to read. There’s the news, of course, from the Times, as well as a column of praise by Matt Calkins. And then there are other voices, from Christian Caple to John Canzano to a couple in the L.A. Times. And more from the L.A. area and around the nation. Turns out, Cohen was born in Arcadia, next-door to our hometown of Sierra Madre. In a sense, she’s headed home. She may be able to afford her childhood house if she wants. … As for the conference football race, Wilner picks UW to win it. And predicts the Huskies will make the playoffs. That would be a pretty good going-away present for Cohen, though she is already in Los Angeles. … The Huskies’ biggest news yesterday should have been having two first-team preseason A.P. All-American players, Rome Odunze and Bralen Trice. … Jonathan Smith has a goal to be a “Steady Eddie” for Oregon State. … Bo Nix has a billboard in downtown Dallas too. … TCU, last season’s surprise playoff finalist, will be Colorado’s opener. … Cam Rising will be Utah’s starter when he’s healthy. But who is his backup? … Stanford and Cal are finding recruiting these days is not easy. … Arizona State has its work cut out this season. … An Arizona receiver earned second-team All-America honors. … In basketball news, Oregon State lost a player for the year due to injury but brought Stephen Thompson back as an assistant coach. … The nonconference schedule for Colorado is set. … Arizona’s transfer players got themselves acclimated during the Middle East trip.

EWU: The air quality cleared up enough for the Eagles to scrimmage Monday, replacing the canceled one from Saturday. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana State should be good again at linebacker.

Preps: North Central High sophomore Teigen Brill won the Pacific Northwest Junior Boys’ Amateur Golf Championship last week. That news leads off the S-R’s latest local briefs column. … A Freeman school district PE teacher is also one of the better Combat Jiu Jitsu fighters in the world. Charlotte McKinley has this story on Zack Schneider.

Seahawks: Boye Mafe is almost unblockable right now. Will it continue when the season starts?

Mariners: Seattle scored more runs than any game this season and it did it without the latest A.L. Player of the Week, Julio Rodriguez, in the lineup. Rodriguez, and another hot hitter, Dylan Moore, were given the day off. It didn’t matter. Luis Castillo also gave the bullpen a break, going seven strong innings, throwing almost nothing but fastballs. … Emerson Hancock is on the IL, J.P. Crawford is back.

Storm: Jewell Loyd is carrying a larger load this season. And carrying it well. With aplomb. Making bombs.

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• We have no reason to pass along this Athletic story on Chris Fowler other than we believe Fowler is one of the best in the sports broadcasting business. If not the best. And he’s one busy guy. Until later …