A Grip on Sports: Perfection always has a way of overcoming disappointment, though both existed in baseball this week

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Nostalgia plays an oversized role in our life at times. It did Thursday, when we trundled off to the theater to watch Harrison Ford bring Indiana Jones back to life one last time. But that wasn’t the only piece of wistfulness from the day. Oh, no. Baseball, as it will, supplied some more.

•••••••

• Don’t fret. We will get to your TV watching highlights coming up. But they are so inconsequential this weekend, we decided it would be better to reach into the past first. You know, rather than looking toward a bleak future.

We start in Oakland, where the Yankees’ Domingo Germán threw a perfect game Wednesday night. Why the old news? Well, mainly because folks in the Big Apple are comparing it to the seminal moment in our life: Don Larsen’s perfect game.

Yep, reflecting back on something that happened 66 years ago – on Oct. 8, 1956 – is all the rage in the most-forward looking big city in the nation. Which just proves the last part of the preceding sentence isn’t true.

Though Germán, like Larsen before him, proved the axiom that imperfect people can have perfect moments. It’s happened 24 times in major league baseball’s history, with half of the Yankees’ total supplied by people with little in their resume that screams perfect.

Larsen, who lived the latter part of his life in North Idaho, was the journeyman of journeymen, a fill-in who excelled on the biggest stage in the world – the World Series – in the mid-1950s. As is the case with Germán, though the stage was smaller, the unexpected nature of his feat was just as great.

We last saw Germán in New York, when the M’s – yes, the underachieving M’s – whacked him around for double-digit runs in less than four innings. Same guy just threw his first major league complete game and it only took 27 hitters to complete.

Perfection. In an imperfect world.

• The Mariners are proving the imperfect part. Again. Over the years, disappointing has been their middle name. Many of those disappointing years have been chronicled by Larry Stone for the Seattle Times.

He spent some time this week trying to figure out why this version of disappointment seems to be deeper among M’s fans. He narrowed it down to five reasons, ranging from expectations to social media, and touching on perception, the way the team plays and the franchise’s history.

The first reason Stone explores, expectations, has fueled the anger the most. Not since 2002 has a season begun with higher expectations. Two decades ago, the M’s were coming off a record-breaking, though ultimately disappointing, season. The same can be said of 2023. And was.

Remember Red’s speech about hope in Shawshank? “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” Substitute expectations for hope and you have the sports world’s greatest weight.

The M’s knew they were solid. They knew they had a chance this season to do something special. They knew everything we did. When they failed to meet their expectations in April and May and June, they’ve buckled under the weight. The fans have as well. The lack of success seems like a betrayal. And no one deals well with being betrayed.

• Television betrays a bit this weekend. There isn’t anything special to watch in the sports world. Heck, even Wimbledon, tennis’s major of majors, doesn’t start until Monday.

When we were young, we remember great finals – 1993 comes to mind, with Pete Sampras topping Jim Courier, or John McEnroe winning his first title in 1981 – on July 4th. Now, the tournament is barely underway.

In 2023, the weekend preceding the Fourth is bereft of excitement. Oh sure, there is baseball and soccer and golf and auto racing. But big events?

You’ll have to supply your own. We suggest a hike. Or a bike ride. Or a drive around Lake Coeur d’Alene. Something outdoors. In the warmth. Before the skies start their late summer march toward high particulate counts and eye-watering smokiness.

•••

WSU: Everyone knew yesterday the Cougars had hired Nathan Choate as their new baseball coach. But few who attended the introductory media event actually knew Choate. We briefly met him in 2007, when UC Irvine made its first-ever trip to the College World Series as a Division I school. We attended, met head coach Dave Serrano’s staff at the pre-series workout and then watched their games. Serrano left after the season and Choate, just starting his career, moved on to UC Riverside. He eventually ended up at Loyola Marymount, where he was head coach. And know he’s in Pullman. Colton Clark has more in this story. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner has his mailbag a day early in the Mercury News and, he says, it’s not because today, the last one in June, will be a big news day for the conference. (It is the final day San Diego State can leave the Mountain West for the 2024 season without a large financial penalty.) … Washington’s newest football recruit is an exceptional athlete. … Colorado State is always happy to play Colorado. … How the heck did USC miss all the red flags around athletic director Mike Bohn?

Gonzaga: Former GU star Nigel Williams-Goss is on the move again, though this time he’s returning to his old Greek club. Jim Meehan has all the details in this story.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Montana has lost an assistant basketball coach to Oregon. … One family has supplied Idaho State a handful of athletes.

Indians: Vancouver, which won the Northwest League’s first-half title, continued to dominate Spokane on Thursday. Dave Nichols has the coverage of the Indians’ 12-5 loss in Canada.

Chiefs: Kailer Yamamoto has been with Edmonton his entire NHL career. Now the former Spokane star is on the move, having been traded to Detroit in a salary-based move. Dan Thompson has that news and more in this Chiefs notebook.

Mariners: There was no game yesterday – Tampa Bay is in town for the weekend – but we can pass along one more M’s story beyond those we linked above. It covers Jerry Dipoto’s thoughts about the season.

Storm: Jewell Loyd scored a career-high 41 points last night. But when the all-star had a chance for two more in overtime that would have earned Seattle a last-second win, she dribbled the ball off her foot. Minnesota scored at the buzzer and won.

Kraken: The NHL draft finished up Thursday. The Kraken had a lot of picks.

•••       

• We led off the column today reminiscing about perfect games. We didn’t see Larsen’s, of course. We were too busy being born. But we’re sure as soon as we arrived, we complained the last pitch to Dale Mitchell was outside and the Dodgers had been robbed. Until later …