A Grip on Sports: It’s fun to occasionally watch a sporting event as a fan but also incredibly frustrating

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Life is starting to return to normal. Flowers are in bloom. A late-night rain shower passed through the neighborhood. And there is little in the way of news to pass along.

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• Well, besides the sound of gunshots in the (not all that) distance we thought we heard just before the rains came. And the ensuing low-flying helicopter. Not sure it was anything, though, as all our windows seem intact this morning. Maybe just a Florida Panthers’ fan celebrating?

You know the sporting calendar has already reached its June gloom when we work in a hockey reference to our off-the-wall story. We confess. It’s just to have something sports-related to put near the lead of the column.

What else are we going to highlight? Another flagrant Caitlin Clark knockdown? Too predictable. The Mariners scoring runs in buckets against the Angels following the dismissal of one of their hitting gurus? Ditto. College baseball? Who wants to hear us complain?

Wait? That’s the only reason you read in the morning? Really?

OK, we’ll oblige. Replay in the NCAA regionals: Worth it or a waste of time? After Saturday, we’ll go with the latter. When ESPN finally breaks down and hires a couple students with iPhones to follow the flight of the ball, maybe our opinion will change. But for now, scrap it. The two or three cameras the self-proclaimed world-wide leader – in what, budget cuts? – assigns to these games aren’t enough to help out on any close call.

Just because it was our alma mater on the short end of two sticks last night in Corvallis, where the Beavers won to take control of the regional, has nothing to do with it. Stop laughing. We know. Yes it does. But when the presumptive first pick in the MLB draft believes his fly ball down the right-field line is foul, and only runs when he realizes the umpires are going to call it fair, a good replay system might help figure it out, right? Instead, there is no definitive replay available, partly because the Beavers’ foul pole is shorter than Mel Counts. (If you understand that reference, good for you. And don’t forget to schedule your shingles shot.)

Travis Bazzana’s two-run third-inning home run proved to be the difference in OSU’s 5-3 win over UC Irvine, but it wasn’t the only play in which replay was no help at all.

The Anteaters’ Myles Smith led off the next inning with a line drive that either hit the little metal fence above the home run stripe or the stripe on the padded wall itself. It was hard to tell. An umpire at least 200 feet said it wasn’t a home run and Smith was held to a single. A perfect replay moment. Only the first shot was too fuzzy to determine anything, except for a man opening an umbrella nearby. (If you understand that reference, good for you. And don’t forget to schedule your second shingles shot.)

But wait. ESPN had another view. The definitive one, it seems. The network put it up. It started as the Beaver rightfielder turned to the wall. The ball was in the upper right corner of the screen. And it showed … well, the ball went out of the frame just before it hit – something. We didn’t see that part. Just the ricochet back. Great.

It was a single. And Smith didn’t score. By our math, if the two calls are overturned, UCI wins 4-3. That’s how we’ll remember it. Just like Cougar fans remember Christian McCaffrey correctly ruled inbounds. And the key pass interference flag thrown on Oregon in 2014. Neither happened that way, of course, but in some alternate dimension all such calls did.

That’s where we reside now.

• By the way, you might be interested to learn the NFL is moving closer to using electronic means to determine first downs. An experiment is coming in preseason. The real thing might actually be used in the real games.

Personally, we prefer the reliable accuracy of the trio of 68-year-olds on the chain gang. Just like we believe someday ESPN will spare no expense to make sure college baseball’s replays are as accurate as Douglas Corrigan’s navigation. (If you understand that reference, good for you. And enjoy your 100th birthday party.)

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WSU: We have made our preference clear from March. Anne McCoy should be the next Washington State athletic director. No one Kirk Schulz could consider would be more invested in making the place the best it could be. The WSU president named McCoy the interim right after Pat Chun skedaddled to Montlake but has not said much publicly about McCoy since. Nor about the search for a permanent athletic director. But it is nice to see McCoy talking about her position publicly. Greg Woods has a Q&A with her in today’s S-R. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, we linked Jon Wilner’s mailbag yesterday when it was just on the Mercury News website. We also link the column as in ran in today’s S-R. … Arizona became the first NCAA baseball host to be eliminated, shut out by Dallas Baptist and knocked from the Tucson regional yesterday afternoon. … Oregon held off UC Santa Barbara – it wasn’t a good day for the Grippi boys – 2-1 to move within a win of the Super Regionals. … Oklahoma is tough at the softball World Series. The best program in the nation recently. Attracting players from all over the country. Like the one they pulled from 30 miles south of UCLA who hit a solo home run to key the Sooners’ 1-0 winner’s bracket victory over the Bruins on Saturday. … In basketball, we have another Bill Walton remembrance, this one from Colorado. … Finally, we know men’s gymnastics doesn’t contain the glamor, and nation’s interest, of its women’s counterpart, but the latest national title for a Stanford star comes with a lot of great underlying story lines.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, we weren’t sure where to put this news, but being former WSU running back (and coach) Steve Broussard was hired at Cal Poly (by former Cougar player and coach Paul Wulff), we decided this was the best spot.

Preps: Rarely is a state track victory met with such vitriol as the one East Valley’s Verónica Garcia did recently. Amanda Sullender looks at the reaction after Garcia become the first transgender high school athlete to place first in state. Amanda also talked with a University of Washington professor who feels science may never solve a debate about whether such competitions are fair. … Former Central Valley star Lexie Hull has a front-row seat for the Clark circus. She talked about it recently.

Indians: The offense broke out of its mini-slump with a 13-4 victory over Everett last night at Avista. Dave Nichols has the coverage. … Elsewhere in the Northwest League, Eugene made it two consecutive wins, defeating host Hillsboro 10-2 to stay within 2½ games of Spokane in the league standings. … Vancouver got back to .500 with a 5-0 win over visiting Tri-City.

Velocity: Thank goodness ONE Spokane Stadium has fake grass. There is an almost 100% chance it will be raining this evening when Spokane hosts Chivas de Guadalajara U23 in an international friendly tonight. It’s also going to be downright cool, with the temps in the low 50s. Ethan Myers has a preview of the match.

Mariners: One place it has been hot recently? The T-Mobile batters’ boxes. While the M’s are hitting. Nine more runs yesterday against the woeful Angels and a shutout from Bryce Miller and the staff. Seattle has a four-game lead. In June. Shades of 2003. … Still, help is needed. Here are some players the team could target before the deadline. … Ty France is trying hard to improve. Good for him.

Storm: Where do you stand on the latest Clark incident? We see it as a societal scorecard for pettiness. Thin skin. Other, deeper, ills. From our old-school basketball perspective, we just don’t understand why the Fever aren’t taking care of this issue themselves.

Kraken: Once again the team with the best record during the regular season won’t be playing in the Stanley Cup Finals. Instead of the Rangers coming out of the East, it will be the Panthers. Again. … Who will they play? Edmonton and Connor McDavid can clinch the West with a win over Dallas today. It’s time for Canada to have another champion.

Reign: We call this a follow-up in the biz. The US Women’s National Team picked up a 4-0 victory over South Korea in Emma Hayes’ first match in charge.

Golf: Clarkston’s Joel Dahmen struggled early, got his act together later and enters today’s final round at the Canadian Open in fifth, five strokes back. Jim Meehan has more.

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• Kim, who had a 40-year nursing career, keeps preaching patience. We, who had a 40-second Internet search, keeps thinking we should be healing faster. Who is right? In the interest of marital harmony, we’ll go with her view. For now. Who are we kidding? Of course, she’s right. She always is. About everything. And we type that without an ounce of our usual sarcasm. In our relationship, she’s not the better half. She’s the better 15/16s. Until later …