A Grip on Sports: No fireworks after a Fouth of July baseball game seems almost sacrilegious, which may partly explain why Cal Raleigh supplied a couple of star-spangled home runs
A GRIP ON SPORTS • I realized this morning I broke my routine yesterday. Never delved into TV’s weekend sports. Shame on me. How could I have skipped over the highlight of the summer, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest?
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• Mainly because jamming a bunch of food into your pie hole – or should I have written hot dog hole? – isn’t a sport in my eyes. It’s just a Friday. Or a Tuesday. Any day, actually.
Spare me the arguments about training and strategy and not everyone can do it. Heard them all. Not buying it. But I also don’t care. If you want to worship at the altar of Joey Chestnut, et al, that’s your choice. And ESPN’s. Not mine.
By the way, who won? I know Chestnut’s brand ban was lifted and all. He was allowed to compete again. And ESPN showed his return to the table with more reverence than The Ocho showed Peter LeFleur when he came back to competitive dodgeball. But I had no desire to watch.
Or run down the final results. Except I did it. Just for you folks.
• Seventy hot dogs in 10 minutes? Big deal. How about 35 home runs before the fireworks start on the Fourth of July? Thirty-five bombs when your team plays its home games in T-Mobile Park, the place fly balls have gone to die the past 26 years?
That’s Cal Raleigh’s total, folks. He has already hit more bombs this season than he has in any full season in his career. With the two he hit against the Pirates yesterday – the Mariners won 6-0 as Bryan Woo was spot on once again – he has an MLB-leading 35 in 88 games.
His best complete season? The 34 he hit last year, in 627 trips to the plate. He has less than 400 in 2025. And did we mention the M’s play their home games in T-Mobile? We did? It deserves the second go-round. It’s part of what sets Raleigh’s marvelous pre-all-star-break total apart from the one he tied yesterday.
They didn’t play outside in 1998, when Ken Griffey Jr. set the club’s record. The team at that time was ensconced in the Kingdome, that quaint block of concrete that held in the noise, held out the rain but allowed fly balls to travel great distances. They didn’t move across the street until July of the next year. And Griffey, after playing half a season in the new place, asked for a change of address. Balls he hit into the seats inside didn’t quite clear the wall outside.
Raleigh hasn’t had that trouble this season.
Doesn’t matter if he’s on the left side of the plate – balls seem to get out easier to rightfield in T-Mobile – or the right, he’s launching rockets into the sky and through the marine layer. He has 14 as right-handed hitter this season, including both in yesterday’s odd day game.
Why odd? Fourth of July, 1:10 p.m. start? The 2-hour, 13-minute contest meant no postgame fireworks. So Raleigh supplied his own. Again.
• By the way, after listening to the game on the way across the state, I hoped to watch the usual Root replay in our hotel room. Nope. It’s not carried by the Marriott property where we spent the night.
Less than 2 hours from T-Mobile and we were shut out of the network that carries the games. Who runs the team these days, Larry Scott?
Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t see Raleigh’s two bombs. Or that I couldn’t watch Randy Arozarena’s 13th of the season or Dylan Moore’s ninth – yes, he got a hit, in the seven inning – if I wanted. Highlights are always available. It’s one of the great gifts of the modern broadcasting age.
Killing off the regional sports networks that, for a few decades at least, made it easy to watch your regional team play, is the opposite of that. Root isn’t dead just yet, but it’s not in the best of shape.
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WSU: Around the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, we linked Jon Wilner’s mailbag yesterday morning when it ran in the Mercury News. It’s on the S-R website today. … Hey, guess what? Recruiting never stops. Not even July Fourth. (And boy do I have a story about that.) Washington proved that in football yesterday, as it is the school of choice for a defensive lineman. … Colorado is going to rely on quite a few of its junior college recruits this fall. … How does Utah State rank with its soon-to-be Pac-12 brethren? … Utah seems to be fine among its Big 12 counterparts. … In basketball news, the U.S. U19 basketball team barely got past Canada in the World Cup quarterfinals.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, a former football video director is now a Weber State assistant coach – for women’s basketball. … Sacramento State football recruiting haul includes, for now, two four-star high school players.
Indians: Though we weren’t in town, we’re pretty sure there was a big crowd at Avista Stadium on Friday night. After all, a Fourth of July game with the added attraction of fireworks? It’s a bargain at any price. Though the fun was tamped down a bit by the game’s outcome, a 4-3 loss to the Tri-City Dust Devils. … Too bad Charlie Condon couldn’t have been there to help the offense. But he is moving up the Rockies’ ladder. He’s expected to be one of Colorado’s stars someday.
Mariners: We linked Friday’s game story above. And do it again here. … We also have a few stories to pass along we also linked before. Not just Times’ stories, like this one on the upcoming MLB draft, but also one from The Athletic on the best players of the 21st Century – thus far. And another Times’ piece on how any trades won’t fix everything that ails Seattle. … The newest Mariner relief pitcher was not expecting to be called up just yet.
Sonics: All the injuries to Eastern Conference stars may change the balance of power next season.
Sounders: Sunday’s Gold Cup final between the U.S. and Mexico is just another matchup in their long-running rivalry. … The Club World Cup quarterfinals are half over, with Chelsea moving into the semis with a 2-1 win over Brazil’s Palmeiras in Philadelphia and Fluminense (also from Brazil) topping Al-Hilal (Saudi Arabia) by the same score in Orlando. There were 65,782 in the stands to watch in Philly while the Florida crowd of 43,091 wasn’t nearly as boisterious.
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• I almost missed the M’s game yesterday due to some faulty information that, thankfully, I didn’t pass on to you. The game time was listed as 7:10 in my usual go-to Friday source. Which explains my reference to fireworks and such. Until later …