A Grip on Sports: A perfect day, a perfect Bloomsday, a not-so-perfect M’s weekend all lead off our tribute to Star Wars Day

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Ever have a dream you are facing a difficult situation with, seemingly, no way out? And you calmly look ahead, wave your hand and say, quietly, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for?” Ya, me neither. I’m not a Star Wars nerd. Except, sadly, I may just be.

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• I mean, how else can you explain being excited last night because I realized I would be able to rise from my bed the next morning and have a new hope to weave as many Star Wars’ references as I could into a sports-related column?

It is May the Fourth, after all.

• Up first today? The torturous start to the Mariners’ season. With a lineup that, this weekend at least, was missing more key components than the Falcon on Jakku, if you get my drift. Brendan Donovan is still on the injured list. Cal Raleigh isn’t, not yet, but has a pain in his side. And Josh Naylor’s bat is performing worse than Randy Arozarena’s base-running coach.

Unless the M’s can clone Julio Rodriguez’s bat – the centerfielder has been on fire the past couple weeks – the weekend sweep by the Royals may just be duplicated faster than Jango Fett. After all, Atlanta arrives tonight for a three-game series sporting baseball’s best record.

Add in Matt Brash’s injury, Luis Castillo’s continuing troubles and Bryan Woo’s new ones, even the vaunted pitching is showing signs of strain. After reaching .500 last week, the three-game sweep by the Royals – 12-19 when the series began – dropped the M’s two-and-a-half games behind the A’s in the West.

• I had to laugh a little this week when I read the news about the Big Ten distributing more than a billion dollars to its members in the 2025 fiscal year. A lot more.

Why? A couple reasons. The conference, along with the SEC, have floated through college athletics like a couple of Death Stars, destroying planets right and left, most notably the Pac-12’s universe. The difference is it worked, and no one has really launched any sort of rebellion.

But the bigger laugh came when one opinion piece used the payout, some $70-80 million to the full-cut schools, as a justification for USC’s betrayal. After all, that number is almost three times more than the Trojans made in their last Pac-12 year.

That’s like comparing Jogans and Mujas, am I right? After all, every major conference, if they had stayed together, would have seen an uptick in media dollars. And with the L.A. schools still anchor a premier West Coast conference, the Pac-12’s might not have met whatever the four-school-fewer Big Ten would have commanded, but it would have been significantly closer. And expense savings would have tightened the gap even more.

Yes, there would have been a disparity. But comparing the current payouts to previous, pre-realignment numbers as justification for a change is disingenuous at best.

• Sunday was by far the most-beautiful day of 2026 throughout the Northwest.

It was actually warm in Seattle, hot in the central part of the state and pleasantly perfect in the Spokane area. Using the always helpful GPS, I was able to make the run back from south of the Emerald City in less than 12 parsecs. (Thanks to a warning from Google Maps, I made an early right turn off I-90 and avoided the downtown accident backup.) And ended my day sitting on my back deck, enjoying the perfect evening just like nearly 40,000 Bloomies. Except without a new T-shirt. And my feet didn’t hurt.

The race’s pandemic-induced dip, for one year at least, seems to be over.

OK, it may have been the anniversary. Fifty Bloomsdays. That’s impressive. It makes great social media content to be able to say you were part of it. And the Scarif-like weather didn’t hurt. Add that up and I’m going to have to wait a year to see if the numbers are truly back.

• Summer is coming. That’s for sure. This week is giving those of us in Spokane a preview. But the true sign it’s on its way? All the TV ads for “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.” In 18 days.

Wait? It’s not going to be another Disney+ series? Why am I paying for the streaming service anyway? That’s more annoying than Director Krennic. Or this stupid column.

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Bloomsday: In honor of the race’s 50th running, we are giving it the top spot in today’s links. Hope that earns a mention on the race’s Insta page. We start with Greg Lee’s story that focuses on the sporting nature. The winners. Two Americans. We know, a blast from the past, sort of like when Darth Sidious showed up “The Rise of Skywalker.” … We also have another blast from the past. Dan Pelle, who is almost as old as Yoda and just as nimble, joined Jesse Tinsley for this photo gallery from the competitive races. … The overall story of one of Spokane’s most-revered community events comes courtesy of Mathew Callaghan.

WSU: Around the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, what did we learn about the offense from Washington’s spring practices? … Utah’s new strength coach was part of an NFL group that once received poor grades from the players’ survey. He’s now part of a Utes staff that is being paid pretty well. … Another recruiting win for UCLA, though using a tractor beam to pull in a legacy running back to Westwood is probably to be expected. At least under the new regime. … In basketball news, the offseason to-do list for the Colorado men’s team? It’s growing shorter by the day. … USC has won women’s NCAA titles before. But next season the Trojans might have as much talent as they ever had. … Finally, how well did former Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne do hiring coaches?

Gonzaga: The Zags’ baseball team came into the week with a 14-game winning streak. That ended in Eugene on Tuesday against 13th-ranked Darth Vader’s favorite program, Oregon. And they followed up by losing two of three at home against WCC also-ran Santa Clara. It was GU’s first conference series loss. All that is contained in Colton Clark’s weekly college baseball roundup. … Jon Wilner answered a lot of my questions in this Mercury News column about the CW’s deal with ESPN. And Wilner does it with an eye on Gonzaga and its new conference. … The Zags men are one of three nonconference foes Duke announced last week it is playing in the upcoming season on Amazon Prime Video. Not so fast. The Big Ten is objecting.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Utah Tech joins the conference this summer. The women’s team is trying to improve its roster in preparation for that jump.

Mariners: We actually didn’t link the game story from Sunday’s 4-1 loss above. On purpose. It just didn’t fit. It does here. … As does a link to Matt Calkins’ all-is-forgiven-Randy-Johnson column we linked yesterday when it ran in the Times. It is on the S-R site today. … We did link the latest Raleigh injury update above. And do it again here.

Indians: It may just be a long season for fans of Spokane’s minor league club. If winning is at the top of their list. The Indians fell 8-1 at Eugene on Sunday – Dave Nichols has the coverage – to drop to 9-18 and deeper into the Northwest League cellar.

Seahawks: Bob Condotta’s look at the rookies? We linked it yesterday when it was in the Times. And again today from the S-R. … We also have a link to a Jadarian Price story from Michael-Shawn Dugar in The Athletic. … And another one that focuses on how well the new running back catches the football. … Wondering about the Seahawks’ offseason events? The Times has a schedule in this notebook, including when “Hard Knocks” will kick off.

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• I wasn’t sure where to link my favorite piece today. So I decided John Canzano’s column on being a youth sports dad belongs here. A space I usually reserve for personal thoughts. Turns out Canzano reflected mine pretty perfectly in his outstanding Sunday piece. Until later …