When it comes to pro sports titles, Seattle is a good place to make books
Who's a kid to root for in Seattle these days? And please don't say the Lingerie League.
Kevin Pedraja
Sue Frause
Seattle is a tough sports town to raise kids in. Forbes magazine recently proclaimed the city, for the second year in a row, the “most miserable sports city” in America. In 109 cumulative sports seasons for all of its professional men’s teams, the magazine reported, Seattle has won only one championship, and that was 31 years ago by a team that’s no longer in town.
Will the last professional ballplayer to leave Seattle please punch out the lights?
We pride ourselves on being one of America’s most literate cities, but we’ve also yearned for big-league sports status. The two seem mutually exclusive, at least to a point. An example is in Pioneer Square, where the landmark independent Elliott Bay Book Co. struggled and finally left the neighborhood.
One problem, owner Peter Aaron told me, was the influence of big-time sports. The Seahawks, in particular, had an impact because they kept customers away on game days, and holiday-season Sundays are key to boosting the year’s book sales. Aaron noted that the character of Seahawks fans seemed to change over the years, from suburban book- and family-friendly crowds to galoots who get drunk before game time. Pabst and Nancy Pearl don’t mix.
So, we cling to literary laurels, but sportswise, we stink — despite decades of hype, spending, and promise. I pity the younger generation. My kids were raised when the Seahawks were studs, the Sonics flashy, and the Mariners rising from expansion franchise to national sensation. We had season tickets and kept Ken Griffey candy bars in the freezer to save for posterity. After years in the doldrums, the M’s showed plucky promise. The “Refuse to Lose” Mariners of 1995 embodied youth, excitement and potential, featuring Griffey, Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez and Randy Johnson, all worthy Hall of Famers.
But today’s M’s can’t even refuse to snooze. The Mariners made national headlines earlier this season for one reason: The now-aged Griffey was found sleeping in the clubhouse during a game. It became Napgate, a baseball scandal, a symbol of how far we have fallen from the promise of a decade ago. Welcome to Safeco Field, where every night is bobblehead night.
One can tolerate the passage of time, with once heroic Junior turning into a sleepy senior (who retired from baseball in June). It’s sad that he didn’t last long enough to play in the major leagues with his own son, as Griffey Jr. did with his father. But Junior’s fizzle is emblematic of a team that’s all show and no substance. Safeco Field is a superior ballpark to the old Kingdome in every way except the baseball being played in it. The team last made the playoffs in 2001. As the M’s last star, Ichiro Suzuki, ages, one wonders: Who will reflect the promise of tomorrow?
The news hasn’t been all bad: The Seattle Storm has helped to make women’s basketball respectable — the team actually won the WNBA title in 2004 but didn’t qualify for Forbes’ boys-only list — and the Sounders FC has brought new energy to town with Major League Soccer.
We have an entry in the Independent Women’s Football League — the Seattle Majestics — and then there’s the Seattle Mist, in a Lingerie League of its own. This is women’s football for guys who want cheerleaders on the field the whole time. If this sport offers role models for kids, let me be the first to call Child Protective Services.
Seattle has suffered sports misery before. I remember the exciting promise of our first Major League Baseball team, the Seattle Pilots, in the summer of 1969. The team lasted one year before it left town. They were awful on the field, but one of their players, pitcher Jim Bouton, got a great book out of the season, maybe the best book ever written about baseball. It is a memoir called Ball Four, which takes people into a locker room filled not with role models, but with baseball’s colorful castoffs and characters. It’s Bad News Bears with beer and sex, proving that literary interests and sports don’t have to be at odds. And the worse things are, the better the story. Which means Seattle’s sports misery is giving us material for a real classic.
This story originally appeared in the July issue of Seattle Magazine.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Sep 2, 9:24 a.m. Inappropriate
Baseball sucks as role models for kids. Better to take them to the Storm, or the Sounders games. At least they don't seem to have the same problem with doping.
Posted Thu, Sep 2, 10:54 a.m. Inappropriate
"In 109 cumulative sports seasons for all of its professional men’s teams, the magazine reported, Seattle has won only one championship, and that was 31 years ago by a team that’s no longer in town."
I can't tell if they mean the last 109 years or the combined seasons of the Seahawks, Mariners and Sonics.
However, if they mean 109 years, then they are missing one. In 1917 the Seattle Metropolitans were the first US-based hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. They beat the Montreal Canadiens. That was like the Juarez Chamber of Commerce softball team beating the NY Yankees.
They would have won again in 1919, too, if the series wasn't canceled due to Spanish Flu.
Of course, we haven't had a big-league pro hockey team since then, and the design of Key Arena actually precludes that.
Posted Thu, Sep 2, 11:19 a.m. Inappropriate
If Seattle fans want to see a good ball club play, it looks like the Tacoma Rainiers will be playing their home playoff games at Safeco Field because Cheney Stadium is undergoing renovation. The Rainiers usually win.
Posted Thu, Sep 2, 5:34 p.m. Inappropriate
I love the idea that even when the M's are putting a bad team on the field, there's a surprisingly large number of people sitting in the park. I thought it was particularly good to see that situation last year, when the M's put an exceptionally mediocre club on the field--third place in the AL West! We're Number Three! We're Number Three!--but the average per game attendance was still up there.
Compare that to the late 60s and early 70s Yankees, who really stunk up the AL and who couldn't pull 3,000 New Yorkers in for some games. The story I heard about Red Barber being fired from the Yankee broadcasting booth that year was this: one game he announced, "Official attendance for today's game is X,XXX. (Pause.) Looks to me like a lot of them came disguised as empty seats." New Yorkers can't tolerate losing at all. Do you wanna be like them?
Yes, I want a winner. Yes, losing to the damn Yankees in 2001 was one of the biggest heartbreaks of my life. Yes, if the M's can't be in the playoffs, then I hope the relatively small-payroll Minnesota Twins go all the way.
But if you think that life should be fair, then you shouldn't love baseball. For as much as I love a winner, I also simply love the ritual of going to the ballpark on a nice summer's day, sitting in the sun, and watching the game. I simply cannot conjure up those same feelings for the NFL or NBA. (Although I like watching the Storm, the women in that league actually know how to play defense.)
More than any other game, I think baseball demands that you wear blinders--to the money, to the dominance of the richest teams in the biggest markets, and to the absolute foolishness of paying enormous bonuses to pitchers straight out of high school or college who can easily blow out their shoulders on one pitch, or require Tommy John surgery after a half-season of throwing 100-mph fastballs. Makes no sense.
But there's a lot of things about baseball that make no sense. I think the best response is to go buy a center field bleacher ticket, sneak into the section behind the visitor's dugout after the third inning, turn off your cell phone, and just enjoy the game. And if we ever do make it all the way to the top, just use it as a reminder of the title of Thomas Boswell's book: How Life Imitates the World Series. Things could easily fall apart the next season.
Posted Thu, Sep 2, 11:02 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you Jon, Lord Stanley's Cup left Canada first for Seattle and this achievement is too often overlooked. Totems is still a better name, though. Lindy, that's a home run of a comment. Knute, the literary gift that is Ball Four almost makes up for having Spring Training, the glorious time of hope, forever fouled by that damned used car salesman Selig. Almost. Good post.
Posted Fri, Sep 3, 4:16 p.m. Inappropriate
Uh-oh, I'm way out of touch. I take back the "relatively small-payroll Minnesota Twins" comment, it looks like I gotta root for a Rangers versus Padres World Series if the smallest team salary is the determining factor. But a Cincinnati-Tampa Bay matchup looks good, too.
Posted Wed, Sep 8, 9:51 p.m. Inappropriate
You've mentioned them as an afterthought, which is more than most of the city's sports outlets did until they clinched their conference in July, but respectable and respected, the Seattle Storm went 28-6 in the regular season, at least 2 of those losses while resting their starters heavily after they had already clinched...add to that 17-0 at home during the regular season (now 19-0), then swept the LA Sparks in the semi-final, swept the defending champion Phoenix Mercury in the conference final, and are awaiting the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA Championship, which starts Sunday. They're the best-kept secret in Seattle. Professional basketball without the showboating and dunks, without exorbitant prices and egos, with additional family-friendly entertainment during the breaks. I'd much rather see them than the high-priced Ms non-entertainment whose team again is challenging for one the worst records in baseball and thus appeal only to the most diehard baseball fan. Better get your tickets soon, Knute!!! Ironically, Anthony Robinson captured the essence of the Storm a day or so after your article; see http://crosscut.com/2010/09/08/seattle-storm/20141/Storming-ahead:-Seattle-s-winning-team/
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