Make another entry into Major League Baseball's Hall of Infamy: Former Mariners All-Star pitcher Michael Pineda was ejected Sunday for using pine tar -- placed in a highly visible spot on his neck.

His 2012 trade to the Yankees for Jesus Montero will be forever cursed as the swap of banned substances. Montero, caught up in the Biogenesis was suspended for 50 games for using performance-enhancing drugs.

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The ground, skydivers will tell you, was coming up fast -- a ninth consecutive loss, including three at home to the beagle-faced Houston Astros. The bond with the fan base was so tattered that only a few scattered boos among the 13,739 at Safeco Wednesday afternoon greeted the ritual moments of Mariners futility. They didn't care enough to bitch.

Then the least among the Mariners  -- 3B Kyle Seager, he of the .156 average -- found the ripcord.

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Some will suggest posting this video in Seattle amounts to sports torture. I prefer to think of it as a way to share admiration of a stupendous athlete in Kevin Durant --  and speaking of torture, in case any of us has an opportunity to waterboard ex-Sonics owner Howard Schultz, we now have the video justification on file. No court would touch us.

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The Seahawks pulled off a surprise Monday when they traded a seventh-round pick in next month's draft to Oakland for quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who was moved out of the starting job when the Raiders signed free agent Matt Schaub from Houston.

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Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, owners of the Golden State Warriors who caused a stir two years ago when they announced a plan to build a new arena on a controversial site on piers on the San Francisco waterfront, abandoned the idea and now intend to build on land south of the Giants' baseball park to house an 18,000-seat venue in time for the 2018-19 season.

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For much of the century, the Washington Huskies benefited from large production by Jake Locker/Keith Price at quarterback and Chris Polk/Bishop Sankey at running back.

At the end of 2014 spring football practice, a contradictory void fairly screams: The new coach doesn’t own up to a real idea as to who in the fall will succeed the stars at either spot.

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Give Mark Emmert credit. He knew all along that a bagel with cream cheese constituted a meal only in the perverse, collective imagination of the NCAA, of which he is president. Darned if he isn't fixing that silly rule, and in just four quick years after he left the University of Washington presidency.

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Washington football completed its makeover, from stadium down to shoes, with a new set of uniforms, revealed Friday, designed to press the bling button on current and future Huskies while avoiding the trick-or-treat fashions of other schools. Speaking of which, Nike, which popularized garish outerwear at its primary retail outlet, the University of Oregon, is the designer/outfitter for Washington too. Remember, this is college sports: It's all about the money.

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Not that there was any real prospect of a move to Seattle, but the Milwaukee Bucks will no longer be a straw for Sonics fans to clutch. Longtime owner Herb Kohl announced Wednesday, pending NBA approval, a sale of to the team to hedge-fund billionaires Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens for a  league-record $550 million.

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The Seahawks' average player salary last season was the second highest in the NFL at $2.3 million, but in comprehensive research done by ESPN The Magazine, the champs ranked only 116th in the world among pro sports teams -- or 43 spots behind MLB's Mariners.

The data was compiled by SportingIntelligence.com and considered 294 teams in 15 leagues, including cricket in India. The 8,663 athletes surveyed made $16.15 billion in combined salaries.

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The off-season for the San Francisco 49ers has been just about as much fun as their final game of the 2013 season.

Oft-troubled LB Aldon Smith, the first player drafted by Jim Harbaugh as Niners coach, apparently did something of breathtaking foolishness -- telling Los Angeles International airport employees he had a bomb, while being "belligerent and uncooperative'' to TSA agents  -- and was arrested Sunday on a charge of making a false threat.

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In the narrow context of a single infant season, Robinson Cano was right.

"You don't want to look at anything negative right now," said the Mariners star and well-compensated proponent of the party line. The 3-0 loss Sunday was the fourth defeat in six tries against Oakland, and again featured feeble hitting reminiscent of the past season, and the season before that, and the season before that.

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A sports anniversary as distinctive as it is dubious is upon Seattle this summer -- 20 years ago July 19, waterlogged tiles on the underside of the Kingdome's ceiling crashed down 180 feet upon unoccupied seats, a couple hours before a Mariners game.

Sheer luck avoided death and injury. The episode ignited an astonishing chain of civic events that transformed the Seattle sports scene and, to some extent, the political landscape. It led to two controversial, publicly funded stadiums that retained the Mariners and Seahawks and led, fairly directly, to the departure of the NBA Sonics and the arrival of the MLS Sounders.

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If you're one to savor emotional whipsaws in sports, you would have enjoyed the time between 6:45 and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday night at Safeco. That's when coach Pete Carroll and seven Seahawks brought the sellout crowd to its feet for the ceremonial first pitch in the Mariners home opener, and the Angels sat them down unceremoniously with back-to-back homers and a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

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Befitting a gent beginning his 10-year draw on a quarter-billion dollars, Robinson Cano was in a fine mood before the Mariners' home opener Tuesday night against the Angels.

"This team can compete with anybody, not only in our division, but in the league," said Cano, surrounded by a couple of dozen media types in the pre-game dugout. "In the past, everybody saw this team as young kids that needed to learn and grow. Now it's different. Now we're in a different place, and that's not something your rivals want to see."

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Four months after the deal, Seattle gets to welcome in person Tuesday night at sold-out Safeco Field the latest change to its skyline -- Robinson Cano.

The Mariners have bet big that it will last 10 years -- a long time in sports, but less than half the life of the Kingdome. The big difference is that the Mariners franchise already has imploded. Cano is in charge of the resurrection (Easter nears, but let's go no further with the analogy).

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If the Washington Huskies produce a dynamic offense this fall, it will be one of the more remarkable feats in recent UW football history. Because in addition to breaking in a new coaching staff, the purples are auditioning two quarterbacks, neither of whom has thrown a pass in college, while the presumed incumbent sits out spring practice suspended for being a knucklehead.

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In describing Pete Carroll Friday, John Schneider twice used the phrase, "low ego." As in: "The football stuff is very obvious for everybody. What everybody doesn’t see is the low ego and the passion he has for the game."

In contrast, a common phrase used by outsiders in describing Carroll's style is "rah-rah," a short-hand cliche that is almost always a pejorative, because it implies that he's covering up with attention-getting enthusiasm an absence of substance.

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John Schneider wryly described it before any writer had a chance: "A love fest."

The Seahawks general manager Friday was announcing the club's agreement to extend head coach Pete Carroll's contract through the 2016 season, and was a little embarrassed at gushing up so many compliments. But when his team wins the Super Bowl 43-8, he's entitled to gush, fawn and direct lots of Paul Allen's money toward the primary creator of Seattle's first major pro sports championship in 35 years.

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After the Seahawks victory parade in downtown Seattle, Pete Carroll was asked at a press conference about a contract extension before he enters the fifth and final year of his contract.

"I'm in great shape," he said, declining to elaborate on what that meant. We'll find out a little more Friday, when the Seahawks have a press conference to announce the extension.

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