Steve began his journalistic career in an era in which social networking mainly occurred in saloons.
In the years since, he has been a reporter and columnist (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), a magazine founder and editor (The National Sports Review), the Director of Research at ESPN (once had the chore of looking up the history of rain delays in major league baseball), a radio talk show host (fired by KIRO because stupid people need radio stations, too, according to the program director), and the producer of a syndicated sports statistical feature (titled Wow!Stats), distributed by Universal Press Syndicate (quick, name three countries in which athletes are eaten when they fail to perform).
He wrote (with Karen Chave) 100 Years of Husky Football, Who The Hell is Bob? (one of Seattles more remarkable people) and collaborated with Art Thiel (Sports Press Northwest) and Mike Gastineau (KJR-AM) on The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a ribald compendium of Seattle sports exotica that should be made into a movie (Brad Pitt playing Steve).
He gained everlasting infamy in 1985 (at least in Corvallis, Ore.), when, in a column in the Post-Intelligencer, he called the Oregon State Beavers The Barney Fife of College Football, then sat stupefied as the 37-point underdog Beavers cast aside a 28-year slump and beat the Huskies.
As of this writing, that game (which resulted in an official, Oregon State-issued game ball for Steve) still generates 314,000 Google pages, most of them from unenlightened (and presumably salt pillar-licking) OSU fans. Steve has yet to issue an apology on Facebook or Twitter and has no plans to do so.
Sidelined for nearly two months, Felix Hernandez made a successful return to Seattle's rotation. C Mike Zunino did something only seven other players in club history had done. The Mariners (39-39) ran their winning streak to a season-high six games. Then the reality of the 2017 campaign became evident Sunday with an 8-2 loss to the Houston Astros at Safeco Field (box):
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After spending nearly two months on the shelf due to inflammation in his right shoulder (the longest forced absence of his 13-year career), Felix Hernandez Friday at Safeco Field rejoins the Mariners (38-37), above .500 for the first time this season. After a 9-6 win over Detoit Thursday extended a winning streak to five games, Seattle faces the team with MLB's best record, the 50-24 Houston Astros.
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The Mariners spent a grim part of the past week circling the drain (surrendering 46 runs in the road trip's four losses), but Sunday snapped a three-game losing streak with a 7-3 win over Texas (box). The club had other good news: Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, both missing most of the year with shoulder injuries, will return for the weekend against AL West-leading Houston. According to manager Scott Servais, King Felix is firm to pitch Friday. The Mariners need him.
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The Mariners had three chances in the past week to climb above .500 for the first time in 2017, but failed each time before losing to Toronto 4-0 Sunday at Safeco Field (box). Seattle was 3-3 over the past seven days but 7-4 for the homestand and 31-33 for the season -- not great, but not that bad, considering the injuries.
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The Mariners put together one of their best weeks of the season, going 6-1 and ending it with a 7-1 win and sweep of Tampa Bay Sunday at Safeco Field (box). Not that the week did them much good in the standings.
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The Mariners reached the .500 mark (17-17) for the first time in 2017 when they twice beat the Philadelphia Phillies, but then dropped four in a row at Toronto, including a 3-2 walk-off loss Sunday (box) to finish the week 17-21 and nine games out in the AL West. Part of Seattle's collapse in Toronto: An avalanche of injuries to the pitching staff, leaving Seattle with the AL's second-worst team ERA (4.67). Another part: Leaving 32 runners on base, a consequence of going 4-for-35 (.114) with runners in scoring position.
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The Mariners delivered their highest-scoring game (Thursday) and highest-scoring inning (Saturday) of the season in the week that ended Sunday with a 4-3 win over the Texas Rangers (box). Marring a 4-2 week that included series wins over the Angels and Rangers, the club lost two more pitchers to injury and made almost no dent in Houston’s lead in the AL West. How it all unfolded:
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J (no period) Michael Kenyon, who worked four stints at the old Seattle Post-Intelligencer as a general columnist and sports reporter between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, died Wednesday in Port Orford, on the southern Oregon coast, at 73. No cause of death has been disclosed, but Kenyon had congestive heart failure for the more than a decade. No services are planned.
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Another bipolar week for the Mariners: They followed a 19-9 drubbing in Detroit Tuesday with an historic flip-flop, an 8-0 win Wednesday. They threatened to exit the AL West cellar (standings) with a three-game winning streak, but sabotaged themselves in typical fashion with a pair of losses that included Sunday's (trailed 9-1, lost 12-4) upturned rake in Cleveland (box). They also made 13 roster moves, to little avail -- they couldn't avoid another losing April.
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In their seven NFL drafts together since 2010, GM John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll have, as the club’s information gurus noted this week, selected 66 players. Twenty-four remain on Seattle’s roster and 23 are currently with other teams. With a hit rate of 71.2 percent (47 of 66), Schneider and Carroll don’t whiff often.
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The Mariners went 2-1 against Miami at Safeco Field to begin the third week of the season, and had an opportunity to move into second place in the AL West by winning Thursday in Oakland. Didn’t happen. The Mariners dropped three before routing the Athletics 11-1 Sunday (box) with their biggest inning of the season. But that couldn't keep Seattle (8-12) out of a share of last place in the division (standings). How the week unfolded:
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The 2017 NFL season doesn’t begin for another five months but, if the past is any indication, the Seahawks are already 0-1. They open Sept. 10 against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers at their horror house, Lambeau Field, where Seattle is 3-10 all-time and has dropped seven consecutive games since 1999.
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Takeaways
In the opening week of their 41st season, the Mariners displayed the traditional lameness that marked the vast majority of the first 40. In seven road games against the Houston Astros (4) and Los Angeles Angels (3), division rivals, Seattle won once, lost twice on walk-off hits, and flopped into last place in the AL West at 1-6, the worst mark in the majors (standings).
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Over the past two decades, basketball pundits have pummeled Gonzaga for what they perceive as a glossy record inflated by playing outside of a major conference, as well as the school’s failure to win, or even reach, the Final Four. The Bulldogs finally are in position to claim a national championship, but the criticism will only intensify if the Zags fail to seal the deal.
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Mike Hopkins, who will be formally introduced as Lorenzo Romar’s successor at the University of Washington Wednesday, spent the past 22 college basketball seasons as an assistant coach at Syracuse University under Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim. Hopkins is a West Coast native (born San Mateo, CA. in 1969) and was a member of the 1987 California state championship team at Mater Dei High School (Santa Ana).
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The Seahawks enter the free-agency signing period Thursday at 1 p.m. when 16 of their players officially hit the market as unrestricted free agents, and five more as restricted free agents. The number of UFAs increased by two earlier this week when the team opted to not make qualifying offers to CB Deshawn Shead and LB Brock Coyle, both of whom had been RFAs (when they were non-tendered, they automatically became UFAs).
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In 2009, Art Thiel, Mike Gastineau and I published “The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists,” in which we ranked, from 10 through one, Washington state’s “Most Impressive Record Breakers.” If we were to re-do that list today, it would require a major update: The inclusion of the University of Washington’s Kelsey Plum, who is on the verge of becoming the all-time NCAA Division I women’s basketball scoring leader.
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According to the majority of NBA mock drafts, including these published by ESPN, CBSSports.com, Yahoo, Hoops Hype and nbadraft.net, Washington freshman Markell Fultz will, in late June, become the first pick, by the Boston Celtics. The Huskies have had 15 players taken in round one, including Bob Houbregs at No. 3 in 1953, but have never had a player selected first overall.
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Kenny Easley (1981-87) Saturday became the fourth former career Seahawk to earn enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A five-time Pro Bowl safety, a four-time All-Pro and a senior nominee this year, Easley received the necessary 80 percent of the votes from the Hall of Fame Selection Committee’s 46 selectors, and will be inducted in Canton, OH., Aug. 5.
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Bob Walsh, a Seattle-based entrepreneur, business consultant, sports executive, humanitarian, back-channel ambassador and citizen diplomat who made the Puget Sound region the site of numerous sports and cultural events, passed away early Monday (Seattle time) in Istanbul, Turkey, following a sudden respiratory illness. He was 76.
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