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.
In more than a century of baseball dating to Chief Bender in 1907, only two pitchers have recorded as many as 13 consecutive starts in which they worked at least seven innings and allowed two or fewer runs. The first, Tom Seaver, constructed his streak between July-September, 1971, and entered the Hall of Fame in 1992 with a record 98.84 percent of the vote. The second, Felix Hernandez, gets a chance to break his tie with Seaver Wednesday night in Cleveland.
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Less than a week from now, Walter Jones will finally get to do something that he has been preparing for most of his adult life. Jones Saturday will don a distinctive gold jacket, take possession of a bronze bust cast in his likeness, and assume his rightful place among the immortals of the sport when he is enshrined, with six others, into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.
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As the Seahawks opened training camp Friday at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton, analysts at the betting site SportsBettingDime.com posted odds on Super Bowl XLIX that are certain to irk the Twelves: the Denver Broncos, at 13/2, are the favorites to win the Lombardi Trophy followed by Seattle at 7/1, San Francisco at 15/2, New England at 9/1 and Green Bay at 10/1.
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Although the Seahawks have acknowledged nothing, RB Marshawn Lynch will apparently pull a training camp no-show. Creating a Thursday afternoon Twitter frenzy, former Seattle fullback Michael Robinson broke the news on the NFL Network. Lynch reportedly also confirmed his decision to at least one Seattle media member.
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The Mariners made a trade Thursday, but not the blockbuster involving David Price and Ben Zobrist of the Tampa Bay Rays they have widely been urged to make. Instead, the Mariners dipped into 2013 by acquiring former Seattle first baseman/designated hitter Kendrys Morales from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for right-handed relief pitcher Stephen Pryor.
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No one in Seattle is feeling more heat amid the first rain since May than Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik. The Athletics and Angels have made significant moves to upgrade as the trade deadline nears, Oakland importing pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel in a blockbuster with the Cubs, the Angels latching on to Houston Street, Jason Grilli and Joe Thatcher to bulk up their bullpen.
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The last thing the Mariners needed to start the second half was a 3-2, 16-inning, bullpen-burning, walk-off loss to an AL West rival. But that was their fate Friday night in Anaheim, a result sealed when pinch hitter Efren Navarro, in his 56th career at-bat, singled home Mike Trout with the winning run with the first pitch he saw from reliever Dominic Leone.
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Among the first-half oddities for the Mariners: They fared far better against winning teams than losing ones. In compiling a record of 51-44, the Mariners went 25-14 (.641) against teams with a .500-or-better record (at the time they played) and 26-30 (.464) vs. clubs with a record below .500. To put finer point on it, the Mariners went 11-7 against first-place teams but 11-13 against last-place clubs.
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At 51-44, the Mariners have compiled their best first half since 2003, two years following their last playoff appearance (2001) and two years before the dawn of the Felix Era. They roost eight games back of Oakland in the AL West after taking two of three over last weekend, and 2½ ahead of Kansas City and Toronto for the American League’s second wild-card berth.
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Felix Hernandez starts for the American League in the All-Star Game Tuesday night after reaching the break with a record of 11-2, 2.12 ERA, 0.91 WHIP. This is the first time in Hernandez’s 10-year career that he has had as many as 11 wins at the break. He is the first Seattle starter with 11 or more since Jamie Moyer won 12 and Joel Pineiro 11 in 2003, the last year the Mariners produced a 90-win season (93-69).
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After a turgid start to 2014 (10-14 in April) that threatened to sink the season, the Mariners (49-42) are nearing the All-Star break seven games above .500 and still in contention for a wild-card spot -- even though they have lost four of their past six, scoring seven runs over that span after tallying 28 in the previous three.
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Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano will represent the Mariners in the 85th Major League All-Star Game July 15 at Target Field in Minneapolis, but third baseman Kyle Seager and closer Fernando Rodney, both of whom had strong cases to make the squad, suffered snubs. Had either made the team, the Mariners would have had three All-Stars for the first time since 2011.
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After sweeping a trio in Houston, outscoring the Astros 28-8, to start a six-game, seven-day road trip, the Mariners (47-38) find themselves nine games above .500 for the first time since the end of the 2007 season, a baseball eternity ago. The current roll – four wins in a row, 10 of 12 and six consecutive on the road – is already prompting playoff jabber on sports radio, even though …
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Despite a five-game winning streak ending Wednesday with a 5-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox, the Mariners have put together a laudable month with 15 wins, the most they have had in June in four years. Approaching the halfway point of the season, the Mariners won five of six, eight of 11 and 16 of 25.
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Except for the May parade through downtown Seattle, during which he entertained hundreds of thousands of gawkers by tossing bags of Skittles from the hood of a vehicle, Marshawn Lynch has had nothing to do with the Seahawks since their Super Bowl rout of the Denver Broncos.
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Kyle Seager hit a pair of triples, a home run and a double -- a feat not seen in more than 40 years -- in leading Felix Hernandez and the Mariners to a 10-2 pasting of New York at Yankee Stadium Monday. Rare as was Seager’s performance, it will soon be blurred from memory by the everyday avalanche of more baseball. But Seager won’t forget it.
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University of Washington basketball legend Bob Houbregs, the 1953 NCAA Player of the Year who led the Huskies to that year's Final Four, died Wednesday at 82. A 1987 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Houbregs had been in failing health in recent years after suffering a debilitating fall at his home in Olympia.
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For all he has accomplished, including a 2010 American League Cy Young award, a 2012 perfect game, and four All-Star appearances, Felix Hernandez has never reached June with seven victories, a mark achievable Wednesday night when Hernandez (6-1, 2.75) and the Mariners host C.J. Wilson and the Angels in the third of a four-game series at Safeco Field.
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Robinson Cano went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, including his second home run and a run scored, in the Mariners’ 4-3 loss at Texas Wednesday, extending his streak of consecutive games reaching base to 28. This is the longest streak of Cano’s career, eclipsing a 26-game run he had for the Yankees in 2012, and the longest by a Mariner since Mike Carp's 30 in 2011.
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Assuming they do not trade their first-round draft choice – if they do, down is more likely than up – the Seahawks will select 32nd overall Thursday, the slot assigned to the defending Super Bowl champion. Further assuming the Seahawks are going to address areas of need, they will probably look first to replenish their offensive and defensive lines and the wide receiver position, all hit hard during free agency.
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