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.
After a seven-game road trip in which they suffered two walk-off losses, were shut out twice, lost three times to a last-place team, left 55 men on base, and came away with only one victory, the Mariners still have reason to hope: Felix Hernandez takes the mound Monday to open a three-game home series with the worst team in baseball, the Houston Astros.
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Since he suspended quarterback Cyler Miles and wide receiver Damore’ea Stringfellow following a Feb. 2 post-Super Bowl incident in the U District that resulted in injuries to two Seahawks revelers, new University of Washington football coach Chris Petersen has steadfastly refused to say how he intends to deal with the pair.
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At 3-0 with a 2.67 ERA and 0.996 WHIP, Felix Hernandez is off to the best start of his 10-year major league career. Since he bunched his three wins into the season’s first 12 days, Hernandez gets three more starts before the month is done, which means he has a longshot opportunity to enter May 6-0. That would be memorable.
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Until Sunday’s series-ender with the Oakland Athletics at Safeco Field, the Mariners stood as one of two major league teams that had not lost consecutive games. That stat crashed with Scott Kazmir’s nine strikeouts in six innings and a two-run Yoenis Cespedes home run off Charlie Furbush in the eighth in what became a 3-0 defeat.
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Except for putting two runners aboard to start the eighth, which led to his only runs given up, Felix Hernandez’s first appearance of the season in front of the “Supreme Court” Friday night could not have gone more splendidly. Fernandez and the Mariners (6-3) weathered Oakland’s four-run, eighth-inning rally, won 6-4 and moved back into first place in the AL West by a half game over the A’s (6-4).
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Without playing a game Thursday, the Mariners (5-3) fell out of a first-place tie in the AL West with the Oakland Athletics (6-3), who hammered the Minnesota Twins 6-1 before departing Minneapolis for Seattle, where they will engage the Mariners in a three-game, weekend series at Safeco Field. The Mariners would have retained a share of first had they defeated the L.A. Angels Wednesday night.
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The Mariners have trotted out many marketing slogans over the years ranging from the memorable -- “Refuse To “Lose” (1995), “You Gotta Love These Guys” (1996-98) and “Sodo Mojo” (2001); to the barely passable – “A New Day, A New Way” (2009), “Believe Big” (2010) and ‘True To The Blue” (2014). Although not an official slogan, a catchphrase from 2001 – “Two Outs, So What!” – seemed a perfect fit for a club that, during the regular season, could do little wrong.
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Had the Mariners won Sunday in Oakland, they would have completed their first 5-1 road trip since 2011 when the club twice (April 26-May 1 at Detroit and Boston and May 20-25 at San Diego and Minnesota) enjoyed such a junket. But Erasmo Ramirez squandered a 3-0 lead by allowing a three-run homer to Brandon Moss in the third inning and the Mariners couldn’t recover against Sonny Gray and three relievers and lost 6-3, finishing the season-opening trip 4-2.
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During an interview on KJR-AM 950 Thursday, Roots Sports baseball analyst Bill Krueger offered the view that a major key to the Mariners’ season would be the ability of the bullpen’s right-handed set-up men – Tom Wilhelmsen, Danny Farquhar, Yoervis Medina and Hector Noesi -- to throw effective strikes. Sure enough, Wilhelmsen and Noesi proved Krueger an oracle of distinction several hours after his radio appearance.
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Baseball’s voluminous archives, digital and print, are skimpy on details regarding the brief career of Dave Meadow “Boo” Ferris, who toiled for the Boston Red Sox for a half a decade following World War II prior to a long stint as head coach at Mississippi State. But we do know that Boo Ferris set one record of note that stood until 2008. In 1945, Ferris began his career with 22 consecutive scoreless innings en route to a 21-10, 2.96 rookie season.
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The Mariners opened a season with a pair of road victories just three times in 38 years, but the first two times it happened, the season immediately went south. In 2011, Seattle launched with 6-2 and 5-2 wins at Oakland, then lost seven in a row en route to a 67-95 finish. So fans may want to temper any giddiness.
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One year ago, with Eric Wedge orchestrating matters before he stink-bombed his way out of town, the Mariners had two starting pitchers – Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma – finish in the top 10 in Cy Young voting, collaborating for a 26-16 record and 2.84 ERA, the lowest combined ERA by a pair of starting pitchers in franchise history.
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When the Mariners wound up 2013 spring training with a 22-11 record and a Cactus League-record 58 home runs, hopes ran high among local hardball fans that the positive momentum would sustain into the regular season. It didn't, of course. The Mariners went 12-17 in April en route to a final mark of 71-91, their sixth season in a decade with 90-plus losses.
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Five-time Pro Bowl defensive end Jared Allen has spurned the salary-cap challenged Seahawks and signed a four-year contract with the Chicago Bears. According to NFL.com's Ian Rapoport, the Bears will pay Allen $32 million in a deal that voids down to three years and $24 million, of which $15.5 million is fully guaranteed. The likelihood is that this will turn into a two-year deal.
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After free agent DE Jared Allen finished his second bargaining session with the Seahawks late last week and left town without a contract, his agent, Ken Harris, said Allen would mull over Seattle's offer during the weekend and then make his decision. But the weekend came and went no word has come from Allen or Harris, a subject coach Pete Carroll addressed Monday during an interview on Sirius XM Radio.
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Major League Soccer Friday handed down a two-game suspension and fined Sounders midfielder Clint Dempsey an undisclosed amount for striking Toronto FC defender Mark Bloom in the groin in Saturday's match at CenturyLink Field. Dempsey will miss the game Saturday at Montreal and the March 29 meeting with the Columbus Crew. He will be eligible to return April 5 when the Sounders play at Portland.
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Nearly 30 years ago, relief pitcher Rich (Goose) Gossage (a Mariner in 1994) agreed to donate $25,000 to charity and issue a public apology in order to escape a more serious fine for numerous acts of insubordination while a member of the San Diego Padres. One of Gossage’s main transgressions: He accused Mrs. Ray Kroc, widow of the former team owner, who also founded McDonald’s, of “poisoning the world with her hamburgers.”
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In the week that has elapsed since the NFL’s free-agency signing period began, many Seahawks fans have caterwauled over one defection after another -- WR Golden Tate to Detroit (5 years, $31 million), RT Breno Giacomini to the Jets (4 years, $18.5 million), DEs Red Bryant (4 years, $17 million) and Chris Clemons (4 years, $17.5 million) to Jacksonville, among others – with virtually nothing coming back.
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To take the sting out of last year’s late-season lameness and better prepare for a run at the MLS Cup, the Sounders junked half of their roster over the winter, importing 14 new players of various ages and experience. In the opener, one of the least-publicized imports, Chad Barrett, roused 39,240 scarf wavers in his first match with a 94th-minute goal that beat defending league champion Sporting Kansas City 1-0.
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Three days after the fact, Golden Tate is still being excoriated on social media for his decision to skip town and sign a five-year, $31 million contract with the Detroit Lions that includes $13.25 million in guaranteed money. Perhaps if Tate hadn’t gone on record in early February (KJR-AM interview) as saying he did not want to play in a “crappy” city for a “crap” team, the negative comments directed at him would not be so strident.
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