I wish there was the equivalent of an air quality index meter for this sort of thing. Or maybe something like an antigen test. But there is no plausible marker to measure what's happening. So in the absence of a quantifier, I'm going to give it at least an identifier.

The Foghorn Leghorn Seattle Sports Week: A Set of the Most Unheard of Things I've Ever Heard Of.

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The first intrusion of COVID-19 into the Mariners' 60-game schedule is up to three games. MLB announced Tuesday morning that the final game Thursday in a three-game series at T-Mobile Park with the Oakland A's was postponed, as were the first two Tuesday and Wednesday, because of a positive test among the A's while the team was in Houston.

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Update: The Mariners' home games Tuesday and Wednesday against Oakland have been postponed to allow for more testing following a positive test among the A's while in Houston. Makeup dates have yet to be released.

In a bid to get younger, baseball's youngest team, the Seattle Mariners, Sunday night swapped three veterans 27 or older -- C Austin Nola, 30, and relief pitchers Austin Adams, 28, who hasn't pitched in 11 months, Dan Altavilla, 27, who has pitched poorly -- for four prospects 26 or under from San Diego.

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The Seahawks staged a mock game Wednesday at the otherwise-empty Clink, which was football-useful but utterly irrelevant culturally. Another unarmed Black man in America had been gunned down by police, this time in Kenosha, WI. The Seahawks joined others in the sports world furious about another atrocity -- Jacob Blake, 29, was shot seven times in the back, in front of his three children.

Coach Pete Carroll was among the outraged.

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The temptation is strong to see rookie outfielder Kyle Lewis, 25, as the Mariners' successor to Edgar Martinez or Ken Griffey Jr. As longtime broadcaster Rick Rizzs said during one of Lewis's at-bats Sunday, “He is Mr. Everything.’’

Brought up to the majors last year in September, Lewis homered in his first three games and had six homers in the 18 he played. This season, still his rookie year, he leads the Mariners with a .368 batting average, seven home runs, 39 hits, a .456 OBP, and is second in RBIs (19).

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Since studhoss Clayton Kershaw was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday, it seemed like a good time to head to T-ball Park for a couple of temperature checks, answer some questions about my health, and to see what condition the Mariners were in, especially since this weekend marks the seasonal midpoint in VirusWorldBall.

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Woeful as the Mariners are in this stubby season, woeful as they traditionally have been, they have met the standard to be termed a civic asset: Many people care.

While it's also true that many people cared about the old Dog House restaurant in Belltown ("tenderness not guaranteed" was printed right on the menu, winning me over), no one was there to save that epicurean monument to gravy as a meal-repair tool.

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John Fogerty's Centerfield is as ubiquitous and celebratory a song as there is in the audio armory of sports-venue music. It was the first thing up Friday on T-Mobile Park's video screen as the Mariners tried to navigate a home-opening "ceremony" in the bizarro-world of operating big-league sports in the middle of a bigger-league global catastrophe.

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If you've watched some telecasts of games in MLB's stubby start-up season, you may have seen something you didn't expect.  High-fives. Hugs. Spitting. Close contact.

You know, like it was in the before days, when baseball players celebrated all over each other as if style points were available whenever a teammate did something more than foul a ball off his instep.

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Before the opening game of the 2020 irregular season Friday in Houston, Scott Servais sounded more like he was at the end of something instead of the beginning.

"I wasn't sure," the Mariners manager said, "we'd ever get here."

The major league baseball season, in jeopardy since mid-March not only by a pandemic but by the industry's penchant to self-destruct over money, finally lurched to its feet this week. But the degree of difficulty left Servais a little drawn.

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Much has been said about the pending weirdness of a Major League Baseball season missing 102 games and devoid of spectators, yet filled with nearly as many hygiene rules as a hospital surgery unit.

All true. But in the before days (pre-pandemic), does anyone remember 2019?

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One of the more intriguing Mariners personnel developments in 2020 is that the likely lineup for the regular-season opener Friday in Houston will include rookie Seattle draftees at three positions.

You may have known that 1B Evan White, 24, and CF Kyle Lewis, 25 last week, were high draft picks who came with high expectations. But Tim Lopes in left field?

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From a summer sports perspective, about the only sliver of virtue accruing from the coronavirus shutdown is that Seattle would be spared the onslaught of Canadian fans pouring in for the annual visit of the Toronto Blue Jays. Besides cheering for the national team, they had a secondary goal of rendering inert all those stereotypes of Canadians being polite, courteous and deferential.

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The coronavirus, always in the lead, is beginning to put distance between its relentless self and the local and national sports sensibilities.

The highlight event of the Seattle sports calendar in September, the visit of the Michigan Wolverines and coach Jim Harbaugh to Husky Stadium for a season-opening game Sept. 5 against Washington, was cancelled Thursday.

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Given what the Mariners organization wants out of its pitchers, the words of Emerson Hancock must sound like poetry.

“I didn’t like walking people,’’ he said after a recent practice at T-Mobile Park. “Growing up, playing travel ball or playing in high school, my mentality was always just go right after people, attack."

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For what it's worth, the Mariners have been told they are booked to start their 60-game schedule of a most irregular season at 6:10 p.m. PT Friday, July 24 against the defending American League champion Astros in Houston, a city whose area hospitals nearly have reached capacity with the overload of coronavirus cases.

By July 24, maybe covid-19 will have disappeared by then, you know, like a miracle.

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Summer camp was as stilted as spring training was casual. Nobody wanted to catch viral cooties, but what's a batting cage for but to hang out, shoulder to shoulder? How can you tell if your clubhouse prank worked if you can't see a whole face full of anguish? And where's the party if there's no condo pool?

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The Mariners are open for the business of baseball training in Seattle Wednesday. Tuesday in Tacoma and Everett, baseball was closed for the season.

News of the fate of the the Mariners' Class AAA affiliate to the south and the Class A affiliate to the north was no surprise. It is hard is to play baseball without players.

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Puke and all, American sports fans will welcome back Major League Baseball.

Always have. Owners are betting fans always will be there -- even when they aren't permitted to attend in person. The belief has been supported by two bedrock truths:

Fans are suckers.

Owners are monopoly operators.

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In a time when no competitions were staged by America's most popular sports, a whole lot of sports is being watched -- through an entirely different prism.

Much of the industry is now inextricably intertwined with the racial politics of a polarized nation under an administration that seeks to keep it that way. The tension is as thick as it is unavoidable.

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