TOKYO — Wearing a pork-pie hat and high-water jeans, the hipster at baggage claim looked a little familiar, except he was just about alone. “Welcome to Japan,” I said. He smiled. “Let me welcome you to Japan,” he said. I beat Ichiro by an hour Friday, but he had me by 38 years and change
Author: Art Thiel
Art Thiel
Never having met a metaphor he could not twist beyond recognition, Art has been illuminating, agitating, amusing and annoying Puget Sound sports readers for a long time. Along with Steve Rudman, he co-founded Sports Press Northwest because it didnt seem right that the Google monster should aggregate daily journalism into oblivion without at least a flesh wound from somebody. Thiel and Rudman labored under the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe until the print edition died an undeserved death in March, 2009. Art continued on at its online successor seattlepi.com while working on SPNWs creation. His radio commentaries can be heard Friday and Saturday mornings and Friday afternoon on KPLU-FM 88.9. In 2003 he wrote the definitive book about the Seattle Mariners, Out of Left Field, which became a regional bestseller. In 2009, along with Rudman and KJR 950 afternoon host Mike Gastineau, Thiel authored The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a cross between historylink.org and Mad Magazine that has become mandatory reading for any sports fan who has an indoor bathroom. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University as well as two dead papers and a live one, the News Tribune of Tacoma, he has become a fan of entrepreneurial online journalism because it allows him to continue a lifelong passion to take the English language to places it rarely visits willingly, and does not involve the cleaning of kennels or stables.
At 20 years, the Mariners ownership is among MLB’s most enduring. But with age and divorce come change, and a shakeup may well impact directly Ichiro’s Seattle future.
It’s hard for a Seattle fan to be mad at someone who saved the franchise from leaving again. It’s also hard to warm to a mysterious figure who’s neither been seen here nor won here.
Huskies-Ducks rematch has potential for fun. But for intrigue, keep your eyes on Tony Wroten to see how his NIT games have changed — for the pros, not the Huskies.
Flynn seems an upgrade over Jackson, although the evidence is scant; there’s lots of quarterbacks in Seahawks and NFL history who fit into the great middle of QBs that are good, not great.
The effort and time the Sounders put into CCL play is all part of the ambition to be a world-class club, and it’s starts by being better than Mexico in North America.
Washington is the first regular-season champion of one of the “power six” conferences to fail to win an NCAA tourney bid; a lack of maturity brought them down.
For all the reasons that pursuing Peyton Manning can make sense for the Seahawks, there’s one football deal-breaker: The offensive line isn’t ready for him.
Would-be arena builder Chris Hansen casually explained to the Arena Review Panel that for the first time in modern civic history, private capital, not government, will drive this project.
Cal’s Jorge Gutierrez wins player of the year; Terrence Ross joins Wroten on all-conference team; Romar wins third COY honor in his 10 years at UW.