Hisashi Iwakuma threw the fourth individual no-hitter in Mariners history Wednesday at Safeco Field, blanking the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 in front of 25,661.
Author: Steve Rudman
Steve Rudman
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.
Jamie Moyer never won a Cy Young or any other major on-field award, but he is an all-time ace off the diamond, sweeping all awards for community service and philanthropy.
The Seahawks have assembled an all-star team good enough for more Super Bowl runs. But their commitment to 11 players will come at a cost difficult to manage.
Randy Johnson views his 10-year tenure with the Mariners as an “apprenticeship” that prepared him to become a Hall of Famer. He will be inducted in Cooperstown Sunday.
With a half-season to go, the Mariners are the worst team in 46 years hitting with runners in scoring position. With any kind of bad luck at all, they can become the worst in MLB history.
Seattle’s 1989 attempt to acquire an NHL franchise provides an object lesson on why it has been so difficult for the city to become a league market.
By his own admission, Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon stays awake at night wondering what to do about his mystifying and under-performing ball club.
Few pitchers in Mariners history endured a meltdown like the one Felix Hernandez had Friday night in Houston, when he recorded only one out in a 10-0 loss.
Never in the designated-hitter era (since 1973) has a team played 13 consecutive games while scoring three or fewer runs. The Mariners could become the first Tuesday night.
Acquired by the Mariners Wednesday in a six-player deal, Mark Trumbo won’t hurt the club, but he doesn’t bring to it what they need: A hitter who consistently gets on base.