by | July 28, 2013 · 5:00 pm

Rebuilding the Mariners: A New Attitude

My sixth grade baseball team was a juggernaut.  We had been solid all through little league, always near the top of the league.  Now, in our final season of “major league” ball before heading to the world of middle school baseball, we had matured into a talented and powerful group.  With the added benefit of getting to play weak fifth grade teams, we were ready for a special year.

We opened with the traditional jamboree, where each team plays a couple of innings before rotating to a new opponent.  To start the season, our lead-off hitter, Ryan Cullier, stepped to the plate.  A sturdy first baseman with a good eye and a smooth lefty swing, Ryan immediately put a fastball over the fence and off a car, and we immediately knew this was our year. Continue reading →

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by | July 28, 2013 · 1:39 pm

Husky Stadium: Why It’s Loud

In the next month, the Washington Huskies will begin practicing and eventually move into their newly renovated Husky Stadium.  Over this same time period, we will be writing a few posts about Husky Stadium.  Some will be on the technical side of the stadium and some with be based on opinion.  We hope you enjoy!

Seattle is known as a pretty passive city.  We drink our coffee and read our books.  We are usually pretty friendly on the freeway even when traffic is bad.  But, if you take some of our citizens to a football stadium you won’t know what happened.  Maybe it’s the all of the energy from the coffee?  Or perhaps it’s the pent-up anger from rush hour traffic.  Whatever it is, Seattle is known for loud football stadiums.  The Clink has been a house of horrors for opposing football teams and Husky Stadium has traditionally been among the loudest football stadiums in college football.

As much as Washingtonians would like to take all of the credit for the sheer volume, we can’t.  Husky Stadium (and the Clink, for that matter) are designed to bring out the noise.  In this post, I’ll be looking at how the stadium brings out the noise that the fan’s make.

The Design

Husky Stadium - North and West Side

Husky Stadium – North and West Side

I remember driving over the 520 bridge when I was young and my dad pointing out Husky Stadium to me.  He described it as a Z.  I didn’t know at the time, but this was a big reason as to why my ears would ring for hours after a game.

As you can see in the picture above, Husky Stadium is made up of two levels (not counting the east and west end zone).  The first level rises at a 30-40 degree angle (it might be even less of an angle than that, and it’s not nearly as steep as the second level).  Above that first level there is an overhang.  The overhang doesn’t cover much of that first level but it does create a bit of a roof.  When you want to make noise, roofs of any kind are good.  If you were to sit under that overhang and turn around, facing away from the field, and throw a tennis ball with enough velocity it should bounce off the back wall and come right back to you.  Sound waves exactly the same.  If you yell loud enough into the back wall the sound wave would bounce right back.

It’s the same if you were facing the field and yelled straight ahead (not tilting your head at all).  While some of the sound would be taken up with the evaporating air, a good share of it will go straight ahead, hit the overhang on the other side and then come back.  Most of the time (for various reasons) the sound will hit the other side and angle down toward the field.  While this alone brings a good amount of noise, the upper deck is where most of the noise comes from.

The upper deck, as I’ve mentioned and you can see, is at a much steeper angle.  The upper deck seats a few more people than it’s lower counterpart, as well.  With the steeper angle you have more people facing down and directing their sound waves directly at the playing field.  This already helps the cause.

The roofs on each side are a bit longer than the overhang on the lower level and they cover almost all of the upper deck.  The reason that domes are louder than outdoor stadiums is because none of the sound escapes.  These roofs act the same.  Even better, the roofs are lower than a dome would be.  Just like the sound reflection and bouncing on the overhang works, it works from the upper deck as well.  If you were to sit about halfway up the upper deck and yell straight down at the field, it would hit the field and then bounce up.  The bounce would send the sound wave up to the other roof and back down to the stadium again. This process would repeat until the wave eventually died.  No, one person can’t make all of these sound reflections happen but 100 could.  10,000 especially could.

While some sound will definitely escape into the dense Seattle air, the stadium is properly angled to keep much of the sound in.  That’s not the only benefit the stadium has.

The Steel

When working in a recording studio, you learn about what deadens sound.  If you’re listening back to some tracks that were just recorded, you want to hear exactly what the speakers are putting out and don’t want to hear any reflections the sound makes.  You carpet the floors, you put things over the walls (a carpet material), you widen the room towards the back and you tell people to shut up.  It’s the opposite in a football stadium.

Continue reading →

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by | July 23, 2013 · 11:57 pm

Mariners Kick This Year’s Slogan To The Curb

In March (or February or whenever it happened), the Mariners announced the slogan for their upcoming 2013 campaign.  Ever since the “Believe Big” catastrophe of 2010, each year’s slogan had become a source of ridicule; a target for Mariner fans to throw their sarcastic darts at.  If there’s one thing the last decade has taught us Mariner fans it’s how to make passive-aggressive, sarcastic comments about the team.  So, anticipation for this year’s slogan was, err… umm, high.  Then it was here:

“True to the blue”

What?  Maybe if I read it again.

“True to the blue”

Yes, that really clears it up.  Since ‘Believing Big’ the team’s slogans had become more and more vague and less and less challenging of team’s play.  2011 brought ‘Ready to Play’ (Chone Figgins didn’t get the memo) and 2012 brought ‘Get After It’ (although ‘Let’s not kid ourselves’ was a champion around the blogosphere).  In 2013 they clearly were just trying to make a sentence that no one really understood.

Photo Credit - Dean Rutz

Photo Credit – Dean Rutz

Then, the season started.  Our M’s hovered around .500 early in the season.  Then they had to go to Cleveland.  Ichiro’s own personal Hell was where the season came completely unraveled.  The Mariners were never to even peak at .500 again.  They were running out lineups with Endy Chavez, Jason Bay, and Raul Ibanez in the outfield.  At times the infield would run out Robert Andino, Brendan Ryan and Michael Morse.  I have nothing against any of these players, well except Andino, but they weren’t the future that we were promised as fans.  Yes, the minor leagues looked bright but the Tacoma Rainiers can’t win a World Series.  It felt like the fans and the organization were stuck in a tunnel during road construction.  We’d eventually get through construction, but there was no guarantee that the sun would be out when we hit the open road. 

That’s when it clicked.  These Mariners were true to the blue.  They were true to the same navy blue and northwest green that I had watched for the last decade.  The Mariners sucked because that’s who they are.

That was before the season changed.   Continue reading →

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by | July 21, 2013 · 8:23 pm

Rebuilding the Mariners: Looking Back

In 2001, the Mariners won a record 116 games.  In 2002 and 2003, they won 93 games, narrowly missing the playoffs.  In 2004, they won 63 games.  That four year drop, from a record amount of wins to being nearly the worst team in the league, set the stage for the losing decade to come.  Since, they’ve had two winning seasons, while the others have been well below .500, including two 61-win seasons.  

In 2001, most of the Mariners’ future Hall of Famers were gone.  They still had Edgar and Jamie Moyer at his prime.  2001 also brought Ichiro, one of the great transformative forces to hit the majors in recent memory.  Add in one of the best second baseman seasons ever by Brett Boone and career years for most of the roster, and it was a fairy tale year, at least until the conference championship.

2002 didn’t bring any significant roster changes, which was probably a mistake.  The team surely felt that they had a juggernaut capable of another 100 win season, but in reality they had an aging team coming off a miracle season.  They still had a huge amount of talent, as evidenced by the 93 wins in 2002 and 2003, but the veterans were getting older with little young talent to replace them. By the end of 2003, it was becoming clear that reinforcements were needed, and when none were made in the offseason, the 2004 squad fell apart.

Looking back, there are clear factors in the demise of the Mariners.   Continue reading →

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by | July 20, 2013 · 11:00 am

Rebuilding the Mariners

The Mariners are not a storied franchise.  Outside of about a decade, they’ve been consistently terrible.  If one wishes to hold a pessimistic view, one might say that it took  five Hall of Famers to make any kind of difference, and it still wasn’t enough to take them to the World Series.

None of this is news to Mariner fans.  Losing is difficult to miss.  The last decade has been disheartening and pathetic, the only bright spots two winning but mediocre season and the brilliance of Ichiro and Felix Hernandez.  Not a lot more can be said of the last ten seasons of Mariner baseball.  There are moments, of course, like the combined no-hitter and every Brendan Ryan double play, and personal favorites like Bucky Jacobson or Adrian Beltre and his idiosyncracies.  There is certainly no winning, though.

There still isn’t much winning, but all of a sudden the Mariners are interesting, for the first time since about 2003.  The young talent is finally showing results, not just potential, and the team looks like it might be close to the proverbial corner.  Whether they can turn it, and how far toward success it will actually lead them, remains to be seen, but there is as much reason for hope as Mariner fans have seen in a long time.

It feels like a crossroads, so I want to take time to look both back and forward.  The past decade has been well-chronicled, but I think it’s worth looking to see how the Mariners reached this point, both the good and the bad.  It’s easy to forget everything that’s happened, and what some of the circumstances were that led to decisions and changes.  I think it also helps fans get a bearing on what might be reasonable to expect from the current squad, from players to management.

The future is tied to what this team is now and where it still needs to go.  The last few years should have taught us to never assume we know how young players will progress, but we’re hopefully gaining a little clarity on what has been a murk of a roster.

So, all that to say that I’ll have three posts coming in the next week or so.  One on the past decade, one on the present, and one on the future.  I’d love to get some conversation going in the comments.  Hopefully all the fans out there are still holding onto enough hope to see the promise of this team and to enjoy the good moments.  And hopefully the team keeps winning at least until I finish this series!

Go Mariners!  Believe big!

-Matthew

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by | July 17, 2013 · 10:22 pm

These Aren’t Your Older Cousin’s Mariners

Younger Cousin:  “Hey man, have you been keeping track of the Mariners lately?  It seems like they might have finally turned the corner.”

Older Cousin:  “Yeah yeah, I’ve heard that at least once every year since 2003.  Aside from a little luck in ’95 and a crazy 2001, us old-time Mariner fans have heard this every year since 1977.”

YC:  “You were born in 1985… Also, do you read much about this team?  Watch any games?  The team is based around a young core who is actually playing well.  It seems like Jack Z’s process is actually coming together.”

OC:  “We’ve heard that about prospects for the last 10 years.  Have any of these players, Felix aside, been here for more than 5 years?  Much less, have any of them succeeded?  Face it, little cuz, this team will always be in the bottom.”

YC:  “5 years ago, we were coming off one of the worst trades in franchise history.  We lost our top prospects for a pitcher who couldn’t stay healthy.  We had just finished running out Jose Vidro as an everyday DH.  Sure, Yuni got fat, Jose Lopez got braces and it turned out that Jeremy Reed was bad but what other young players did we run out?  Their wasn’t any talent.  Now look!  Justin Smoak is a good everyday first baseman.  Kyle Seager is a star.  Brad Miller and Nick Franklin are hitting, walking and playing defense.  All of those guys are under contract until at least 2017.  The future is even more exciting than the present and the present has our hometown nine going 8-5 against 4 of the hottest teams in baseball.”

OC:  “They are all on hot streaks.  Seriously?  We’re still trying to talk ourselves into Justin Smoak?  That is so Mariners.”

YC:  “That’s the thing, they aren’t all on hot streaks.  Mike Zunino and Dustin Ackley still aren’t playing near their potential.  Sure, they are showing signs of progress but I don’t call hitting under .230 a hot streak.  As for Smoak, I’m not trying to talk myself in anymore.  I’ve bought in.  He’s been good for almost a calendar year now.  Sure, he had a rough April but most players have a bit of a rough stretch.  Shouldn’t we be encouraged that he worked his way out of it?  Kyle Seager has been good for 2 years, I don’t call that a hot streak.  Maybe Nick Franklin or Brad Miller flame out, but they aren’t showing any signs of that right now.  They aren’t just hitting, they’re walking and playing defense at prime positions.  Even Zunino and Ackley seem to be getting on base once a game and are showing definite progress.  If one of the other guys struggles, another player picks up the slack.  We haven’t even gotten to Michael Saunders yet.  It seems like he’s turning it around again and becoming a quality player.”

OC:  “Yeah, but…”

YC:  “I wasn’t finished.  Shannon Drayer made the point the other day that the Mariners aren’t riding one player during the last few weeks.  Yes, Ibanez is hitting quite a few dingers.  That’s what he’s supposed to do.  Kendrys has had a few good games but he’s hitting below or right at most of his career averages.  All the young guys are playing right about where you’d expect, or want, them to.  Smoak isn’t hitting .400 with a dinger every day.  He’s hitting consistently for a month as a good first baseman.  The young guys are carrying this team and they aren’t going anywhere.”

OC:  “Well, the rotation sucks still…”

YC:  “Aaron Harang is bad.  Yes.  He won’t be here next year, or maybe even in 2 weeks.  Joe Saunders has been better as of late.  Erasmo struggled his first time up but he’s been good for a year in major league baseball.  If he can stay healthy, he’s a great 4th starter.  We have Taijuan Walker tearing up Tacoma and he should be ready next year.  If Hultzen can get healthy, he could be in the rotation by the middle of August.  Paxton and Maurer could be solid rotation guys.  I haven’t even gotten to the lower minors guys.  Pitching help is on the way, just like the position players were.”

OC:  “Okay.  They still suck.  They are still the Mariners.”

YC:  “Did I mention that they could have about 40 million dollars to spend in the off-season?  An outfielder, hopefully named Choo, another starting pitcher, this team is finally in place to add quality pieces instead of trying to fill gaps.  For once, the promise finally looks to be reality.”

OC:  “I’m still not buying it.  Did I mention that I’ve been following the Red Sox lately?”

YC:  “Oh.  See you later!”

– Andrew

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by | July 14, 2013 · 12:48 pm

48 Days

Husky Stadium

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 31st. Boise State. Husky Stadium.

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by | July 7, 2013 · 11:26 pm

Pac-12 Alumni Teams – USC, Utah, UW, WSU

Last week, I started our quest to predict a Pac-12 alumni basketball tournament winner.  In case you missed it, I’m taking 10-12 of the best alumni each Pac-12 schools have and placing them on a hypothetical basketball team.  These teams would be playing today, so there aren’t  any old legends in them.  Most of the players I’m placing on the teams are playing professionally somewhere.

Today, we are assembling the last four alumni teams (I’ve gone in alphabetical order).  After this, the fun will begin and we’ll start our hypothetical tournament.  So, let’s get to the teams.

Utah:

C Andrew Bogut – Bogut was drafted in 2005 as the number one pick.  He is the last Ute to be drafted into the NBA.
G Andre Miller – Miller was drafted in 1999 and is still in the league.  Bogut and Miller are the only Utes still in the NBA.
F Britton Johnsen – Johnsen retired about 2 years ago after playing a few years in the NBA and overseas.  He is still only 33 and currently runs basketball camps.
F/C Hanno Mottola – Mottola is 36 but is still playing in a Finnish league.  He spent a few years in the NBA before going overseas.
G Carlon Brown – Only in a hypothetical tournament can you have a guy play for two teams! Brown also attended Colorado (he was a Ute longer).  Brown is currently in the D-league.
G Luka Drca – I still have to find four more guys.  Luka graduated from Utah in 2010 and now plays for  a Serbian professional basketball team.  All of these countries have basketball.
G/F Will Clyburn – I found another transfer! Clyburn had a good junior season at Utah, with 17 points/game.  Clyburn just signed with Sacramento as an undrafted free agent.  He’s probably the 4th best player on this team…
G Josh Watkins – Watkins was kicked off the team in 2012 while leading them in scoring.  There is no way the school would invite most of these guys back.  Not that it will matter as far as them winning games.
C Jason Washburn – Washburn graduated this year after a successful career at Utah.  He’s hoping to sign with an NBA team for summer leagues but hasn’t as of the time I published this.
C Luke Nevill – Nevill brings another huge guy to this Utah roster. Nevill currently plays for the Townsville Crocodiles in Australia (Australia and the NBA D-League are battling it out for best mascots).

Utah overview:  Aside from having 5 guys that are almost 7 foot (or over 7 foot), Utah is not good.  There aren’t many scorers here and, aside from Bogut and Miller, the talent is really lacking.

USC:

F Nikola Vucevic – Vucevic was drafted in 2011 and played for Orlando last year.
G O.J. Mayo – Mayo was drafted in 2008 and played for Dallas last season.
G DeMar DeRozan – DeRozan was drafted in 2009 and played in Toronto last year.
F Taj Gibson – Gibson was also drafted in 2009 and played in Chicago last season.
G/F Nick Young – Young was drafted in 2007 and is currently a free agent in the NBA.
F Brian Scalabrine – Scalabrine is the veteran of the group (35).  He retired from the NBA in 2012
G Desmon Farmer – Farmer finished at USC in 2004 and has bounced around since then.  He played for the Reno Bighorns last year (D-League).
G Gabe Pruitt – Pruitt was drafted in 2007 but has been in the D-League since.  In the past year he decided to go overseas and play in Greece.
G Jio Fontan – Jio graduated this year.  He went undrafted but is hoping to sign somewhere.
G Dwight Lewis – Lewis now plays in Spain after finishing at USC in 2010.
C Alex Stepheson – Stepheson finished at USC in 2011 and now plays in Europe.  This USC team was in need of a center and Stepheson fills that role.

USC Overview:  USC is sneaky good.  They have a lot of guys who can score and six guys in the NBA.  All the other guys play professionally somewhere else.  They have a lot of long, athletic guards and a few good post players.  This team will be a tough out.

Washington:

G Nate Robinson – Nate was drafted in 2005.  He played in Chicago last year and is currently a free agent. 
G Isaiah Thomas – I.T. was drafted in 2011 and has played in Sacramento the last few years.
G Tony Wroten – Wroten was drafted in 2012 and played in the NBA and the D-League last year.
F Terrance Ross – Ross was also drafted last year and plays for Toronto.  
C Spencer Hawes – Hawes was drafted in 2007 and currently plays for the 76ers. 
F/C Jon Brockman – Brockman played for a few different teams in the NBA before playing overseas last year.  He is currently playing for the New Orleans summer team.  He was drafted in 2009. 
G Will Conroy – Conroy finished at UW in 2005 and has hopped between the D-League and the NBA ever since.
G Justin Dentmon – Dentmon, like Conroy, has hopped between the D-League and the NBA since he finished at UW in 2009.
F Quincy Pondexter – Pondexter was drafted in 2010 and now plays for Memphis.
F Justin Holiday – Holiday graduated in 2011 and has played in the NBA and D-League ever since.
F Brandon Roy – While Roy has retired, and will coach the Huskies once Romar is done (you heard it here first), I believe that he would be one of the better players on the court if he only had to play a few games.  He was drafted in 2006. 
C Matthew Bryan-Amaning – MBA is the only guy on the team who hasn’t made it to the NBA.  He currently plays in Serbia after finishing at UW IN 2011.

UW Overview:

This team is as deep as anyone in the league.  They may not have as much star talent but there are plenty of scorers.  They have depth at every position.  It was hard to decide on the 12th guy because there are a few that could easily be on the team (Tre Simmons and Bobby Jones, most notably).

WSU:

F/G Klay Thompson – Thompson was drafted in 2011 and currently plays for the Golden State Warriors.
C Aron Baynes – Baynes finished at Wazzu in 2009 and played overseas before joining the Spurs this year.
G Kyle Weaver – Weaver was drafted in 2008 and now plays in the D-League.
F Brock Motum – Motum graduated this year and is playing with the 76ers during the summer league.
G Derrick Low – Low finished at WSU in 2008 and currently plays overseas.
G Taylor Rochestie – Rochestie (Joe’s favorite guy) finished school in 2009 and now plays in an Italian league.
F Ivory Clark – Clark currently plays in an Israeli league after finishing at WSU in 2007.
F DeAngelo Casto – Casto finished at Wazzu in 2011 and has played in Turkey and South Asia leagues since.
G Marcus Capers – Capers graduated in 2012 and now plays in Finland.
G Faisal Aden – Aden has played for a D-League team, Italian team, German team and signed a contract with a Belgium team (who he never played with) after finishing at Wazzu in 2012.

WSU Overview:

Wazzu has the star but the supporting cast isn’t the best.  There aren’t many guys in the NBA but they are all playing professionally somewhere and they are relatively young.  WSU isn’t the best team in the tournament but they could surprise some people.

The tournament starts soon!

Andrew

 

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