Mariners: How much worse can it get?
Words just can't describe how bad the '08 season has become...

I've included waaay too much baseball stuff in my blog as of late, so I've really tried to cut back in that department. I don't wanna be a one-trick pony, after all. But here, I've written about the Seattle Mariners once again. A team that has no tricks...

Remember that sickening feeling when you got called to go to the Principal's office? Or how about that impending feeling of doom when you, as a child, had done something really, really bad, and you knew that some corporal punishment was headed your way? Or, you were called in for a "staff meeting" at work, and when you got there, you were the only staff member present? (That one happened to me.) Or how about the feeling that had been building inside you all day, when you know that on your way home from school, 20 or 30 kids were waiting to beat you up? (That happened to me A LOT.) Or, just think about any embarrassing, intimidating thing that happened to you, and that pit you had burning in your stomach, cos YOU WERE GONNA GET IT!!!

THAT is what the 2008 season has become for fans (if there are any left) of the Seattle Mariners. I quit counting, but I think they're lost 7 or 8 straight on this latest road trip (where they're playing really, Really good teams), and this season sucks harder than a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner in Overdrive. Kinda like that "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot referred to so many years ago. In yesterday's game, Seattle put its best, most effective pitcher on display (Felix Hernandez) and were shut out 5 to 0. So today, the M's used soft-throwing knuckleballer R.A. Dickey against the explosive White Sox offense, which makes about as much sense as throwing a lighted match in your gas tank. KA-BOOM!!! 15-3 was the final score. Hint: The Mariners didn't tally the "15 runs".

I frequently visit the fans' blog over at the Seattle Post Newspaper, because I'm trying to learn more about the Workings of Baseball. Spoken of there are things like arbitration, waivers, on-base-percentages, first-ball-hitting-percentages on a clear day where you can see forever, and all the other technical stuff that fans who are more schooled than I toss about in trying to analyze to the "nth detail" just why this season is so bad, and what M's management shoulda done, and on and on and so forth and yadda-yadda-yadda...I only know that "hey, folks, it ain't working", and the bad feelings are real, palpable, unforgettable, pervasive and omnipresent. All you have to do is watch a Mariners' ballgame. The team is flat, uncompetitive, not patient at the plate at all...swinging at just about every bad first-pitch in every at-bat...

Ichiro, for one, is Spending His Best Years In Seattle. That's almost gotta feel like Life without Parole at San Quentin, one of the oldest, creakiest, most decayed, alienating places on Planet Earth. Raul Ibanez is having a GREAT year for Seattle. Trouble is, we can't clone "Rauuuuul". There has to be some harmony, some collective purpose, some direction and SOME INTELLIGENT MANAGEMENT, or the team will tank faster than the R.M.S. Titanic, which ripped in two, with each half shooting towards the forever-lightless pit of the Deep Atlantic Ocean, plummeting so rapidly through a mile of water, that it plowed into the Ocean Bottom with great force, and the M's are falling just about as fast. A team full of Baseball Wreckage. If the M's were a Catholic-oriented team, this year would be the classic definition of Baseball Purgatory. Not even the Pope could be in a forgiving mood.

If the M's can't win 47% of their remaining games, they will have LOST 100 games this season. Look, I know the M's Will Never Be In The World Series. We all know that, okay? How about, though, if the M's were COMPETITIVE? I could write a million or more words on everything that's gone wrong simultaneously this season for the M's, but I don't have the energy to type that much tonight. Let's just say this year is bad, Bad, BAD. I have never seen a team "grind it out" in such a lackluster manner as this season's M's. This year has been Awful. Totally AWFUL. How bad? Well, this little item caught my eye; it's from a blog called "The Sports Hernia"...

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Desperate Ichiro Tries To Escape

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Of course, Ichiro never really tried to escape. Not yet, anyway. He's got a huge contract, after all. But don't tell me the thought hasn't at least crossed his mind a few times. This year's M's, though, could be featured in one of those "want to get away?" commercials...