Sports Teams

I don't fully understand anyone's loyalty to any given sports team. The teams are always in a state of flux and there is no actual team...especially in the pros and a bit less so in colleges. It even happens in high schools,,,maybe not in grade schools...I don't know.

It's like Animal Farm...or a flip book. In a flip book, one makes subtle changes from page to page until the final rendition is completely different than the first. I once worked at a company called Imagine. There were many people working there who came from a company called Iridio. As time went by, there were changes made in company focus, client targets and attitude. I told the owners that if I had wanted to work at Iridio I would have gone there in the first place but I was not one of the owners and could only observe. I made a flip book. I started with the word, Imagine...and on each page, I made a very slight change to the letters...at the end, after fanning through the booklet, what was...Iridio. That was what was really happening to the company as well...but no one seemed to notice...or care.

In Animal Farm (which I haven't read for a long, long time and may be incorrect with the details), the hapless animals saw nearly indistinct changes, day by day..."Didn't that sign used to say...? Didn't the pigs used to live in the barnyard with us? Weren't there people in the house?" Without even being aware of it, the farm animals learned to accept an entirely new reality.

That's what the sports teams are all about. There are very few, lasting members of any team. There are trades made to make improvements all the time. ..or the players insist on moving on...The Seattle Mariners and Seahawks are a good example. The fans show up at the games, paying for tickets, hot dogs, beer, tee shirts and a variety of memorabilia. Nothing stays the same though. The teams don't have any of the same players and the fans keep coming. "Go Hawks! Go Mariners!"...but these are not the same people they rooted for just one season ago. You can't go off thinking Griffey, A-Rod, Paxton or The Big Unit are your Mariners. They're not. They're gone. It's the same with the Seahawks. Yet the rabid fans keep on keepin' on.

Why in the world do the local fans continue to support their team...the individual players...any of it? It's always in transition. There is no real team! Those players who moved to other teams...they return as opponents, sometimes on the same day they left.

Russel Wilson changed schools...as so many others have done. He'll go to a different pro team if the money doesn't work out in Seattle. There is zero loyalty from team ownership or management to players or fans....or from players to teams or fans...and yet the local fan base remains attached to the team. It simply makes no sense. There is no team!

The coaches and managers are no different. There's a revolving door in the offices and clubhouses of all pro and college organizations.

"Didn't that guy used to be our running back? Wasn't he our pitcher?" Go team!

Seattle Mariners New Announcer...Update

Update: Without regard to my comments below and with another year gone by...I really like the Mariners announcers. I think Rizzs and Goldsmith are just plain great. I only have access to radio broadcasts but I'm extremely pleased with experience.



 Okay...I listen to the Mariners on the radio and have many personal opinions about the announcing staff...

Many years ago, while living in Southern California for a while, I listened to Dick Enberg doing the Angels broadcasts. He was great! His sidekick was Dave Niehaus and I didn't like his gravelly voice and delivery at all. He just seemed...boring. (I was young at the time.) Then, after moving to Seattle so long ago, I was very disappointed to learn that Niehaus would be the Mariners' voice. After years of listening to him, Mr. Niehaus grew on me. While I never really adjusted to the gravelly voice or his un-Northwestern pronunciations of so many words...(for example, he always said "National" with a long "I" rather than a short "A".) In any case, I grew to appreciate all the nuances of Dave Niehaus and miss hearing him.

Then, along comes Rick Rizzs. Similar to my inability to embrace Dave Niehaus early on, I had great difficulty accepting Rick Rizzs. Even now, I take issue when he says things like, "Kerplunk". Also, he tends to shorten words to a single syllable. Somehow, he manages to turn the word, "scoring" into a single syllable. I don't know how he does that! There are many other words that are shortened and, even though I fully understand the meaning, it still bothers me when I hear such things. Also, he tends to speak for a long time during a sentence and takes a breath and pauses, mid-sentence, at the wrong time, before finishing a comment. It's very odd and totally alien to normal conversation!  Alas! After all these years, Mr. Rizzs has grown on me and the Mariners would not be the same without him. I am a fan for sure.

I do not like listening to Dave Simms....ever! His delivery is choppy and..."Southern California-ish". (This is not a good thing to be in the Northwest.)

I hate listening to Ron Fairly. He's the most boring speaker I've ever heard...anywhere. I do acknowledge that many of his stories of the past are very interesting but he should never be allowed to speak about a game in progress.

Mike Blowers needs to learn how to speak less nasally. If he can't adapt, he should not be on any broadcasts.

Ken Levine is the best!

Mike Blowers annoys me. I can't get over watching him swing for the fences for the last strikeout (against Boston?) some years ago. All he needed to do was hit the ball, not practically fall down while ending the game. (He seems to have never learned to hit the ball without swinging for the fences.)

Dave Henderson is great! I could listen to him all day long...even without a baseball game in progress.

Dan Wilson...I think I learn nuances of the game when I hear his comments and am in favor of having him on the broadcasts as often as possible.

I did listen to a few Youtubes of the new guy, Aaron Goldsmith. While I find it particularly offensive that the Mariners went ahead with all these "auditions" without input from me or (probably) any other fan, I'm not totally (yet) disappointed with the selection. Mr. Goldsmith seems to have a slight "S" issue in speaking whereby the "S's" are slurred a bit...becoming a "Sh" sound. In interviews he conducted, he did not over-speak and allowed the interviewees to express their opinions! (This is a wonderful thing. In listening to many, sports-radio broadcasts, the interviewer seems to use up all the time, framing the question with endless gibberish, leaving little (or no) time for a response.) It's also good that he (Mr. Goldsmith) doesn't have a soprano voice like so many other sports announcers have!

Okay...I'll get back to this, eh?

Slight addition...today is the Super Bowl. I turned on the television and there's Jim Nance! How in the world can a guy like that make it in that business? He can't pronounce the letter "L"! It makes no sense to me. If a person is in the business of speaking and has such an obvious (annoying) speech impediment, why is he on the air? I hate it!