Seattle Sports Insider

Dummy Weave Saturday

We asked yer, "HOW MUCH does a D-Line rotation help?" and reader Brent, rejoicing in the lack of Mariner implications in it, dumped an amazing bucket of refreshing Gatorade over his head:

When you are a 300+ pound defensive lineman, and you're basically doing a wind sprint impeded by a 300+ pound offensive lineman

He STOPS short

That's what it is! ... hey, my son played O-Line and D-Line, I've studied sports motions for years, etc etc, but it was never crystallized for me quite this way. One of the guys IS doing a wind sprint and the other is not only taking fewer steps, but has Physics Itself on his team (it's easier for anything to remain where it was than to get it moving).

And in one beautiful line, I understood why the defense gets tired. Even though I've played lotsa defense in lotsa sports, I never got this. That's a once-in-a-year aiki image there Brent, thanks kindly.

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Turnover Friday

Or Tell the Truth Tuesday, or whatever day it is for Pete Carroll. Cliches can work very well, you know. :- ) As far as the Green Bay game specifically: if the Seahawks went 15-1 this is the likeliest -1, correct. What a ripoff.

When it comes to Sheldon Richardson and "climbing the pocket" you almost wonder whether the Seahawks were thinking about, um, this game. Never saw any quarterback so good at single-step rush evasion. Whatever the term is for what Aaron Rodgers does.

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Friday Afternoon Frappuccino, 9.8.17

It doesn't seem that the human body was designed to make such a wonderfully aiki motion, does it? Your spinal cord and hips are quite a thing.

Aikido is all about centrifugal motion, as are other combat sports. An early heavyweight champ was asked why he was good; he replied "I put my hips into them punches." One aikido sensei pointed out that spiral power zooms out to the galaxy and in to microbiology. Still, aiki motions are mostly about grace and mobility, while the above baseball swing is more towards maximum energy.

ACTIVE THREADS BUTTON

... is under maintenance. We're workin' it. In the meantime please don't hesitate to take the long way through the comments threads. Beats workin' :- )

UNDERPERFORMANCE

DaddyO sez, among many other interesting things one cubicle over,

A muse. When is underperforming not underperforming? When a team underperforms so consistently for so many years that underperforming becomes the new performance base.

By the way DaddyO, best best wishes on peace and comfort in your health situation. You know my work website, email address, and all should you get interested in chat offline. Sure appreciate you -- and your visuals on watching the grandkids!

On the "musing," I'll see you and raise amigo. I wouldn't consider it "musing" but more towards "analyzing correctly" or even "stating the obvious." 25-30 years back, Bill James was musing from afar, It's no wonder the Seattle Mariners can't win --- > in view of the fact that the city only has them through a lawsuit.

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John Lennon In His Own Write

We've no doubt got our share of Denizens who get this reference. :- )

Back in 1964 there weren't many people who realized that Lennon was a thinker. The Alfred E. Neumann-esque photo above didn't help a lot. His little collection of poems and lyrics and whatnot came across as nonsensical or worse. A few years on, a fairly sizable group of people began to suspect the reality, that John Lennon had a few things to say.

His book had verses like this one:

“I was bored on the 9th of Octover 1940 when, I believe, the Nasties were still booming us led by Madolf Heatlump (who only had one). Anyway they didn't get me. I attended to varicous schools in Liddypol. And still didn't pass -- much to my Aunties supplies. As a member of the most publified Beatles my (P, G, and R's) records might seem funnier to some of you than this book, but as far as I'm conceived this correction of short writty is the most wonderfoul larf I've every ready."

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Riffing Off DaddyO

Do you think when the 22-year old Steve Martin sat down and logged all those painful hours, learning how to play crack banjo, that he set out planning to use the skill as ... a self-parody? Now you know how Dr. D feels about his writing skills.

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DaddyO speaks. Dr. D annotates after, so as not to spoil the fine bouquet.

Hey, do they use the term "postmortem" in fields other than chess? There's a rule of polite society over the board, that after the game you go to the skittles room to discuss and analyze - win, lose, or draw. It's easily my least-favorite rule of etiquette, any sport, because you have to sit there until your enemy is satisfied, even if it becomes insufferable. And of course by "if" we don't mean "if." If you've never had the class wonk follow you around the campus all day explaining your mistakes, you are just missing the finer points of life.

Point being, if you don't think Dr. D can handle light stuff like a dissection of an M's failure (or Sherm's anti-Trump taunting), think aGAIN bozo. Bring it ON.

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Zounds! Foiled Again!

Sherm the leader of the Rebel Alliance saith,

I figured if the Mariners play badly, I was right, and gloating ensues. If I'm wrong, everyone gets caught up in the first playoff appearance in franchise history* and forgets completely about me and my blown call, just like everyone forgets about the ump who cost Galarraga that perfect game.

Suddenly Dr. D realizes what he's done! He forced his opponents into a winning combination! This one at least as old as the "Benjamin Franklin Farmer's Almanac": Plan for and expect the worst. When it happens (or doesn't), you'll be in a normal mood (or pleasantly surprised).

In chess when you're in a slump -- not that Dr. D would know -- you see your opponent's easy replies even before he does. You know things aren't working right when your opponent can't miss the winning refutation blindfolded. You play ...b5 and as you hit your clock, you shake your head in disgust and go, "He's just gonna play Qb3 and I'm done." We ask, does anybody dare write the Mariners off, and even as we hit the Publish button we had to grimace.

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Korner: Rules of Polite Conversation

Sherminator uses a smile and a light touch bringing up the subject:

[with respect to my kidding about Gallardo, Sherm kids back] I'm offended sir. A man should not be judged by his worst moments. That's why we can't judge Donald Trump by his Access Hollywood blunder... or was it the time he called Mexicans "murderers and rapists"... or when he insulted that Gold Star family... or said John McCain was a loser... or Charlottesville...

We've used a few Korners to work around the edges of relatively cool political topics in 2017. The Denizens have been simply awesome. We tread gingerly onto the minefield itself, encouraging all Denizens to laugh a little bit and keep it light. Like they say, "Do Not Enter Dangerous Areas When Playing Pokemon Go." You'd think we would already know better than to follow Pikachu into a Viet Nam mine field, but that's humans for ya.

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Are the M's Still Playing?

We've had one well-respected Denizen completely write off the Mariners so far, and he beat the crowd to it by at least three days. But remember, that was (1) three days ago and (2) coming from one of the Denizens who dared to disagree on He Who Must Not Be Named. SO THERE

If you want to join him in the early bail, you must first stipulate NO (reasonable) chance for the Mariners to make the Wild Card -- let us say less chance of the M's making the WC2 than the Seahawks going 17-2. Because you're watching for that, right? When it comes to "Fuhgeddaboudit" it's just not good enough to say "I'm depressed." One must lean forward on one's toes when one sings soprano.

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Red Sox - Yankees Cheating 'Scandal'

Dr. D was tearing the oval-top off a crisp new box of Kleenex and doing his best to scroll through his Twitter followees with the spare 20% of his brain. Oh!, what's this ... Bill James had a quip "in reply," something like "Don't forget ineffective." If you're not on Twitter, a 3-word Tweet means that somebody said something first. Well, usually. With over half of his Kleenex supply left, he clicked On James' already-amusing punch line, and scrolled up to the original Tweet. Michael Silverman BB, who somehow crushed 5 separate rage-monster insults into 140 characters. Go check James' Twitter feed if you hunger for details.

If you missed it, and I had, here is a well-written NY Post article on the subject, something about the Red Sox cheating. Don't miss the fact that the Post bylined four (4) writers on a story that had what, like 600 words, and wouldn't have made the comments cut underneath a decent SSI physics or Carlos Ruiz post. But the Exec Sum is that --- > the Red Sox had a trainer sitting in the dugout using an Apple Watch to more quickly receive stolen signs than Billy Martin used to be able to do. ... well, not Billy. But quicker than Earl used to be able to.

Either Silverman or I know next to nothing about baseball. (Come to think of it, that's an and/or, isn't it.) The Commish did everything to signal the audience of the routine-ness of the subject short of doing Jim Carrey out-takes to Red Sox veeps in the audience. Girardi was asked about "charges and counter-charges" and smirked, "you can assume what you want." So, no, the concept that MLB teams might occasionally try to cheat isn't exactly the takeaway for the erudite SSI reader.

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M's 7, Orcs 6

We're grinding along in the mud of another filthy mcnasty Orcs series. Down 5-2, you'll come back a few, maybe they'll stick a thumb in yer eye, there are just some days when you wonder about life, love and the number 46.

When SCHOOOOOM here comes that young St. Louis Cardinals pitcher you swapped for. The feeling was not dissimilar to the clouds breaking and a megawatt Sun bathing you antiseptic of the day's grime.

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