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Posted on 07/24/2006 4:53:38 PM PDT by Osage Orange
Mon July 24, 2006
Mr. Monday: To stay in Seattle, Sonics must win
Mr. Monday once parked his caboose in the Pacific Northwest.
Just south of Canada, the state of Washington is now sitting on the front porch of Oklahoma's collective sports brain.
Those coffee-drinking, dot-commers have the Sonics.
For now.
Mr. Monday figures the team in the green and gold is on its way east in the next year. Mr. Monday knows these people.
Here's their M.O. -- The Left Coasters are the bandwagoniest bandwagoners who ever bandwagoned. They'll only pull their attention away from their plate of smoked salmon if their teams are winning.
And the Sonics, this just in, have been sucking wind for the past few years.
Guess Johan Petro just hasn't been giving everyone that NBA fever.
When Mr. Monday was up in the rainy mist, the Mariners and the Sonics were going nuts. It was Junior This and A-Rod That. The whole state was like the musical montage from a bad baseball movie (Major League, anyone?). Joe Sixpack (more like Joe Tofu) was sporting Mariners gear year-round.
But once Junior and A-Rod split town, Edgar Martinez retired and Jay Buhner realized he was Jay Buhner. And the Mariners' magic went poof.
In the meantime, the Microsofties had agreed to implode The Kingdome and built a half-a-billion-buck baseball field.
Half-a-billion dollars?! Bill Gates makes everything relative, Mr. Monday guesses.
When Gates' super-rich buddy, Paul Allen, bought the woeful Seahawks, that team discovered it was able to emerge from lousy land. They marched to the Super Bowl and, in the meantime, built a quarter-of-a-billion-buck football field.
Noticing a pattern here, sports fans?
You win and the Hippies build you a palace. You lose and your dumpy gym (imagine the Hornets playing at State Fair Arena) continues to get dumpier.
Here's the bottom line from Mr. Monday headquarters, located far away from the land of decaf, low-fat, half-and-half moccas (at the low, low price of $7.99):
If the Sonics continue to hang out in the NBA basement, then roll out the red carpet.
The fair-weather folks don't like to use tax dollars on arenas for teams that stink -- and they sure don't want to help out the Okie owners of a team that stinks.
That adds up to few wins in the Northwest and one big win here.
Yee-haw, Hippies.
Key Arena was built brand new for the Sonics about 10 years ago. It is NOT a dump by any means. I don't go to Sonics games, because the tickets are about $40 each, the games are often weeknights (I work early mornings), and I have known multiple people to get their cars robbed while at Sonics games. On top of that, the crappy management got rid of George Karl, for no good reason.
$40 sounds cheap...even for nose-bleeders.
FWIW-
Over the 4th of July weekend I got tickets to the local AAA baseball team for my whole family (me, wife, two boys) for $40. 8 rows up directly behind home plate. It was military appreciation night-the home team played in cammie shirts and hats. During the seventh inning stretch everyone sang "God Bless America". After a great game that was won by the home team, there was a pretty good fireworks show and then all the kids got to go on the field and run the bases.
In my my mind that's pretty tough for MLB to compete with, let alone the NBA.
In many people's minds.....
Sounds like great fun.....Glad to hear it!!
FRegards,
The Sonics? You can have 'em - our largest city neither needs nor deserves the distraction of any pro sports teams until it deals with far weightier issues (and I don't mean our own version of the Big Dig).
Well said.
If the pot shot writer wants 'em, he can have them.
The Sonics have been on my list ever since they dumped Karl, who's doing better then they are in his current coaching job no less.
They don't have a "dumpy" stadium, what they have is a less than new stadium. Basically they are jealous of the Hawk's new stadium and feel entitled to a new one every decade or so. And the voters are supposed to have their taxes hiked, again, to pay for a new stadium when the old one is still good. On top of taxes they are still paying. Even in Seattle there has to be a limit. Voters might tolerate a tax increase if they gave a reason despite entitlement, but you factor in their lose record and who needs them?
The Mariners have been up and down, and maybe they don't have Cubs audiences to reward the downs, but the affection for them is real. This guy would never know that though. But then the Mariner's have better ownership and players that make great effort to connect with the fans.
If the Mariners were on the chopping block, there would be an outcry. The Sonics made their bed. If another state wants them, good luck. As it is, unless they bring Karl back with an admittance they owe him and us an apology for his firing or hire McMillan whom I had some affection for as a player..I could less what happens to them.
Trajan88 has a super-important question... how was the dogs and brew at that AAA game (were the dogs grilled or steamed; was the brew ice cold)?
I didn't have any beer myself (had to drive) but I was sorely tempted watching the folks next to me. Their beers looked plenty cold.
The grilled Smithfield dogs (this is Virginia) were excellent.
I don't follow the "supes" that closely anymore, but didn't Nate McMillan actually coach the team recently, briefly?
I live hundreds of miles from OK City.....
For awhile, he did, yes.
He's now with the Trailblazers.
See, here is my position. If they want the best coach? They'll humble themselves and bring Karl back whatever it takes. Yeah, he's got a job but that's not necessarily an impediment. It would signal to the fans they finally admit they screwed up, and now were interested in winning. Both games and the fans back.
My interest in Nate isn't so much a reflection of coaching skill, he's okay, but really just the fact I liked him as a player. With him as coach I'd have an emotional attachment at least to the mess that is the Sonics.
Right now my interest in them remains severed. They aren't winning. The brats want a new stadium financed on the taxpayers' backs, a stadium that isn't needed but they are jealous of the newer stadium across. And, I'm still bitter about what happened to Karl. There's no hook to make me care one way or the other if they stay or go right now. At least with the Mariner's dry spells, or Lou leaving, Edgar retiring and so forth...they still manage to keep a draw. Right now it's Ichiro. Before their winning streak that led to the 116 streak they had Griffey's home runs. Weren't winning, but great players. The Sonics have nothing. The feeling I get from them is that they just don't care, so I don't care.
nice... a few years back, I took a special trip to Dodger Stadium from San Diego just to grab a couple of grilled Dodger Dogs... the game vs the Cards wasn't half bad either ;-)
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