Apple Cup Week Is Here, It’s Go Time Husky Fans

It may not have been pretty, but the Huskies have made it to this point in the season, one win away from a bowl birth. And we get to do it against our hated rival to the East. Oh how sweet it is.

My favorite hobby is talking sh*t about anything associated with Wazzu, so naturally Apple Cup week is my favorite week of the year.

Q: What should the Cougs do if they win the coin toss?

A: Defer til’ next year.

Get it? Like they shouldn’t’ even bother playing. Wow, like how creative am I? Take a look at the UW Dawgpound for some more jokes to pepper you Coug friends with.

One thing you can always count on is Cougs being fair-weather fans. That’s one of the large reasons I detest them. I can name three players on the Wazzu football team, more than most people that claim to me  they are Cougar fans.  I have been perusing the Apple Cup event wall on Facebook the past few weeks, and after looking at the comments posted by Wazzu fans, I decided there were two comments that were the most unique, “Go Cougs”, and “F*ck the Huskies”. C’mon Cougs, your better than that, you couldn’t even come up with “Huck the Fuskies”?

King Felix Claims His Throne

We posted this article last week about Felix Hernandez’s chance at the Cy Young award. He blew the competition away. Sabathia and Price didn’t stand a chance.

We here at Seattle Sport Stop just wanted to say, Thanks Felix!

Watching you pitch is an utter delight, and here’s to hoping we are watching you in a Mariners jersey for years to come.

Congratulations to the King, he has finally claimed his seat atop the throne, and I don’t think he will be relinquishing it anytime soon.

It’s Time To Black Out

Let’s get real for a second. It’s Husky game day, and I don’t usually write a preview for games. I like to spend my Saturday’s enjoying my time with friends, drinking adult beverages, and painfully sitting through the game.

I’m not going to write a preview for this game either. We all know everything there is to know about the game tonight, so there’s no point in repeating it here.

The season, to this point, has been a disappointment to say the least. Something we’d like to forget, right? So what does Washington do? They come up with the idea for a black out night. And I’m not buying that they’re only talking about the jerseys.

It’s actually a brilliant strategy. Everyone will be so wasted that if, in Jake Locker’s last game in Husky Stadium, the team flops and so does his career, nobody will remember. And if we win, everyone will be so jacked u on vodka redbull’s that we’ll throw the most bitchin’ party this place has ever seen, and still, nobody will remember.

My advice to you, fully embrace the black out at Husky Stadium tonight, I know I will. So go out, pick up your favorite beverage (no FourLocos you guys) and enjoy this night that comes to Husky Stadium for one night only.

It’s time to black out (This time I mean your outfit, wink)

In Memory of Dave Niehaus

When Dave Niehaus passed away last Wednesday, so too did a large part of the Seattle Mariners.

Dave Niehaus was the Seattle Mariners, and it’s hard to imagine what the organization will be like going forward.

As long as I have lived the Seattle Mariners have been there, and Dave Niehaus has been there. He was so great because of his passion for the team. He was the ultimate Mariners fan, nobody loved that team more than Dave Niehaus did, and it was evident in every game.

I loved this man. I have been pondering over ways to put my emotions in to words, and it’s as simple as that, I love him.

The idea of Dave Niehaus no longer being with us never once entered my mind. There was the question of when he was going to retire? When would he step away from the game? But never, when would he be gone forever? We didn’t want to think about that scenario. We couldn’t imagine a life without him. As long as any of us have been Mariners fans, players and coaches come and go, the faces changed often. One face, Dave Niehaus, was always there.

He was the Seattle Mariners to me, and to many others, and we love him.

Time To Care About The Mariners Again

After the hiring of Eric Wedge, I was content with putting the Mariners on hold until the winter meetings in December. How foolish of me, what the hell was I thinking?

Today’s announcement of Gold Glove winners (congrats to Ichiro on his 10th straight and Gutierrez on his 1st) reminded me I was forgetting something huge, The Cy Young Award!

I know, I’m an idiot, I don’t know how it slipped my mind, but somehow it did.

Maybe it’s because Major League Baseball takes nearly two months after the regular season ends to announce the winners of these awards. Like seriously, what the hell?

Anyway, it may differ for all of us, but at some point this summer I’m sure we all checked out on the Mariners disappointing season. Maybe it was after the first month, maybe it was after the All-Star Break. Then they traded Cliff Lee and we got interested again, to see what kind of a player Justin Smoak was, which lasted two days before we went back to completely ignoring the team. That is, except for every fifth day when, if not for Albert Pujols, we would get to watch the best player in Major League Baseball pitch.

Felix was no king this year, he was a god. Think Kratos, God of War, that’s about the best way to describe it.

In his last ten starts of the season he gave up 8 ER (4 of those in one outing). He had 12 no decisions or losses in which he allowed 2 ER or less. If this guy had been pitching for almost any other team in the AL he’d have flirted with 20 wins.

The Cy Young Award Winner is clearly defined as, “the best pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB), one each for the American League (AL) and National League (NL)”. Nowhere does it say anything about being the most valuable pitcher to his team, as does the MVP award, it simply is given to the best player. If voters interpret the award this way, how could Felix possibly lose out on the award?

The 6 moth long MLB season, the 162 game suffering the Mariners experienced, the months of meaningless games Mariners fans endured, can still provide the fans with one positive from the season, a Felix Hernandez Cy Young Award. That is all this season can amount to.

After months of not giving two sh*ts about the M’s, it’s finally time to care again people. This is the best it’s going to get.

It’s an individual award that means nothing to the success of the team, but it’s damn important.

There is one good thing that can come out of this season, and no one deserves it more than Felix.

It’s Finally That Time Of The Year

I’ve been waiting for this. Since last years loss to West Virginia, I’ve been waiting. Since the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named committed, I have waited, and since he decommitted,  I have angrily waited. Tony Wroten’s announcement quelled that anger. And now the season is finally starting.

In a little over 48 hours, Washington kicks off it’s season with an exhibition game against Saint Mary’s, and I can’t contain myself.

For the last five years or so, the Washington Men’s Basketball program has been the lone bright spot for me, in a Seattle sports scene that is struggling to say the least.

The Mariners haven’t been worth a damn since 2001, neither has the Husky Football team. Our NBA basketball team was robbed from us by the f*ckin devil himself. The Seahawks gave me some great moments in the mid 2000’s, but I just didn’t seem to form a connection with the Matt Hasselbeck’s, Darrel Jackson’s, and Marcus Trufant’s of the world like I did the Brandon Roy’s, Will Conroy’s, Bobby Jones’, Nate Robinson’s, and Jon Brockman’s.

Something about Husky Basketball just gets me. It used to be Husky Football that really got me going, understandably the last decade has made me gravitate more to Husky Hoops. It’s Hec Ed, it’s the Dawg Pack, it’s the roster loaded with local talent, it’s coach Romar, it’s everything about the program that gets me.

It was the 2003-2004 Husky team that really got me hooked, and then the next year, we all remember, was the magical #1 seed year.

I’m not going to say this team could be a #1 seed, that might be a tad far fetched, but this years team has a chance to be special. The similarities between them and the 04-05 team are scary. Check out Percy Allen’s blog on the Seattle Times, he compares the entire roster from both teams, it’s pretty astonishing.

That Huskies team of 04-05 went to the Great Alaska Shootout and beat 3 top-25 caliber teams to put them on the map. This years Huskies goes down to the Maui Invitational and has the chance to do the same thing.

We’re going to know, early on, what kind of team this is, and I can’t wait. Go Dawgs!