Fresh from Danny O'neil from the Times:

Seattle announced it has moved wide receiver Michael Bumpus from the practice squad to the 53-man roster in time for him to play in Sunday's game. To make room for Bumpus, the Seahawks released Samie Parker, who was signed earlier this week.

This makes me a feel a bit more comfortable about Sunday's game. Bumpus knows the offense, and he can return kicks. For an offense very short on WR's who know the system, this is a smart move.

Phew. I just saw on NFL Network that it is indeed just a bone bruise, and Holmgren fully expects he will start during the opener.

SeattleTimes confirms:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2008142683_webhawk28.html

"He's very important to this football team," Holmgren said. "In preseason, they have to play and get ready to go, but you just kind of hold your breath all the time."

Indeed. I wasn't too worried until that prank post which nearly gave me a heart attack. So, again, phew.

Between reading Art Thiel's book "Out of Left Field" (well I'm right up to the end of the '95 season), and following the ongoing drama with the Sonics vs Seattle, I'm really glad we have owners who saved the Mariners from relocating. Sure, I dislike Howard Lincoln for many reasons, but because of him and Yamaguchi (among many other things), Seattle baseball was saved in the early 90's.

This post is more about the horrible dissapointment of the Sonics news today. I'm not a huge basketball fan, its way behind baseball and football. But this new is still heartbreaking to me. Howard Shultz buys team, everyone happy. Howard Shults realizes he overpaid for a team that is losing money, sells to an out of town owner who will "try real hard for a whole year" to get a new arena. We all know the rest.

The owners were not the only ones who betrayed us. The state and city politicians failed us many times. The worst was today. They settled. They gave a big "fuck you" to sports fans. I don't really understand it. The day of the verdict, they decide to sell out. I heard all the reasons Greg Nickels stated in his press conference, but it's all pretty lame.

At least we've got the Mariners and Seahawks. I also am looking forward to 10-15 years from now when OKC owners threaten to move unless the public is forced to pay for a new arena.

At least I've got Washburn to cheer me up tonight.

Fuck.

So I got off work this morning with a six pack of beer and a lot of free time on my hands. I decided to rip off Brett's demo video idea and do a little 2008 summary. This took like 6 hours to make, even though the quality is only average. It started out as an overall defensive clip reel (the first minute is basically all from last night's game), but it quickly evolved into a Raul fest.

- I spent much of this time scrolling through game threads finding .gif files of defensive blunders. This video is mostly the captures that Jeff, JI, and others have posted throughout this season. I also took a couple images from previous threads.. not sure where the original credit goes. Basically I just compiled a bunch of shit from here and put it together with a snazzy song.

- This is also an unfinished project. The last part of the video ends sort of abruptly, hopefully Raul and others will provide some more quality defense so I can add on to the video. There's a couple other things I've noticed which need to be fixed eventually, hopefully I can get some more good footage.

- Again, the quality ranges from good to not so good, I'll eventually get around to making another draft which will be more polished.

- The other reason it took so long is because I suck at Final Cut Pro and have not used it in years. It took me way too long to figure out how to do an audio fade out.

- Once I do a more 'final draft', I think I'm going to add some titles or clips near the start (I need McLaren or Bavasi talking about how they think our defense should be one of the best in the league).

So yeah. I'm not really trying to "get hits" on youtube or whatever, but I don't really care if you spread the link. It's kind of shitty, but really hilarious (to me after six beers, at least). Again, thanks to Jeff for all the awesome .gif files, as well as everyone else who has posted things over this season that I stole for this clip video. Suggestions welcome. Also, links to more defensive blunder images that I may have missed are also more than welcome. Word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQBXufeDqi4

As we watch the Mariners continue to lose in hilarious and awful fashion, I have to wonder if now is the time we start to stretch out Morrow into a starting pitcher. I was watching a post-game interview last night on Sportscenter, where Joe Girardi said he was going to start stretching out Joba Chamberlain -- at the major league level. The "process was started" when Joba pitched not just the 8th, but the 8th and the 9th inning in a Yankees win.

Are Morrow and Chamberlain similar pitchers? Not quite. Morrow still is inconsistent with his control, but their situations are very similar. Young pitchers starting in the bullpen, with the ultimate goal of transistioning to a starter. It'll be interesting to watch how the Yankees handle this situation, if they're able to actually get him in enough situations where he can pitch more innings but still help his team win

Obviously, the Mariners season is pretty much done and we don't really NEED Morrow up here to help us win, because we can't win anyway. I'd stick him in AAA right now and let him work his pitch counts, but the Mariners are not all interesting in doing that.

Either way, I'd like the Mariners to put some thought into the process. Will they? Doubt it. I mean, I'm sure Mac is completely happy with his rotation. Sigh.