Monthly Archives: August 2014

Elton Goodwin Foundation website up

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The Elton Goodwin Memorial Foundation and Scholarship Fund website is now up and running.

Read the mission statement find information about the foundation and scholarships that recognizes the late, great South Kitsap baseball coach Elton Goodwin.

Find out how to make donations or buy merchandise.

The goals of the foundation, as stated on the website:

Goals

In a few short months we have accomplished several of our initial objectives that will help preserve Elton’s legacy. Retiring his #29 jersey, and having the baseball field renamed “Elton Goodwin Memorial Field” are wonderful tributes, however our work has just begun. In May we presented the first of two annual Elton Goodwin Scholarships; providing $2000.00 for deserving South Kitsap students, and athletes. With that milestone now in place, we turn attention towards the second goal of our Foundation; “providing safe access to quality sports facilities for the youth of our community”.

The baseball field at South Kitsap was Elton’s second home; and now that it bears his name, is in line for a facelift. Currently, we are working closely with the high school, and district school board to procure a new electronic scoreboard for the baseball field, and are hopeful to have it in place for next season. Pending school board approval, future plans also include a commemorative brick memorial celebrating the accomplishments of the nearly 100 year old South Kitsap Baseball program. Commemorative bricks will be available for purchase and engraving.

Although lofty, we feel that through close coordination with the school district, high school, and City of Port Orchard, these goals are attainable; and would be in accordance with Elton’s wishes. While some of these objectives will require longer term financing strategies, we remain confident in our ability to make a substantial and sustainable difference in our community.

Please stay tuned for more information on these, and other projects as we move towards the 2014/15 school year; but in the meantime we could always use your financial support. We have created multiple options by which you may contribute; all of which are a 100% tax deductible.

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Keith Jackson, Tom Sneva, Throwin’ Samoan to be inducted into state HOF Thursday at WSU game

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Marc Blau, the executive director of the State of Washington Sports Hall of Fame, sent out this press release on Sunday.

Three new members of the State of Washington Sports Hall of Fame will be inducted during the Rutgers-WSU Cougars football game on Thursday, Aug. 28.

The inductees are longtime ABC-TV sportscaster Keith Jackson, Indy 500 winner Tom Sneva and WSU quarterback Jack Thompson.

Four additional inductees – the late softball barnstormer Eddie Feigner, basketball star Detlef Schrempf, hydroplance racer Chip Hanauer and “Mr. Mariner” Alvin Davis, were honored earlier this month with their induction prior to a Mariners game at Safeco Field.

(NOTE: Check out this story at Sportspressnw.com about the late Feigner. He was an original. Feigner and crew barnstormed into Bremerton in the early 1990s, taking on Pop’s Inn’s men’s fastpitch team in a game on a makeshift diamond at Thunderbird Stadium. Feigner was up in years but still magical. The show continued into the wee hours at the old tavern that sat next to the rodeo arena. The King and His Court played just as hard off the field as they did on it.)

With this year’s inductees, the State of Washington Sports Hall of Fame grows to a total of 189 members. Plaques of the inductees are on display in the Shanahan Sports Museum in the Tacoma Dome. The hall of fame was founded in1960 by Tacoma broadcaster Clay Huntington.

Georgia-born Jackson got his start in broadcasting at Washington State University and worked for KOMO radio and then KOMO-TV from 1954-64. Jackson is best known for his more than 50 years of football telecasts. The phrase “Whoa, Nellie!” was his signature phrase. He is also credited with creating and popularizing the description of the Rose Bowl as “The Granddaddy of Them All”. Often forgotten is that Jackson was the first play-by-play announcer on Monday Night Football and covered major-league baseball, PGA golf, the NBA, major auto races, boxing matches and the Olympics during his career.

Sneva won the 1983 Indianapolis 500. He won season Indy car championships in 1977 and 1978. In 1977 he became the first driver to qualify for the Indy 500 at a speed of more than 200 mph. Sneva is a graduate of Lewis & Clark High School in Spokane and after graduating from Eastern Washington University was a school teacher and junior-high principal before becoming a full-time racer.

Thompson may have the best nickname in state history. The “Throwin’ Samoan” was nicknamed by late Spokane Spokesman-Review columnist Harry Missildine. Thompson was the most prolific passer in NCAA history with 7,818 yards when he concluded his Washington State career. He is only one of two players to have his WSU number (14) retired. He was the third player taken overall in the 1979 NFL draft (by Cincinnati) and played six seasons in the league. He starred at Evergreen High School in White Center.

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Hawks’ Wilson still proving doubters wrong; Is there a ’95 run in these M’s?

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Back from Cabo and my mind’s still a little mushy, but these thoughts have been rattling around my brain:

Russell Wilson: The Seattle Seahawks’ QB hasn’t won everybody over. Ron Jaworski at ESPN ranks Wilson the ninth-best QB in the NFL. This Buck Stanton guy at cover32.com., wrote last month that Wilson is the most overrated player in the NFL. Here’s what he had to say:

Yep, he’s 24-8 during his first two NFL seasons. And there’s no taking away his Super Bowl ring. All of that makes Wilson’s résumé look great. But in reality, there are a ton of quarterbacks – many of whom are much-maligned – who could have won a title with the Seahawks last year. For now, he’s a modern-day Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer. He can’t carry a team.

Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless of ESPN’s First Take aren’t sold on Wilson either. Here’s what they had to say the day after Seattle’s Super Bowl victory.

Me? I’m sold. He’s not the prototypical QB like Andrew Luck, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an elite quarterback. He’s got a ring and his numbers do not lie. As Warren Moon put it, maybe the game is evolving in a new direction? Maybe Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger — traditional pocket passers — will fade away. Maybe mobile, athletic guys like Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton and Robert Griffin III will become the prototypical quarterbacks of the future.

Refuse to lose: I’ve been thinking a lot about the Seattle Mariners’ run in 1995 when they came from waaaaay back to win the AL West. They were 11.5 games behind the Angels on Aug. 23. When I looked Saturday, they were seven back. The Angels just lost their best starting pitcher, Garrett Anderson, for the season, and the Oakland A’s are scuffling. Seattle entered Sunday with a 1-game lead over Detroit in the race of race for the AL’s No. 2 wild-card spot. Yeah, I was the guy who picked the M’s to win the AL West at the start of the season. People thought I was crazy. Well, I still think they have a chance. They’re playing with a lot of confidence, and that’s huge. Here’s what a few of those players on the 1995 Mariners said about their magical late-season surge:

LEE ELIA, BATTING COACH: “We get hot, they (Angels) get cold, and all of a sudden, we cut the gap pretty good. I can remember walking out when the other team was taking BP, and I came back into the coaches’ room and said, ‘Is this a special night, bat night or something?’ They said, ‘Why.’ I said, ‘There’s 35,000 people out there.’ The juice the people brought to the park, that kicked us. That got us going.”

MIKE BLOWERS: “Junior missed a ton of time, and when he came back, we were playing real good baseball. One of his first games back, he ended up hitting a home run off John Wetteland, upper deck, to win a game. We all looked around. If this guy is healthy and ready to go, we had a chance to do something special. His injury had been so serious, we didn’t know what we’d get. He comes right back and turns a 96-mph fastball right around. We all smiled and said, ‘Here we go.’ ”

JAY BUHNER, RIGHT FIELDER: “I think that’s when everyone kind of said, ‘Hey, something really special is happening.’ We got on a roll, and we had an unbelievable amount of confidence. We had the mentality we could beat anyone. Anyone could be the hero. People were contributing in every way, from top to bottom. The few games we did lose, we thought we just ran out of outs.”

Yankee numbers: I was a big-time Yankee fan growing up, then went through a period where I fell off the bandwagon. Then, I jumped back on, mostly because of Joe Torre. Liked him as a player, and he always struck me as a classy guy when he became the manager of the Yanks. And then I had the opportunity to cover the 2000 Subway World Series when I was working for CBS Sportsline, and I learned to respect Torre even more. The Yankees were an easy team to pull for. Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Paul O’Neill, Don Zimmer, Torre.

Anyway, I think it’s pretty cool that the Yankees are going to retire Torre’s No. 6. When Jeter’s No. 2 is retired, and they might as well do it on the final home game of the season instead of delaying the inevitable, every Yankees number form 1 to 10 will be retired. Thurman Munson (No. 15) and White Ford (No. 16) also had their jerseys retired.

No. 1 Billy Martin

No. 2 Derek Jeter

No. 3 Babe Ruth

No. 4 Lou Gehrig

No. 5 Joe DiMaggio

No. 6: Joe Torre

No. 7: Mickey Mantle

No. 8: Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey

No. 9: Roger Maris

No. 10: Phil Rizzuto

Fantasy football: My league drafts tomorrow. Let the trash talkin’ begin.

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Kitsapers in the Pros & More

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KITSAPERS IN THE PROS:

Jason Hammel, a 2000 South Kitsap grad, has struggle since being traded from the Chicago Cubs to the Oakland Athletics. Hammel is 1-5 with a 6.75 ERA with Oakland. He gave up three home runs in three-plus innings in a loss against Atlanta on Friday. He was 8-5 with a 2.98 ERA with the Cubs.

South Kitsap grad Willie Bloomquist is done for the year after undergoing micro fracture surgery on his right knee. The Mariners utility player hit .278 in 47 games, playing seven different positions.

Drew Vettleson is hitting .230 with seven HRs and 23 RBI for the Double-A Harrisburg Senators, an affiliate of the Washington Nationals. Vettleson, 23, an outfielder from Central Kitsap, has hit two HRs in his last six games but is only hitting .204 in his last 10 games. The left-handed hitting Vettleson is hitting .280 vs. lefties and .198 vs. righties. All seven of his HRs have come against right-handers.

South Kitsap grad Aaron Cunningham, an outfielder, is hitting .255 with 0 HRs and 31 RBIs for the Reno Aces, the Triple-A club of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Cunningham, 28, has hit .323 (10-for-31) with 5 RBI in his last 10 games.

Brady Steiger, a first baseman/third baseman, is hitting .167 for the Staten Island Yankees, a short Class A club in the New York-Penn League. The former South Kitsap and Lewis-Clark State star just returned from injury and has played in just two games since July 21.

SAYING ALL OF THE RIGHT THINGS:

Rhode Island Little League coach Dave Belisle, following an elimination loss at the World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, puts things in perspective for a bunch of kids. Great speech.

SPEAKING OF LITTLE LEAGUE:

How can you not pull for Mo’ne Davis? She’s the talk of the Little League World Series.

CONGRATULATIONS:

To the Bellingham Bells, who won the West Coast League championship on Monday night, winning the deciding game of the best-of-three series against the Corvallis Knights. Good buddy Jim Clem is the pitching coach of the Bells and we had the pleasure of hosting the team twice this summer on trips to Bremerton to play the Kitsap BlueJackets. Classy bunch.es

NOT SO CLASSY:

Johnny (Finger) Manziel threw as many obscene gestures as he did touchdown passes in Monday night’s exhibition game. Not a good sign for the Browns.

READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL:

Aug. 23: FCS No. 1 Eastern Washington vs. No. 17 Sam Houston State in college football’s season opener in Cheney. Kickoff 12:30 p.m. on ESPN.

Aug. 28: Washington State Cougars vs. Rutgers, in Seattle (CenturyLink), 7 p.m., FOX Sports. Thursday game is intriguing. Cougs looking to get off to a good start against Scarlet Knights, now a member of the Big Ten.

Aug. 30: Washington Huskies vs. Hawaii in Honolulu, 7:30 p.m., CBS. Chris Petersen era begins.

Sept. 4: Seattle Seahawks vs. Green Bay Packers. Thursday night game on NBC (5:30 p.m.) kicks off NFL season. Doesn’t get much better, does it?

Sept. 5: Friday Night Lights has a delicious opener. South Kitsap vs. Central Kitsap at Silverdale Stadium, 7 p.m. Biggest game in the county.

Sept. 5: WSU at Nevada, 7:30 p.m., ESPN. Nevada not what it used to be.

Sept. 6: Washington’s first home game under Chris Petersen vs. Eastern Washington at Husky Stadium, 1 p.m. Washington barely pulled one out, 30-27 over EWU in 2011 at Husky Stadium.

GOLF JOKE:

Mike, an avid golfer, was teeing up for a very difficult shot.

At that moment a funeral procession went by.

Mike stopped, stood still with his hat over his heart, and bowed his head.

His golfing partner looked at him and said, “Mike, that was kind and decent of you to show such respect for the dead.”

Mike replied, “Yes, we would have been married twenty-six years come tomorrow.”

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Hot links: Husky togetherness; Joe’s record run; The Boudreau Shift; Rory chasing Jack

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Sounds like it’s hotter back home than it is in Cabo, where I spent most of the day turning my brain to mush before putting down a little wager on King Felix and the Mariners. Hey, if the KC Royals can find their way to the top of the AL Central this late in the season, surely the Mariners can find a way to beat a Toronto team that is coming off a 19-inning marathon the day before.

Also found some time to do a little reading. Here’s some links to consider:

* Husky football coach Chris Petersen brings a unique philosophy to Washington. According to this SI.com story, it’s all about building team unity. Well, not ALL about team unity, but it’s a big part of what he believes in. It dates back to his playing days at UC Davis and the philosophy of Tao Te Ching.

A sample from the story:

When he arrived at Washington, Petersen set up the leadership groups made up of players from different classes, positions and backgrounds. The groups have swim nights at a lake, play paint ball and hold barbecues. During team meetings, Petersen will have a player stand up and quiz others about his high school, hometown and siblings. Players’ lockers and seating arrangements at meals are organized so players would be near guys they may not interact with normally.

“I’d say that the bonding has tripled since he got here,” Washington senior linebacker Washington senior linebacker Hau’oli Kikaha said. “I can tell it worked. There are guys that never held conversations, and now they’re hanging out together off the field.”

* I wrote about Seattle runner Joe McConaughy a couple weeks ago. He was in the middle of running the Pacific Coast Trail. He ending up covering 2,663 miles in a record time of 53 days, 6 hours and 37 seconds. “The Run for Colin” — a cousin who died of a rare form of cancer — raised $27,000.

“I immediately broke down,” McConaughy told NPR writer Tom Banse after finishing. “I was switching between laughing and crying — thinking of all these incredible tales and trips we’d had day in, day out and all the pain.”

* Shifting defenders to stop opposing hitters has become a trendy, and effective method of stopping some of baseball’s dead-pull hitters. Until hitters start taking the ball the other way, the shifts will be here to stay. I’m not here to debate the merit of the defensive strategy, but did you know that Ted Williams had to deal with The Boudreau Shift? Joe Posnanski writes about it in his blog.

Posnanski writes:

The genius of the Boudreau Shift is that it LOOKS easy to beat. The fielders are ALL OVER THERE. All you have to do is hit the ball OVER THERE INSTEAD. I mean seriously, this is TED BLEEPIN’ WILLIAMS we are talking about here. You telling me he can’t just hit the ball to the left side anytime he wants?

Only, he could not — not with regularity, not with force, not with that beautiful swing he had honed since childhood. He crowded the plate, and he challenged pitchers, and he pulled mistakes with ferocity. This was how he hit. The fans fury poured down on him every time he beat a futile ground ball to the loaded right side, something he did with regularity. …

* It’s silly to call Rory McIlroy the next Tiger Woods, but right now the numbers say he’s a bigger threat to Jack Nicklaus’ record for most major victories (18) than Woods. McIlroy, 25, has won the last two majors and four of the 15 he’s entered.

Benjamin Morris of ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight website writes:

It may not look like much, but that four-major start by McIlroy is firmly in Woods and Nicklaus territory — they are the only players to have won four majors through age 25. Winning those four majors in a 15-tournament span is also a rare accomplishment. There have been a number of similarly meteoric rises in golf, but they usually come at a more mature age (see, for example: Nick Faldo, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan). And some early starts aren’t so meteoric (Seve Ballesteros).

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If it comes down to pitching, M’s have a chance if they reach postseason

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Take a look at these starting rotations and tell me which one do you want for the postseason. And consider that it’s possible to get by with just three starters in a seven-game series. I’d put the staffs in this order. It’s no guarantee for success, but if the Mariners get to the postseason, I like their chances. In addition to those top three starters, Seattle’s bullpen has been baseball’s best.

OAKLAND A’S

Jon Lester 11-7, 2.59 ERA

Jeff Samardzija 4-8, 2.91 (2-7, 2.83 with Cubs; 2-1, 3.09 with A’s).

Scott Kazmir 12-4, 2.53

Sonny Gray 12-5, 2.87

Jason Hammel 9-9, 3.70 (8-5, 2.98 w/Cubs; 1-4, 7.15 w/A’s)

SEATTLE MARINERS

Felix Hernandez 12-3, 1.97

Ishashi Iwakuma 9-6, 2.94

Chris Young 10-6, 3.27

Roenis Elias 8-9, 4.19

James Paxton 2-0, 2.76 (5-0, 2.01 in seven career starts)

DETROIT TIGERS

Max Scherzer 13-4, 3.24

David Price 11-8, 3.11 (0-0, 3.24 in one start w/Tigers after being traded by Rays)

Justin Verlander 10-10, 4.74

Rick Porcello 13-6, 3.06

Anibal Sanchez 8-5, 3.37

LOS ANGELES ANGELS

Garrett Richards 12-4, 2.58

Jared Weaver 12-6, 3.59

C.J. Wilson 8-7, 4.74

Matt Shoemaker 9-4, 4.02

Tyler Skaggs 5-5, 4.30 or Hector Santiago 3-7, 3.84

And then there’s the Los Angeles Dodgers’ starting rotation, the best in baseball and the reason why the Dodgers will be favored to win the World Series:

LA DODGERS

Clayton Kershaw 13-2, 1.82

Zach Grienke 12-7, 3.77

Hyun-Jim Ryu 12-5, 3.39

Dan Haren 9-9, 4.57

Josh Beckett 6-6, 2.88 (Beckett, brought in as the fifth starter,tossed a no-hitter in May)

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