TERRY MOSHER
LOUIS OOSTHUIZON MISSES PUTT
Surprise is not a word that can be associated on a regular basis for sportswriters who had been at this business for any length of time. Eventually, we get to see just about everything there is to see and rarely does something jump out at us that surprises us.
After watching the very best professional golfers in the world make their way for four rounds of golf at the British Open at St. Andrews I am surprised at one thing: putting. Or to be more precise, the lack of good putting.
How many putts did these guys miss that lipped the cup and rolled out or came within an inch or less of the cup and stopped? Louis Oosthuizen had a slew of them and would have won the Open if a couple of them would have dropped instead of loitering around the cup.
I shouldn’t talk, though. I was not only a terrible putter, but the world’s worse golfer. I was horrid. Still, I’m surprised the best of the best can miss so many short putts.
It also surprises me that Jackie Z and Lloyd McClendon are still with the Mariners. The minor league system is almost bare of good prospects in the seventh year of Jackie Z’s employment as general manager and that is a clear sign something is terribly wrong with him.
And I continue to believe players don’t play to their potential for McClendon. He talks a good game, but I don’t think he gets proper respect because he doesn’t have the ability to fire them up. There is a big difference between talking about what is wrong and wearing out I-5 between Tacoma and Seattle to bring in and send out players and actually lighting a fire under them so you don’t have to use I-5.
This is a Mariners’ team that was supposed to be in the World Series this year, and only way they will get there is if they buy tickets. When you underperform and do it for over half the season, there is something rotten in Denmark and it is Jackie Z and Lloyd McClendon.
What won’t surprise me is if Marshawn Lynch becomes the least mode this football season. Running backs last on average just 2.5 years in the NFL. Lynch will be entering his ninth year.
Also, Lynch is fourth in career rushes among still active running backs. Atlanta’s Steven Jackson is first with 2,743 covering 11 seasons. Frank Gore, now with the Colts, is second with 2, 442 over 10 seasons, Adrian Peterson has 2,054 in eight seasons (he played just one game last year) and Lynch has 2,033 in eight seasons.
As we know, Lynch is a brutal runner, dishing out as much punishment as he takes. He has had to take a lot of punishment with that style, although he doesn’t show it on the field.
My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that Lynch will be slowed this year by injury and the end of his NFL career will appear in the headlights of this season. So I’m not going to be surprised if that happens.
Finally one non-sport surprise. I have never ever seen the amount of hatred directed toward a president as I have seen against Obama. I have read plenty of disagreements of a president before based often on party affiliation, but never have a seen one taken so much abuse – pure hatred – and been accused of everything that has gone wrong or perceived as gone wrong by certain factions.
The hatred I’m assuming is coming his way because of one thing: he’s black. If he was white I’m sure there would be disagreements of his policy, but not this pure hatred that some (many?) exhibit. It’s awful, shameful, and is dangerous if one of the haters decides to do something about it.
Actually, I’m not so much surprised by it, but shocked by it. I know racism is hiding beneath the surface almost everywhere and every so often it raises its ugly head in full public view. But this amount of hatred borders on criminal.
And I’ll say this again, for about the millionth time, disliking another human being simply because he or she is of a different color than you is beyond the pale. You are not only racist, but arrogant.
The color or lack of color has no bearing on who that person is. And if you are white and throwing hatred toward a black based simply on color you are proving my point: White people can be good or bad. It’s a choice and has nothing to do with color or the lack of color.
I’m outta here.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.