TERRY MOSHER
Okay, it’s time to go back to the Boneyard so I can purge my mind of all the clutter that brings me sleepless nights and torments me during the waking hours. I get all kinds of conflicted thoughts and it’s necessary from time to time to back up to the Boneyard and release them.
I wrote a little piece a few days ago on what it takes to be a good recreational golfer and after watching the Masters I’m more convinced than ever that besides taking a lot of practice the game to get better it also can be maddening because one ugly slip and a decent 18-hole score goes belly up in a hurry. When I did play, I would have a few good shots mixed in with shanks, slices, hooks, flubs and terrible putts that would test the sanity of the sanest person in the world.
I was horrible and watching the world’s best golfers try to go four rounds of 18 holes without losing their mental discipline is impressive. It’s extremely tough physically, but especially mentally, to maintain composure for four straight days and the few that do usually win.
That brings me to Jordan Spieth. I’m convinced that Spieth’s unraveling in the 2016 Masters when he had a chance to win back-to-back still bothers him. I don’t think he’s the same golfer he once was. I believe he was en route to becoming the next Palmer because of his pleasant personality and his ability to summon from somewhere deep in his gentle soul the mental toughness to maintain a steady course and win while others faltered.
I was wrong. He seems to lose it when it’s needed the most. He had a chance on Sunday to make a solid run and be a factor in the closing holes. But he had five bogeys and a double bogey on the par 3 No. 12 and his final round 75 slipped him from two shots back to a tie for 11th eight shots back.
The 12th hole was his undoing last year. He had a one-shot lead in the final round and hit two balls into Rae’s Creek and took a quadruple bogey that knocked him to three back. He finished in a tie for second, but should have won if not for losing it on the 12th.
Since that shocking stumble, I don’t think Spieth has been the same. I hope he proves me wrong because he’s a good person.
I don’t know why we do the same thing each spring and think the Mariners are going to be good enough to contend. I’m writing this just as they open their home season at Safeco Field and they will probably win today and make a mockery of what I’m about to say.
Their 1-6 start to the 2017 season while a bit shocking should not be all that surprising. Any time you turn over a bunch of players it’s going to take more than a week to get things right, especially chemistry. You can’t buy good team chemistry – it just happens. So until we can figure out whether the new roster shuffle has produced good, bad or indifference chemistry, we won’t know whether general manager Jerry Dipoto has done a good thing or a bad thing.
I don’t think it’s a great reshuffle. He’s improved the outfield defense, but there are no power hitters on the outfield corners and traditionally that is where you have your power hitters. I like Mitch Haniger in right. He has a little power, but Jarrod Dyson in left had two home runs and centerfielder Leonys Martin put 11 balls over the fence last year.
The bullpen is supposed to be a strength, but so far it hasn’t. And the Mariners are fixated on making Mike Zunino a quality major league catcher. He might be someday. But I’m dubious. He has power, but has not shown the ability to lay off certain pitches and has a tendency to strike out a lot and to not hit for average (last year he hit .216 with 17 home runs in 328 at-bats.
Are the Mariners as bad as their seven-game start? No. But are they good enough to contend? I hope so, but we won’t know for sure until the mid-way point of the season. If they are hanging around in early July, then you might want to get excited. In the meantime until the team chemistry sorts itself out, hold your breath.
You know, all this talk about Richard Sherman being traded can’t be good. Various sources say Sherman asked for a trade and some say he didn’t. But w hat is true, is the Seahawks are fielding offers for him, and that can’t be good.
If the Seahawks trade Sherman, one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL, that will be big trouble because they already have a weakness on the right side corner and his departure would really, really weaken the secondary.
But, also, if they don’t trade him and he asked for them to trade, do you think he will be happy? No, he won’t, and that could impact his performance. If you are not happy at work, does that impact your performance? Sure it does. Even if it’s subconscious, it does.
So it’s a no-win situation for both Sherman and the Seahawks. Trade him and the team is really in defensive trouble. Don’t trade him and you know he’s going to be a problem, whether on the field or off it. And I don’t have an answer of how you fix it.
What nobody has written is why is Sherman unhappy? Or is it that the Seahawks are unhappy? I don’t have an answer for that, either
If I put myself in the shoes of the Seahawks, I can’t trade Sherman. He’s got two years left on his contract and as long as he’s not a disruptive force like he can be at times, I keep him because he’s just too good. I would be a fool to trade him unless I was 100 percent certain I could fill his spot well enough to keep the team as a title contender.
As you all probably know by now, I’m a political activist of sorts. My background is two-fold. I come from a very athletic family that was and has been interested in sports of almost any kind. It’s a very competitive family.
But also from an early age I was interested in government and how world events unfold. Don’t ask me why I have been like that since probably five or six, but I have always been interested in what was happening, not just locally but around the globe. It’s why I obtained a degree in political science with minors in history and economics from Western Washington.
On top of all that, I am a person who is not aligned with the Democratic or Republican parties. I am a centralist, whatever that is. I vote for the person who I think is closest to my basic tenant of fairness and justice for all.
Sometimes it’s a difficult voting choice because as we all know the political process today is full of murky circumstances that force one to choose the one you believe is less murky or less untruthful, and that becomes complicated more today than in older times because of the falsehoods that are fed into social networks. That means you have to find your way through many minefields and it is tougher and tougher to do so without hitching yourself to something that seems real but is not.
So now we are stuck – at least for those of us who believe in fairness and equal justice – with an administration that is ripping the government apart from the inside out. We soon won’t have any standards or regulations to govern behavior and we will be living in a real mad, mad, mad world where the rich and powerful rule and the rest of us get to suffer.
We are now also being ruled by a person who is so much the opposite of the passive Obama that it’s frightening. We are probably headed to war because war means money for those who have the investments and the monster in the White House has plenty of those and loves money first, second and third and so-on.
There are terrible times ahead. They will make the Sherman fiasco seem like child play. The good part for me is that I’m old enough to check out of this world likely before war comes – at least I hope so. That’s a coward’s way of looking at this thing, but I don’t want to go through another war or be around when the rights of minorities and women are scrapped, and that is where we are headed.
All I can do is pray a lot and hope that at some point God intervenes. If he doesn’t, it could be a lot of darkness for many of us.
Enough of that. I’m going to go to the YMCA and get in a little workout that will make me feel better and shed some light on my day.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.