TERRY MOSHER
TOP OF THE TOWN – So the Seahawks and Las Vegas Raiders basically played their reserves in their exhibition football matchup Saturday in Las Vegas. So what did I take from it? The Raiders have better reserves. They also have a coach – Jon Gruden – who seemed to take great pleasure in his team’s dominating victory. He yuked it up on the sidelines while the coach on the other sidelines chewed his gum faster and faster and never cracked a smile that I could see. This is nothing new for me, but I like third-unit quarterback Alex McGough, who has hung around without glory since being picked in the 7th-round (220 pick overall) in the 2018 NFL draft. The 25-year-old McGough is a gamer. As long as Russell Wilson remains upright and Geno Smith recovers from a concussion he suffered Saturday, McGough will continue to be a gamer, I’m just not sure where he will apply his toughness. I’d like to see him start the Hawks second exhibition game Saturday at home on Lumen Field against Denver. Let’s see what he can do. Tell me how Tre Flowers is still playing cornerback with the Hawks? He still gives up too much at right cornerback. And I was not impressed with the newest corner, Ahkello Witherspoon. He seemed to be out of position more much of his time. … Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird rested Sunday while the Seattle Storm lost in overtime to the host Chicago Fire in overtime. Jewel Lloyd led the Storm with 26 points, although it took her 30 shots to make seven. It would take most people a month to get off 30 shots, but Lloyd seemed to be on a one-person mission to get off a record number of them. That might fly if she could make them, including the layup at the buzzer in overtime that she missed that would have tied the game and sent it to a second overtime. I should talk. I remember as an eight-grader playing on our middle school team and making two consecutive blunders that cost us victory. Some kid from Port Allegheny stole the ball from me on the dribble and scored a layin to close the gap to one point with seconds left. I then took the ball out of bounds and threw it in to the same kid, who scored again to win the game for his team. That happened many decades ago and I remember it like it was today. So I’m going to quit talking about Lloyd’s miss…. The Toronto Blue Jays finally broke through the Mariners and won 8-3, escaping being swept in their three game series at T-Mobile Park. The Blue Jays are the best hitting club in baseball with an OPS (combined on-base percentage and slugging percentage) of ,786. Seattle is at .681, 28th out of 30 teams. Somehow, though, the Mariners kept the slugging Jays at bay until Sunday. But that’s the way of the 2021 Mariners. Nobody knows how they are 63-56 when they should be as predicted somewhere like 43-76. They won’t get into the post-season, but they are fun to watch to see how they are going to pull the next game out. They are a bunch of no-names slogging through a season that may be as remarkable like 2001 when they tied a Major League record with 116 wins. That, by the way, is the last time the Mariners made the post-season, a drought almost as bad as the heat wave we are experiencing. …I was watching snippets of the 1975 third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, which was called the Thrilla in Manila, and, my god, they pounded on each other. No human should be allowed to take so much punishment. It was brutal, and ended when Frazier’s corner would not allow him to come out for the 15th and final round. A record global television audience of one billion watched the fight. Alia and Frazier were never the game after that fight. They had given all they could. There was nothing left to give.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.