{"id":1011,"date":"2013-12-02T19:15:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T19:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2013-12-02T19:15:01","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T19:15:01","slug":"willie-is-on-his-way-back-to-seattle-yikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1011","title":{"rendered":"Willie is on his way back to Seattle &#8230; Yikes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton<\/h1>\n<p>Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had been missing in action for several years while he traversed the globe looking for greener grass. He discovered the grass is only greener here (it\u2019s blue in Kentucky), so he returned to again take charge of his 1954 green Hudson Hornet that had been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is continuing his smokin\u2019 ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16\" style=\"width: 483px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16\" alt=\"Bumerton sees all\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_.png\" width=\"483\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_.png 483w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_-300x290.png 300w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_-135x130.png 135w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_-85x82.png 85w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_-280x270.png 280w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Bill_Bumertonclear.fw_-145x140.png 145w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 483px) 100vw, 483px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bumerton sees all<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1012\" alt=\"Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-135x135.jpg 135w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-85x85.jpg 85w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-280x280.jpg 280w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-576x576.jpg 576w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-145x145.jpg 145w, http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Willie_Bloomquist_p-255x255-566x566.jpg 566w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Willie Bloomquist<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Big Dawg, looks like those Marineros of yours are bringing back Willie Bloomquist. You are thrilled, I bet. Wasn\u2019t it Willie who ratted on you when you tried to bypass club rules and get an autographed ball from him to donate to charity? Yes it was, Big Dawg, you can\u2019t recant on that story now. You were embarrassed when the PR director came down hard on you for going behind the club\u2019s back. You thought you could do it because, after all, Willie is from South Kitsap. But Willie figured out who was signing his checks and ratted on you. As I recall, you then broke the club rule again by getting an Edgar Martinez signed ball through a clubhouse guy. But the rejection by Willie rattled you, and now he\u2019s coming back to haunt you again. He has to pass a physical, but it looks like it will be a two-year deal for around $5-6 million, according to Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports. Willie is a good guy, a proven winner, who will not only add a versatile presence on the field \u2013 he has played every position except catcher in 12 Major League seasons \u2013 but also a solid presence in the clubhouse. He doesn\u2019t have any power (17 career home runs), but he will give those Marineros of yours clutch hitting and fielding and solid leadership. Maybe, Big Dawg, you can ask him for an autographed ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bumerton","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1013,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}