Sunday, August 31, 2014

Seahawks Season Preview: Non Divisional Opponents

The Seahawks enter the 2014 season in a position only one other professional men's sports franchise ever has in Seattle history. They are the defending league champions! THEY WON THE FREAKING SUPER BOWL!!! That means everyone else in the NFL is going to be gunning for our team. They are going to bring their best and look to dethrone the champs.

The thing is the NFL only has 16 regular season games and 6 of them are against divisional opponents, the same three teams we see every year and we will cover those guys in a different post. That means only 10 of the remaining 28 NFL teams get a shot at the champs. So, who are these insolent groups that dare challenge the kings of the NFL? Let's take a look at them.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Another Dave Sims Classic

If you read this blog often you probably know that we aren't big fans of Dave Sims being the Seattle Mariners TV play-by-play guy. He just doesn't do a very good job. That being said listen in to this Dave Sims classic. It happened this year in a game against the Yankees.


Saturday, August 2, 2014

Minor League Baseball Pay


A recent article in ESPN Magazine by Mina Kimes enlightened me to the plight of most minor league players. These young men barely make a living wage. In fact many of them live at or below the poverty line while playing minor league baseball. This is especially disheartening when you read that MLB pulled in $8 billion in gross revenue last year and, according to Kimes, it would cost each major league team only about an extra $1 millions to give all their minor leaguers a $5000 annual raise (major league teams pay the minor league players).

Minor league players only work for their teams 5-6 months a year and they only get checks during the season.  During the off-season they are not getting paid by MLB. However, most of these guys are still working on their baseball careers. They go to the gym and work out. They take hitting and fielding practice. They are trying to better themselves and by extension their big league team. This extra work is not technically required, but teams and fans expect it and the fierce competition for major league jobs demand it.

Most of the arguments against giving the prospects a raise center around the tradition of the minor leagues. It basically boils down to a feeling that minor league players should put in their time and take their lumps because that is what the current major league players did. This is a bogus argument. Just because one group had to suffer does not mean another has to. It is like your parents saying you cannot get a drivers license until you are 18 because they had to wait that long. The goal of each generation should be to better itself.

It is time for MLB to give the minor league players a pay raise.

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