Reason #38: Chip Hale

Of the seven men who are vying for the job of Mariners manager for the next two years until they get fired because we still suck, Chip Hale is an unlikely one. He's currently a 3rd base coach in the National League, and his only managerial credentials came with 3 years at AAA Tucson. He won manager of the year in '07, but mostly because Arizona's minor leagues were so stacked then that they would have roasted today's Mariners in a 7 game series. So what does Mr. Hale have to say about why he should be our next fearless leader?

"My thing is, play the game the right way... I played under Tom Kelly in Minnesota and the thing he used to preach is 'Respect the game.' I came through that system. We just did things the right way."

So does that mean wearing socks and shoes at EVERY game, not riding bicycles around the bases (sorry, Yuni and Jose), not drawing swastikas in the infield dirt...? What the hell does 'respect the game' really mean? That's just a vague phrase like the 'war on terror' which sounds important and all but specifically refers to exactly nothing. Hmm. So much for brilliant strategy. How's his player evaluation skills? Wait, hang on - per Geoff Baker, "For the record, he thought the Erik Bedard trade was a good one for the M's and made sense."

Um. What. My dog knew that trade didn't make any sense, though admittedly he's a very smart dog. So, uh, why exactly should we be considering hiring Mr. Chip Hale again...

He was a scrappy white infielder with no baseball skills whatsoever??? Done. Sold. Signed sealed and delivered, uh huh.

Reason #26: Jim McIlvaine

The goal of every sports franchise is to build a dynasty, a team that competes in its arena of play at an extremely high level, perennial contenders for a championship. It takes foresight, it takes creative thinking, and it takes a little bit of luck. A dynasty is an incredibly hard thing to create.

But all it takes to undo one is 85 inches.

That’s the height of Jim McIlvaine, the 7’1” former Seattle center that casual Sonics fans have long since forgotten, and that hardcore fans would like to forget. You see, after the 1996 season in which the Sonics were denied the NBA title by the Bulls, the best team the NBA’s ever seen, McIlvaine was a free agent. At the same time, superstar Sonic Shawn Kemp was asking for a salary increase, one which he deserved to keep up with the rapid escalation of contract sizes. But the team instead gave McIlvaine, who had averaged under 3 points and 3 rebounds that season, the keys to the vault.

You don’t do that. You just never, ever do that. If you have an immensely talented, relatively young player that just took you to the Finals and can do it again, you pay him. No questions asked. You don’t give an unproven shot-block specialist priority over Shawn Friggin Kemp. He and Gary Payton were the dream duo – Kemp was the peanut butter to Payton’s jelly, the Coke to his rum. They were the best two players the franchise had ever seen, and they were broken up because to a few misguided people, Jim McIlvaine deserved the big money more.

The result of the story is a tragend - tragic legend – the Sonics never again made the Finals, McIlvaine was an enormous bust, never averaging more than 4 points or 4 rebounds per game, and Kemp was traded away the following year. The Reign Man’s career would never again be the same, as he battled weight problems, alcohol and an addiction to a different kind of coke.

That 1996 season would be the last peak in the history of Seattle professional basketball. The rest that followed was a slow downhill death spiral into oblivion. And Jim McIlvaine, all 85 inches of him, was one of the many factors that caused the downfall of the Sonics.

Reason #2: Carlos Silva

This is Carlos Silva.
Carlos Silva is a professional baseball player for the Seattle Mariners. Carlos Silva was a free agent going into the past offseason. Carlos Silva had decent career statistics, about average for a #3 pitcher, but was aided by the fact that he is an extreme pitch to contact pitcher and that he had a good defense behind him in the Twin Cities. The main suitor for Silva in the offseason was the Seattle Mariners, despite a recent history of signing pitchers to large contracts with poor results.

The Seattle Mariners signed Carlos Silva to a 4 year, 48 million dollar deal. His deal includes award bonuses: $0.2 M for winning the Cy Young, $50,000 each for winning the LCS MVP, Gold Glove, or being named to the All Star team. And $0.1 M for being named World Series MVP.

This season, Carlos Silva gave up 114 runs in 153 innings pitched. He sported a 6.46 ERA and a 1.6 WHIP. He gave up 213 hits while striking out only 69 batters. He gave up more than 3 times as many hits than strikeouts. He was one of the worst 5 starting pitchers in the major leagues.

Carlos Silva is fat. Carlos Silva refers to himself in the third person as ‘Chief.’ Carlos Silva has, on multiple occasions, threatened his teammates, and was likely the guilty party who threatened to beat up the team’s best player, Ichiro. Two months ago, in a long and vague rant against some of his teammates, Silva said, "Instead of moving a runner, they (Mariners hitters) want to get a base hit just because of the numbers. Instead of to get a ground ball, maybe I want to strike him out because of my numbers, you know what I mean?” In baseball, a base hit is better than just moving the runner over and a strikeout is almost always better than a ground ball. Carlos Silva apparently does not know this. Carlos Silva is a professional baseball player.

This season, the Seattle Mariners finished with 61 wins and 101 losses, the worst in the American League. They were also the first team to spend 100 million dollars and lose over 100 games.

The Seattle Mariners signed Carlos Silva to a 4 year, 48 million dollar deal. His deal includes award bonuses: $0.2 M for winning the Cy Young, $50,000 each for winning the LCS MVP, Gold Glove, or being named to the All Star team. And $0.1 M for being named World Series MVP.