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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 Calm down M's fans, it's too early to get excited about these guys By John Sleeper Herald Columnist SEATTLE -- Opening Day. Big deal. As any Mariners follower knows, the real season doesn't begin in the spring. September is when it really gets happening. If you're a Mariner fan, that's the time when, in every season since 2001, it's been the time to ignore the home nine and focus on the pennant races. And that's the reason I came close to tossing my cookies when I read that M's manager John McLaren spouted off with the following: "Anything short of the playoffs would be a huge disappointment." Great, Skip. Set yourself up. Based on what? Remember 2006, when an 0-11 road swing in August tossed the M's from playoff contention. Or 2007, when the Angels rumbled into Safeco and swept the M's in such devastating fashion that the home team never got over it. False hope. It's part of Opening Day Disease. Even the Pirates keep it close in April. The Mariners are the sexy pick to win the AL West. The big reasons are the off-season signings of Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva, who give Seattle one of the top starting rotations in baseball. Well, fine. Looks great. On paper, anyway. But how can McLaren mention playoffs with a straight face when the team is replacing Jose Guillen, who drove in 99 runs last season, with the tag team of Brad Wilkerson and Mike Morse in right? And why oh why is Richie Sexson still in Seattle? The dude's mind is so completely unraveled, his stroke so irretrievably flawed by last season's interminable slump, he's more done in Seattle than Shaun Alexander. To extend Sexson's misery in Seattle even one more day is a torture worse than waterboarding, yet McLaren says he looks for great things out of his beleaguered first baseman. And what's the deal with sticking knuckleballer R.A. Dickey with a one-way bus ticket to Tacoma? He was getting everybody out in the spring. Because of the knuckler, he can throw nearly every day, unlike any other reliever on the staff. He'll give hitter such a vastly different look. Beats me why McLaren sent him down. I like McLaren's optimism, but anybody can say anything Opening Day. By the way, Opening Day brings them all out. Saw a woman wearing a Ron Hassey jersey Monday. When did they SELL those things? Then there's the guy sitting down the third base line who brought a fishing net with a six-foot handle into the stadium -- with which he scooped up a foul ball in the third inning. But back to baseball. In the ridiculously elongated seasons of any big-time sport you can name, baseball's 162-game regular season takes the prize. It's not enough that baseball interferes with the Final Four. It leaks into halfway into the college football season, which is utter blasphemy. Here's another grievance. "It's even colder than last year's Opening Day," said Bob Evans of Edmonds, who admitted to wearing four layers and still froze Monday. "And that's saying something." Ask the dozens of shivering fans in the center field seats about their favorite warm-weather sport, especially as they were unsuccessfully shielding themselves from the hail fiercely blowing in under the retractable roof. It was Lambeau Field in December. Those who schedule March/April games north of Phoenix deserve whatever fate karma determines. After a three-game series against the Rangers, the Mariners are off to Baltimore for four more games. The White Sox opened in Cleveland. The Royals started in Detroit. Toronto played the Yankees in New York. What do all the above venues have in common? Temps in the 40s. Wind gusts up to 30 mph. Pneumonia in the stands. That's not baseball. I don't know what it is, but I'm fairly sure it goes against the Geneva Convention. Wake me Sept. 1. By that time, we'll know whether Bedard's 8.34 ERA in the spring was a fluke or a horrible twist of Mariner fate. We'll know more about Silva. We'll know whether Sexson fulfills McLaren's prediction and has a monster year. Then we can even get jacked up for games that really mean something. It's just not in us Opening Day. Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. To reach Sleeper's blog, "Dangling Participles," go to www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.

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