A Sports Logo Pundit Rant

First of all, I would like to thank the Saint John's Fog Devils for making me the "Mystery Click" on their website this week. I reviewed their logo back in March and I loved it and apparently they liked my review. I have had a ton of traffic from their website this week and I am very grateful.

I have been surprised to see so much traffic coming from the "Mystery Click". It proves a point that I have been trying to make about team's websites: fans visit them. Fans click around and look at stuff. Fans want quality information on their team's website.

I don't understand at all why so many teams put a minimum of effort into their websites. Working for the minor league baseball teams that I worked for, it was very hard to convince anybody how important our website was. The websites that I had to work with as the Media Relations Director were awful. I did my best, but I didn't have much experience at that point. Now, I would (and could) turn a team's website into a gem if it stunk big time (if it was my job, this is just a hobby, hence the ungemlike quality).

All I ask for is a website that is updated after every game and a couple of times a week during the offseason, a good idea of what to expect if I attend a game, and factual information, like a correct schedule posted. You wouldn't believe how often team's schedules are wrong on their website!

Teams could even go with a simple blog format and update it everyday, I don't care. It doesn't have to look beautiful, it just needs to be informative. I wish some teams would get that through their heads.

By the way, the Fog Devil's website is uber-informative. Crazy busy, but informative. Very well done.

Seattle Supersonics

Wow! What a bummer. If you haven't heard yet, Howard Schultz has sold the Seattle Sonics and Storm to an Oklahoma City group led by Clayton Bennett for $350 million, a profit of $90 million for Schultz after figuring in the losses that he has claimed. The team will definitely play the 2006-2007 season in Seattle, but after that they are not contractually obligated to stay in town if they can get out of their Key Arena lease, which probably wouldn't be a problem.

For all Sonics and Storm fans this comes as no big surprise and a big shock all at the same time. Schultz has been complaining for the last two years about Key Arena and all of the money that he has lost and has been frustrated by the lack of interest that the city, the state and all of it's residents have expressed about publicly subsidizing yet another sports stadium in Seattle. It isn't a surprise to see Schultz sell out.

But I don't think anybody could have anticipated that he would sell to a group who, despite everything that they say about wanting to stay in Seattle, are so obviously focused on bringing a team to Oklahoma City permanently. The New Orleans Hornets are scheduled to play once again in OKC for the 2006-2007 season and George Shinn wants to relocate them there for good. But you have to think that the purchase of the Sonics by a major player in bringing the Hornets to town in the first place, is an indication that the Hornets will be staying in New Orleans and the Sonics will be taking over in 2007.

It's a disgusting move by a man, Howard Schultz, who claims to be a community leader and owes so much of his success and the success of his other company, Starbucks, to Seattle and the State of Washington. It is a sale obviously aimed to put pressure on the city to build a new arena, or else. In today's press conference, Shultz said that the OKC group "has a better chance to succeed in negotiations with local government" failing to add what he really wanted to say: "because if they don't, it will be the city's fault that the Sonics are gone for good."

I'm rooting for the city and state not to cave. As much as I love the Sonics, hell I worked part-time for the Sonics and Storm for two and a half years, I don't ever support public funding for stadiums, anywhere. At least not a majority of funding unless the facility will be open to the public most of the time. And I don't mean open to the public to buy expensive basketball or concert tickets, I mean open to everybody to use equally, like a community center. I didn't think that Safeco Field should have been funded and I still think Qwest Field is a joke.

Seattle has so many other pressing capital fund projects that need funding. The city needs a new viaduct before it collapses, a new 520 bridge before it sinks and, for god sakes, to finish an actual rapid transit system. I know that it isn't necessarily the same money that would fund these projects but it doesn't matter, you can't be whining about no funding for some projects and then brag about your brand new, publicly financed basketball arena. Nobody will buy it. Key Arena is not a threat to life and limb, it does not need to be replaced. The viaduct and the 520 are. Fix them now, screw the arena.

If the OKC group really wants to stay in Seattle like they say, they will see what an advantage it is for them to put forward the majority of the funding for a new arena and run it themselves keeping all of the profits. But you know as well as I do that isn't going to happen when their hometown is ready and willing to have it's own team permanently.

Howard Schultz should have been able to see that advantage too, but when public funding is possible, nobody is willing to put up their own money. He has forced the city and state into an impossible position, either they buckle and give up more than ever or they lose the team. Damn you Howard Schultz, I hope whenever you show your face in public someone lights into you for this. I know that if I ever see you at Salumi, you will get an ear full. Unfortunately, I live in California, so I won't get the opportunity any time soon.

As far as the logo goes, this is a logo blog after all, I have always thought it was garbage. I am happy they ditched the red and went back to the original colors, but this logo is so lackluster it's unacceptable. They had an opportunity to go back to the great skyline in a basketball logo and didn't and I never forgave them for that. And they have never been the Sonics to me, they never should have dropped the Super from their name. The Sonics can move anywhere they want if you ask me, but the Supersonics will live on no matter what happens.

My Two Cents On Barry Bonds

I can't say that I have anything new to add to the discussion about Barry Bonds and his chase for the homerun title, but I might as well weigh in with my opinions on the topic, seems like everybody else is.

Barry Bonds used steroids. I don't think there is any debating that in the public realm. It is so obvious, any dope can see it (no pun intended). But it hasn't been proven, and really there is no way it can be proven. He most likely has stopped by now and we will never get a positive drug test out of him.

Barry Bonds is perhaps the best player that our generation has seen. Even without the steroids his plate discipline, his bat speed, his power and his defense have been unmatched. He was a little more mortal without the roids, but he was still the best.

Where I see the problem with Barry Bonds is his longevity. Steroids did not make him a better baseball player. It gave him more power, but you still have to be as good as he is to make contact like he does. But it should have ended years ago. The steroids kept him healthy. They made his recovery time from injuries or the everyday aches and pains much quicker and allowed him to keep playing at the same level day in and day out for much of the last five years.

So does Barry Bonds deserve the record? No, he should have lost the touch years ago, steroids helped him keep from losing it. Do I think that they should put an asterisk by his name or anything else? Only if it is proven, without any doubt, in a court of law or something like it, that he did take steroids. I think the doubt in the mind of everybody about his legitimacy is enough of an asterisk.

Baseball is the only sport where we remember things like this across generations. Just look at all the people talking about Babe Ruth and who he was during Bond's chase. The public will not soon forget about everything that Bonds had come to stand for. We will still be debating this when we are all old and gray. And that might be punishment enough for old Barry boy.

Tonight I Hate College Basketball

No other sport makes me happier than college basketball, and no other sport makes me more upset than college basketball.

Last week I was higher than a kite with both my Washington Huskies and the Gonzaga Bulldogs pulling off big wins on my birthday. Tonight, my bipolar relationship with college basketball swung the other way after watching the Zags blow it down the stretch.

The Huskies are still alive, so I could swing back the other way tomorrow night, but I'm not sure if I can take another close game like that. I'm not quite at rock bottom, but another heartbreaker could easily send me there.

By the way, the above picture is one of the saddest picture that I have seen in years. Nothing makes me more upset than seeing anyone from Los Angeles happy, especially at the expense of us Washingtonians. We Washingtonians are better than anybody from Los Angeles, even if our teams lose to them, and I still would rather go home to Spokanistan, Olympia or even Othello than have to live in the cesspool that is LA.

Fuck UCLA, fuck LA and fuck California. Yeah, I said it.

While we're at it, fuck Connecticut. Go Dawgs!

McMillan a Blazer???

So Nate McMillan is leaving the Seattle Supersonics for the Portland Trailblazers huh? Well this puts the final nail in the coffin for me being a Sonics fan. I have been a life long Sonics supporter even working for them part time for two years but I lost interest in them last season despite the fact that they were really good. I only watched a few minutes of their playoff run. Nate McMillan was one of the few things that I really liked about the Supes over the past few years, and now he's gone and Flip Saunders just isn't going to do it for me.

Now Nate is heading to Portland and I feel like there must be something else going on in that organization to make him head to the hated Blazers. I doubt it was just the money. Nate never seemed like someone who would make a decision purely based on a paycheck (although, until now he probably was never in that kind of position). There had to have been some kind of power struggle involved that would sour the relationship enough that Nate would head to the Sonics rival essentially slapping everyone involved right in the kisser.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the money was probably the clincher. The Sonics offer sounded good, but you can't fault a guy for taking the kind of money that the Blazers are giving him. Just like I thought it was stupid for Mariner fans to hate Alex Rodriguez for taking the largest contract in baseball history. You can't turn that down. It's not possible. And like I said, you can't fault the Sonics for not offering him good money, because it sounds like they did.

What you can fault the Sonics for is their waiting too damn long to do anything and my personal feeling that there is a mighty power struggle in the heart of this operation that made Nate want to shove it in the face of Howard Schultz, Wally Walker and Rick Sund. Either way, the Sonics and most of the NBA are now officially dead to me. Although I will have to keep an eye on the Blazers now.