Seattle Mariners don't want the Sonics to come back

After a few 100-loss seasons, you'd think the Mariners would be looking for another team to district Northwest sports fans from the awful crappiness that is Sodo Mojo. In a weird twist to the whole "Hey! Seattle got get an NHL franchise and an NBA franchise back (if David Stern dies)" debacle, the Mariners don't want a new arena near Safeco and the Clink. I didn't realize the M's were owned by Dr. Evil.

SEATTLE -- For now, the Seattle Mariners believe a proposal to build a new NBA/NHL arena in Seattle needs to find a different home.

 The Mariners sent a formal letter to the city of Seattle and King County officials Tuesday opposing the idea of a new multipurpose arena in the same neighborhood as the Mariners' home of Safeco Field. The letter, signed by Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln, cited concerns about traffic and scheduling of events taking place in an area that already features Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field -- the home to the Seattle Seahawks and Sounders.

 In the letter, obtained by KJR-AM and later by The Associated Press, Lincoln says the franchise supports the idea of the NBA returning to Seattle, but that an exhaustive examination of various sites for a new arena in the greater Seattle area needs to be conducted.

I know in reality, the M's would have no problem with the Sonics coming back. I just like to be dramatic. However, considering the history of basketball arenas in the city of Seattle, do they really want to throw more road blocks in the way? The whole traffic thing a bit weird considering that baseball and basketball seasons don't go at the same time. There would be some overlap late in the NBA season and the beginning of the MLB season BUT it would be a minimal overlap unless the new Sonics made a deep playoff run.

BTW... the Sounders and Mariners don't have games on the same day, and downtown seems to handle them just fine. The cool thing about having all three arenas right next to one another means that you could reuse the parking infrastructure. If you need to handle more traffic, make sure the new arena has the road infrastructure around to handle it. It's not rocket science. It seems like somebody doesn't want to share their ball and mitt.