Portland's AAA franchise is looking to move

The friend that drove me down to Portland, Dylan, has been known to jinx a minor league team or two when he is in town... but this is ridiculous. The man is in town for a couple days and the Portland Beavers are already looking to move to Beaverton to become... the Beaverton Beavers! Wow.

The Beavers will play next year at PGE Park, but then will need a new home because the stadium will be reconfigured for Major League Soccer by 2011. Paulson also owns the minor league Timbers soccer team and was awarded a Major League Soccer franchise in March.

He since has been in negotiations with Leonard and Portland Mayor Sam Adams to have taxpayers pay millions toward soccer renovations to PGE Park and building a new baseball park. But plans for the new ballpark at Memorial Coliseum and in Lents Park died in the face of opposition.

Paulson's latest proposal is a $31 million deal to renovate PGE Park for soccer, including reconfiguring its diamond shape into a more traditional bowl. The plan goes before the Portland City Council on Thursday.

Judging from all the empty seats at Beaver games seen on FSN - I'd say that Portland doesn't give a rat's behind about the Beavers. And why should they? They're a major-league city that has a AAA team that plays on astro turf and diving pits. It would be like giving Boston an af2 team. Fantastic, wonderful... nobody would go.

Oh and did I mention their affiliate is the Padres? I'm guessing they aren't scoring too many runs these days.

Mariner fans, the gig is up, your bullpen sucks

FSN jinxed last night's game by flashing the "the Seattle Mariners have the third best bullpen ERA in the American League" graphic.

Well now they're sixth in the league thanks to a 10-6 loss to the LA Angels of Anaheim.

Sure, Jarod Washburn gave up a three-run double to Tori Hunter in a five-run fifth inning, but the bullpen - which has been a roller coaster so far this year - didn't make anything better. Don't try to trump up a team's strengths in areas that are actually its weakness.

And I understand stats are stats in baseball but don't tell me for a second that the Mariners have the third best bullpen in the league. Not even close, people knew coming into this season that (a) all Seattle has was right-handers that could throw nothing but fastballs and (b) Brandon Morrow was going to be the closer.

We'll he's unreliable at best as a closer and everyone else in the bullpen could be trusted as much as a timeshare salesman. Your 2009 Seattle Mariners!

Reasons why you're still single... Angie Mentink

You texted your buddies about Angie Mentink's excessive cleavage during the replay of the Mariners loss to the Kansas City Royals yesterday.

FSN officially sucks

The Sonics move, leaving a hole in their winter programming and apparently FSN goes all to hell. Not only do they insist on showing nothing but replays of high school state basketball games
over and over again, but now even their Mariners broadcasts suck.

(Keep in mind, I'd love to watch the Red Sox everyday, but thats now how the regional markets work out. Bless their hearts they're awesome they end up playing on ESPN and FOX on a regular basis - but the bulk of the season is not available to me and I'm forced to GameCast in online. But gee golly! I get to watch the Mariners on FSN. Woo!)

Season Opener, they screw up the live feed and viewers were actually able to see Dave Nehaus and company prepping for the show. No Joke. From dressing the set to switching to weird and akward angles of the Metrodome to Niehaus talking obscenely loud and cleaning wax out of his ears. Is was the most surreal five minutes of baseball I had ever seen.

A couple weeks ago, I find my grandpa staring at a blank television and come to the conclusion that he's had a heart attack. No sir, he looks up at me and says "Damn broadcast has been like this for half and hour." Lightning strike in Georgia causes blackout of Mariners game.

Yesterday, the broadcast of the Mariners game freezes with Angie Mentink frozen in mid-word, making her look like a complete jackass. And despite the audio, the broadcast remains with the image of Mentink frozen for roughly five minutes. Even through commercials. Wow.

I'm going to guess that the Mariners might have a sit-down talk with the people at FSN about the lapses in the broadcasts. They're in first place! Who the heck wants to miss "The Improbable Dream?" I sure don't (oh wait, Carlos Silva is pitching... crap!).

Oh and since we're on the subject of Angie Mentink, while looking for a photo of her I ran across a Michigan State University forum thread completely dedicated to her showing off her "bewbs" on the one of the broadcasts.

People in Michigan are interesting to say the least. Especially the guy that posted this response in the thread...

"Broke up with girlfriend a few weeks ago. Never thought Angie Mentink was too attractive. Turned it on anyway. Thanks"

Ladies and gentlemen... you're quintessential sports fan from Michigan!

And if you type in "Angie Mentink" in Google Images you'll be shocked with the first result that comes up.

Reason why you're still single... letters

You write an lengthy and emotional letter to FSN about how stupid it is that they show the Mariners game during the Sounders FC match, and then a REPLAY of the match after the Mariners game. Apparently all FSN does is play replays.