Give me your violent, your crazy, your recidivist bastards yearning to make it to February

I apologize to the mourners for interrupting the Sonics-related sad sackery, but there are important, uplifting, burning Seattle sports issues to discuss: namely, the upcoming football season and one solid idea for making our football team not suck this year. And no, I don’t mean the Huskies – I have no idea how to make them stop sucking. I am talking about the Seahawks, the gridiron's nicest guys and former home of the chubbiest star running back since the Bus left Steeltown.

I know it’s hard to get excited about football while the weather’s still warm and the sun’s still shining during dinner. But for me, every year at about this time, I can feel excitement start to build about the coming of fall. Part of this excitement is, no doubt, the proximity of crisp, clear days and the new-school-year optimism embedded deep in my lizard brain. But a big part of the excitement is the approach of a new football season, so filled with nervousness and anticipation back in the Pop Warner days, and now brimming with the promise of drinking beer at 10 o’clock on Sunday mornings and watching Lofa Tatupu punish any running back with the temerity to run between the tackles.

Last year was a bit of a disappointment. Not as much for me as for a friend who picked Shaun Alexander first in his fantasy draft, but neverthless a disappointment to watch so much talent being squandered. But this year, I’ve got hopes. And I’ve got one solid idea for how we can turn our guys into the Emerald City marauders we need to be to make it to the big game.

We need more criminals.

That’s right. It’s no secret that some teams have achieved great success by keeping known felons in their ranks. Indeed, the examples of excellent individual acquisitions are too many to catalog here. But perhaps no team has utilized the criminally-inclined more effectively than America’s Team: the Dallas Cowboys. And frankly, I’m sick of seeing Jerry Jones's band of rogues win at the expense of our guys in green, and I think it’s time we steal a page from their rap sheet.

But first, let’s look at some fish that got away:

Terry “Tank” Johnson, for example, has been a successful acquisition for America’s Team. Having been arrested numerous times on a variety of charges, including illegal firearm possession and assault of a police officer, Johnson was dropped by the Bears. Career over? No way. The Cowboys were more than happy to scoop him up and plant him in the middle of a very effective D Line. The kicker: as a former Husky, the Seahawks were in prime position to add Tank to their arsenal in the 2004 draft. Who did they pick instead? Marcus Tubbs, who in 2007 had no felonies and no sacks.

Adam “Pacman” Jones is perhaps the most brilliant, and most felonious, Cowboy acquisition in recent memory. Sure, he sat out the entire 2007 season for making it rain just a little too hard, but his return promises to be spectacular, and will give the Cowboys their first true lockdown corner since Neon Deion left to be co-host of the 700 Club. Just looking at the numbers, it’s clear that Seattle should have snapped him up on the cheap: even taking the 2007 goose egg into account, Pacman’s three-year career average of 1.33 interceptions and 38.33 tackles per season outguns the 1 interception and 35 tackles Kelly Jennings recorded in his first and only season as a Hawks’ corner.

And aside from those two criminally good acquisitions, the Cowboys have been just as effective at growing their own, so to speak. The roster of Cowboy outlaws is too long to go into detail: Nate Newton, Michael Irvin, Erik Williams, Hollywood Henderson . . . . We all know that Rae Carruth would be running patterns in Arlington if only he’d had Johnny Cochran as his lawyer.

So, where does that leave us nice guys? Perhaps we can score the former Bengals' WR Chris Henry, who, based on last season’s on and off field performances, promises to be very bad, and very good, in years to come. But who else is there that we can acquire? There must be someone, and we just need to be on the lookout. For example: he runs a 4.0 forty but gets in a fight every Friday night? Awesome; bail him out and suit him up in Seattle. He benches 225 forty-five times but has failed every drug test since the combines? Great! From your lock-up to our locker room, we’re happy to have him.

I think Paul Allen and crew just need to start scouring the police blotters for franchise talent. Hell, maybe with two or three more violent criminals, we could be America’s team.

Sonics Coda

I went down to the Sonics team store to buy some of the history Clay Bennett so graciously declined to take to Oklahoma. A guy was walking out with a box as tall as he was. It held a nearly-life-size Kevin Durant bobblehead. Inside, a line of about 25 waited to buy dwindling supplies of Sonics stuff at 75% off. Behind me in line, a female Sonics employee talked on the phone about her future with the team and whether she would move to Oklahoma City.

"I've had better days." That was the response of the cashier to the rhetorical question of how he was doing. I bought a Sonics hat, a long-sleeved Durant t-shirt and a nylon Sonics wallet. Price: $15.25, down from $55.97. I pocketed a Sonics keychain flashlight. It was my symbolic pound of flesh for the theft of the team from Seattle. Outside, the KeyArena message board flashed information about an upcoming Neil Diamond concert.

A few hours after the Sonics settlement came down, I saw an exceedingly strange movie called "My Winnipeg." In it, director Guy Maddin narrates a phantasmagoric analysis of why he has been unable to leave his lifelong home, which comes across as the Buffalo of Canada.

One of the things Maddin laments is the departure of his beloved NHL team, the Winnipeg Jets; they bolted for hockey-mad Phoenix in 1996. For Maddin, this was a personal insult. His mother gave birth to him in a locker room of the old Winnipeg Arena while his dad was coaching a game. So Maddin perceived a small victory when it came time to implode the old barn. The first round of dynamite only destroyed the sections of the arena added on when the Jets joined the NHL. That the main frame withstood the initial explosion convinced Maddin it was a sign -- of what, who knows?

So what small victory can Sonics fans take from their team's departure? Bland bromides from city leaders about the possibility of a new team at an unspecified later date? Really, we're just left with a settlement larded with more dependent clauses than a nursing home full of Santas. Seattle, meet Winnipeg. Maybe you can go to the Neil Diamond show together.

The Inevitable

These "contests" are always as predictable as a Harlem Globetrotters-Washington Generals tilt. In the role of the Globetrotters: David Stern and Clay Bennett; reprising the role of the Generals: Sonics fans.

By definition, as fans we invest an inordinate amount of time, energy and emotion into our teams. We're still kids rooting for our heroes. And then the grownups with money come along and show us how deluded we've been to hitch our hopes to a team's wagon. Fans of the old Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts and many others know how this day feels.

Save for a few franchises, every NBA fan should realize this could happen to their team. Yet this is a strangely local story. Check the major sports websites, and the Sonics' move is getting national play somewhere between Baron Davis' signing with the Clippers and LeBron James playing kissy-face with Jay-Z.

In the end, we didn't have a chance. A settlement is the best the little guy could ever hope for, even without a guarantee of a future franchise. Congratulations Oklahoma City. Enjoy it now, because in 10 years when the crowds shrink and your arena is no longer state-of-the-art, you'll know how we feel.

A two sport town

Although I knew for months that this was the only realistic outcome, I'm somehow still affected. Part of me still clung to the slimmest of hopes that a last-minute miracle would save our team. It's probably the same part that convinced me to buy season tickets and to sit through a 20-win season. The same part that cheered madly during each tiny victory in the season (a breakaway dunk... a flash of brilliance from Durant... PJ waking up long enough to bench Watson). At every jump ball, I knew that we probably wouldn't win, but a small part of me always held out hope for a miracle or two.

It was the part of me that was a fan. The part that believed that our Sonics -- no matter how outmatched -- had a chance every night, no matter who they faced.

This is a blow to fans of all sports in all cities. It underlines the fact any sports franchise is subject to the whim and caprice of a very small number of very rich people. Any team can move at any time and the fans are helpless.

I'm extra, extra fucking bummed.

What now?

I grew up in Texas and started watching football when I was 7. That was the year Earl Campbell won the Heisman and then got drafted by the Oilers. (Yes, by SGB standards, I'm an old man.) I was hooked on the Oilers, even through the Hugh Campbell years. And even, somewhat to my shame, through the move to Tennessee. I saw no reason to give up my allegiance to a team just because Bud Adams is a rat-fink. To this day, I've got a place in my heart for the Titans.

I have no such place for the Sonics.

So. Assuming the Sonics are gone, what's a Seattle basketball fan to do?

Blazers? I know a lot of Seattle fans who can't stomach the thought. Me, I haven't been here long enough to hate them. In fact, I've only been here long enough to have huge admiration for Nate McMillan and to think they're putting together a hell of a team down there.

Huskies? I'm more of an NBA guy myself. But I love the atmosphere at Hec Ed. I just wish you didn't have to be an actuary to figure out their damned season-ticket system.

Maybe it's time to move on from basketball altogether. How are the Thunderbirds doing these days?

So the Sonics have just broken up with us. Who'll be our rebound team?

Sonics Settlement

The city and the Sonics have reached a settlement. Here's the note on the U.S. District Court's site. There's a press conference at 5 p.m. today to announce the details.

I'll be surprised if it involves the team playing any more seasons in Key Arena. But we'll see in 45 minutes or so.

Pimpin' ain't easy

From Ballers w/ randoms, a surprisingly transfixing album on Flickr: