I remember the spring of my 8th grade year. I just started taken an interest in the local professional sports scene (my favorite team was the now defunct Tacoma Stars. I still hero worship Steve Zungul and Preki. Today, I consider myself a fan of the Sounders FC…). The previous fall, I had finally figured out how the sport of gridiron football is played, and I ‘borrowed’ my parents’ walkman to listen to Seahawks games on the radio (Pete Gross went to The Beer Volcano and The Stripper Factory even before there was a Flying Spaghetti Monster). And then The New World Order (Mind-Control Division) decreed that baseball season should start, and I started listening to games on the radio. For the first part of the season as I was listening to the Mariners on the radio, Dick Williams was the team manager. They canned his ass midway through the season, and I paid little attention to it at the time, instead following the anitcs of Jimmy Snyder before he got shit-canned after the season and they brought in Jim Lefebvre, who eventually got the team to post its first winning season. Ever.
Anyway back to Dick Williams. He had an illustrious career as a player and a manager, and skippering the Mariners was the twilight of his career. Dick Williams passed away yesterday. Like I’ve said before, I never really followed him. He was almost an afterthought, and was gone beofre I realized what a contribution he had already made. Now he can join Dave Neihaus….
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