It’s been well documented that 2008 was the worst sports year for any city in history. And 2009 started a little bit better with the Huskies winning a bad Pac 10 before being dumped out of the tourney early.
But is it too early to say that April 25, 2009 was the official inflection point in the resurgence of Seattle sports? Maybe the absolute bottom was the 2008 Husky hoops lost to Portland St. Or the Apple Cup. We saw a few nice things happen in 2009 to get us off the mat. Sarkisian was hired and UW football suddenly seemed relevant again. Then Griffey signed and the Mariners seemed interesting again. And then ths Sounders got off to their hot start and we once again had a 3rd sport to pay attention to.
But then came April 25.
- The Seahawks get the player they wanted and needed, plus they got an additional 1st round draft pick next year. Now, if the Seahawks stink in 2009, they’ll go into the draft with 2 high picks to get both their QB of the future and fill whatever immediate need they have. And if they’re good next year, they won’t have any immediate needs to fill and will have the luxury to use Denver’s high pick on their QB of the future. Beautiful.
- The Mariners win 9-8. The win keeps them in first place, and they finally do it by scoring runs, rather than hoping the other team doesn’t.
- The Sounders bounce back from 2 losses, winning 2-0 to get themselves back in contention, just a half game back of first.
- And there was excitement around the Husky Spring Game. When was the last time anyone cared about the Husky Spring Game? And better yet, since they were playing each other, one team of Huskies had to win, giving at least some players on that roster an emotion they hadn’t felt since high school.
I think we can say that Seattle sports is finally out of the cellar, and is on a good trajectory.