Sober Seattle Saturday: The week in sports missed while you were intoxicated

Seahawks president Tim Ruskell set aside his Mormon Tabernacle Choir boy criteria for football players and slapped the franchise tag on linebacker Leroy Hill who will make $8.304 million next season. As you may recall, Hill was jailed last month after the fuzz found my favorite defensive player asleep at the wheel while stopped at an intersection in suburban Atlanta. Oh, and he had a bag of weed on him. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come for Ruskell. The defense that he’s orchestrated is in dire need of some nasty. The Hawks need a host of players on that side of the ball who wake up in the morning thinking about violence and go to sleep in the evening thinking about violence. Sorry folks, that’s the NFL. Prized free agent defensive tackle and all-around psycho Albert Haynesworth would be a nice fit. Just sayin’.

Putz is a wee girl
You heard Ken Griffey Jr. is back, right? Of course you did. The next news cycle in this saga focuses on how or if Griffey can mend supposed clubhouse tensions aimed at Ichiro. Former Mariner reliever J.J. Putz, who has proven to be a worthless sack of skin, took shots at Ichiro for not doing more last season while everyone else on the team phoned it in. He’s not the only one who is chirping on the way out the door, which should tell you a lot about the quality of players, coaches and managers on last year’s roster – weak.

Anyhoo, Putz said everybody hates Ichiro because on top of being the best leadoff hitter in baseball since Rickey Henderson, Ichiro wasn’t hitting home runs, pitching, cleaning the clubhouse and watering the grass in the outfield. Ichiro is so good, Putz’s line of thinking goes, that he should be doing everything so everyone else can play cards and collect their paychecks. That was pretty much the gist of it and it really showed on the field last year as most of the players looked like they didn’t care. Thankfully, new GM Jack Zduriencik has cleared the roster of players like Putz, but there may be some residual tensions to clean up. Putz is now a member of the Mets and instead of being a man and saying something last season, he’s throwing verbal hand grenades from the east coast like a wee girl. Check that, a wee girl throws harder than Putz.

Oden hurt again
Blazers center Greg Oden will miss a couple more games because of a bone chip in his knee. He should talk to my grandpa – he had his knees replaced, and at age 90, is still playing golf. This plan has no holes.

Sonics arena plan pooh-poohed
The city of Seattle said “no thanks” to a drafted state legislative proposal to fund an arena plan with the hopes of getting another NBA franchise in Seattle. We shouldn’t be surprised that the city of Seattle can’t get out of its own way to find a solution. It took years for these guys to figure out whether or not to salt the streets when it snows. I have little faith they’ll be able to figure out a tax plan to renovate Key Arena. Seeing that every one of the former Sonics owners have lost their collective shirts thanks to the economic crisis, it would have been wonderful to have Clay Bennett write a check for $30 million, forcing him to auction off his prized collection of coat pocket handkerchiefs. Hey, it worked for Aubrey McClendon. Looks like we’ll have to get used to Portland Trail Blazers basketball or adopt a new hobby for the winter months. Maybe take luge lessons.

UW loses to UCLA
The Dawgs played well in a losing effort at UCLA on Thursday, 85-76. Everyone is saying this could be a preview of a Pac-10 tournament championship game. The Huskies face off against USC tonight. No word if football coach Steve Sarkisian committed any NCAA violations this weekend, but he's still got time.