SportsCentr

The Red Sox are about to trade for a manager - John Farrell of the Blue Jays. The Sox have reportedly been after Farrell for a year, but couldn’t put together a deal that would compensate the Jays for losing their skipper to a division rival. Farrell is their old pitching coach, which worked out so well for the Sox when they tried it with Joe Kerrigan in 2001. Kerrigan went 17-26 to close out the season, signed a multi-year contract, and then got fired in spring training. Which probably wasn’t so bad for Kerrigan and his wallet.

A year after the Kerrigan experiment, the Rays traded outfielder Randy Winn to the Mariners for the right to hire Lou Piniella. The Rays won 70 games for the first time, but that was about all they got. Meanwhile the Mariners enjoyed Winn’s prime and flipped him to the Giants, though they missed the playoffs in Bob Melvin’s first year, despite winning 93 games. Oh, those innocent days of but a single wild card team!

The Mariners cratered in 2004, losing 99 games, and they hired Mike Hargrove the next year. Who lost 93 games. What can we learn from this situation? Well, it probably isn’t a good idea to trade a good player for a manager, but it also doesn’t help to dump your manager, especially if he’s so good another team wants him. For teams on either side of an exchange like this, a player-manager swap does not lead to a lot of Winning.

To commemorate the end of their 17-game losing streak, Seattle catcher Josh Bard embraced Brandon League for a full 17 seconds. “We could lose 100 games in a row,” Bard whispered. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

Eric Wedge was thrown out of the Twins-Mariners game in the ninth inning, though umpire Jerry Meals ejected Wedge’s mustache first. The mustache said he had no quarrel with the ump; he was just trying to protect his manager.

Last night, Adam Kennedy hit his first home run since August, though it wasn’t enough to push the Mariners past the Tigers. Kennedy has had a rough go of it since he enjoyed a comeback year with Oakland in 2009. He struggled with the Nationals in 2010, and like so many current and former Oakland Athletics, he got arrested for a DUI this offseason.

Kennedy was arrested before ever donning the Mariners uniform, because teams don’t have press conferences where the player puts on a team jersey when they sign Adam Kennedy. In fact, it’s not clear that teams even sign Adam Kennedy. According to Joey Devine, “he just shows up when teams say his name three times. He’s baseball’s Bloody Mary.”

The Mariners dropped to 6-13 on the season, a thoroughly appropriate record for a team that starts Adam Kennedy at first base, and has him hit third.

(AP photo)

This Blue Jays fan is NOT getting a forearm bash from Brendan Ryan.

(AP photo)

Ladies and gentlemen, the whitest moment of the 2011 baseball season. We’ve got a forearm bash that barely connects, an oversized batting helmet, some kind of rubber awareness bracelet, a batting glove fastened over a long-sleeved shirt, it’s all great.

We’re only a few games in, so these guys will have some competition, but right now, Ryan Langerhans and Brendan Ryan are setting the gold standard.

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Down 7-0 in the bottom of the seventh, Ichiro and the Mariners rallied to score eight runs in the next three innings and stun the visiting Blue Jays. This amazing win will be remembered forever by the 122 fans who stayed for the whole game.

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Hideki Matsui got his first two hits of the season on Japanese Heritage Day in Oakland. The A’s donated $50,000 to earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan, which is the equivalent of the Yankees donating $15 million. Also, they beat the Mariners 7-1, helped by a run and an RBI from Matsui. Hawaii-born Kurt Suzuki countered Ichiro’s 1-for-3 with a 1-for-3 of his own, including an RBI double.

I’m not saying that the A’s won due to positive karma from the big donation, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt.

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(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Is this the saddest Wave in history?

Down 8-0 at the end of a 100-loss season, three brave, deluded Mariner fans still haven’t given up.