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Ewing leaves 'em listless in Seattle
By Jim Caple
Special to Page 2SEATTLE -- While Knicks fans eagerly anticipate the moment Tuesday night when their favorite team plays against their former center of 15 years (how is Spike Lee holding up under the anxiety, anyway?), fans in Seattle likewise await Tuesday's game pondering the same crucial question that has been nagging at them for weeks:
|  | | Patrick Ewing's arrival in Seattle has been greeted with a big yawn. |
Where will A-Rod sign?
The Patrick Ewing trade initially made headlines here, and Tuesday's game against the Knicks is a big deal. However, Seattle sports fans simply have too many other concerns to have otherwise much noticed one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history. Local fans are busy crossing their fingers that Rodriguez returns to the Mariners next season. They are lighting candles that the Washington Huskies return to Pasadena to play in the Rose Bowl this New Year's. They are arming themselves with garlic and crucifixes to ward off any chance that Kenny G. will return to play the Star-Spangled Banner before a game.
Ewing? Sure, it's great finally having a center bound for Springfield but ... what did Microsoft do today?
Hey, I've been a Ewing fan ever since he led Georgetown to the 1984 NCAA championship at the Kingdome. And I've always got a spot in my heart for fading Hall of Famers, such as Rickey Henderson, who added Seattle to his world tour concert T-shirt this summer. I cheered for Gaylord Perry when he won his 300th game as a Mariner. I watched from the press box as Franco Harris lugged the ball for the Seahawks.
It's just that every once in awhile, you wish guys would have arrived in Seattle a little earlier in their careers. Such as before their ACLs looked like the leftover pasta special at the Olive Garden.
When healthy, Ewing will provide the Sonics with a long-needed proven center. And he won points when he announced that he is willing to donate a kidney to Alonzo Mourning, though most fans would prefer he do so after the season.
But he'll need to do more than that to revive the Sonics' popularity to the level of several years ago when the team advanced to the NBA Finals, and Shawn Kemp was filling both KeyArena and the local maternity wards to capacity. Season ticket sales are down by about a thousand from last year. Fans outside the metro area often have trouble tuning in to the local station televising the games. One poll showed only 10 percent of Seattleites consider themselves NBA fans. Even with Ewing's debut, the Sonics felt compelled to hold a Turn-Back-the-Clock promotion to assure a sellout for the home opener.
In the past three years, Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. left the Mariners, Kemp left the Sonics, Joey Galloway left the Seahawks and Paul Allen left Microsoft. And now there's the very real possibility Rodriguez is on his way out as well.
So forgive folks in Seattle if they haven't gotten caught up in the drama of the new guy in town -- they're too busy dealing with the players who've left town.
Jim Caple of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is a regular contributor to Page 2. He also writes a weekly "Off Base" column for ESPN.com's baseball page.
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