Sunday, March 23, 2008

Question of the Day

I don't know why I thought of this, but I did, so now you have to participate. Who would win if the Seattle Mariners were to play the Seattle Seahawks - and here's the twist - in a game of soccer.

My first thought was that the Seahawks would kill them. Not only do they have a huge edge in athleticism, but they have guys - well, one guy now - who kick a ball for a living. Plus they have a much larger talent pool to draw from. That's when I started to think that many of the players in that pool are linemen whom running is not their forte, and therefore are most likely not very good and not very interested.

Then I began thinking that goal keeper is an important position in soccer, and theoretically, the Mariners have an edge since they have a couple guys like Kenji Johjima who stop a ball for a living and would probably do nicely. If not Kenji, then Richie Sexon is so big that he should be able to do a reasonable job. Not only that, but the Mariners have more Latin players (as far as I know, the Seahawks don't have any) who have played a lot more, and in that case have a huge advantage in experience. I know for a fact that both Bettencourt and Lopez played soccer growing up and will on occasion kick a ball around before baseball games.

So for me, it comes down to athleticism versus experience. Sure, guys like Julian Peterson are freakishly fast and athletic, but I've seen some very athletic people who were terrible soccer players because they didn't know how to play. But you'd think that with the much larger roster, the Seahawks would have enough athletic guys who had played at least some that they could field a decent team. And even though the Mariners have some guys who are probably pretty good, I'm not sure the rest of the team would be any good. There would still be a few terrible guys on the team.

For now I'm going with the Mariners. I think that with the edge in experience, and just enough guys with some speed to fill in, they have the slight edge. One thing is for certain though, either one would kill the Sonics.


1 comment:

W&MGrad said...

Mariners. The Seahawks are All-American boys and we all know that all-Americans do not play soccer. The Mariners, however, have boys from all over Latin America and Japan. Okay, I don't know if they play soccer in Japan but Ichiro and Kenji are fast, which should make up for Richie Sexson. Of course, Sexson would probably be injured the day of the big game.