Clement signs!

Murmurs abounded in the Mariners blogpile this morning, and at 1pm today there was apparently a press conference, and there's an official press release from the team and everything.

Pat Dillon, announcer for the Everett Aquasox, confirmed on USSM today that Jeff Clement will report to Everett and be in uniform for tomorrow night's game. That's exciting -- I wonder if I can go, I was out of town for Felix's debut in Tacoma this year and had to catch his second or third home start instead.

In other news, I would like to point out something of significance -- when the Mariners DFA'ed Boonie, when they removed him from the 1st avenue Safeco Players' Heads Wall, they replaced him with Pokey Reese. I mentioned this before, but with the trade deadline looming, this has even more significance. They could have easily replaced him with Shiggy (who's been on the wall before), or Morsie, or Willie, but no. It says a lot that they'd rather just put up a perennial-DL person than an active player -- for fear they'd end up trading them and just need to change the faceboard again?

Last night's game really frustrated me. I checked in after 6 innings and thought, "Great! We're winning, Franklin's at around 100 pitches, put in someone else for the 7th and we'll be in good shape!" But nooooo, they had to have that painful 7th inning instead. I was listening to it on the radio driving my friend to the airport as the game got tied at 3-3, and fortunately also as it was won at 5-3, but man. I know Franklin whines a lot, but you know, I'd whine after a game like that too.

Anyway, the game this week I am looking forward to is Thursday -- not just because of S'n'P -- but, because one of the most memorable games I remember attending in the 2003 season was Meche pitching against the hapless 2003 Tigers for "Edgar, Duck!" Night. From the wrap:

Meche struggled most of the way, possibly because the Tigers started nine left-handed batters.

"I don't recall ever seeing that," he said.

Not that it mattered, as the M's were up 7-0 by the second inning, but still. I really enjoyed that game -- I sat about 10 rows behind home plate, because even though it was in the days of most-games-at-Safeco-sell-out, the Tigers were so awful that nobody wanted to see them, and so excellent seats were still readily available, even day-of.

And I mean, look at the guys who played in that game. Some of them are still playing baseball, obviously, but many of them never made it past that awful 2003 Detroit season. Heck, Kevin Witt couldn't even make it on the Yokohama Bay Stars and got sent down to *their* farm team after only hitting .172/.206/.406 this year.

So yeah! Safeco Thursday for sure, and I was originally thinking of maybe Safeco tomorrow, but I never have seen an Aquasox game, and this might be the time. Hmm...

p.s. I was wrong about Snelling getting a start on Sunday, but I was right about him hitting Kevin Millwood like a printer in Office Space.