Seattle GM Bavasi gets some of blame for M’s woes

Just a few Memorial Day thoughts as I lather my sun-blistered face with more aloe:

It looks to be a mind-numbing summer for the ever-shrinking number of Mariners fans. While few predicted an American League pennant for this team, next to no one expected a repeat of last season, when they fell 10 games out of first roughly five games into the season.

The team that put up $114 million to pep up its hitting is last in the American League in home runs and runs scored, 13th in hits, slugging percentage and on-base percentage and 12th in batting average. Situational hitting, missing in inaction last season, isn’t any better this time around.

Adrian Beltre was hitting .235 going into Sunday’s game with Tampa Bay; Bret Boone was at .243; Wilson Valdez was mommying up to the Mendoza line; Miguel Olivo needs to go on a wild hitting tear to reach it. Oh, what’s the Mendoza line? A .200 batting average.

Starting pitching is exceeding preseason expectations, of which there were few. It still isn’t within a shuttle launch of consistency and it likely won’t be the rest of the year.

General manager Bill Bavasi, who certainly bears his share of the blame here, should be putting in overtime from now until July’s trading deadline. Watch for deals that involve Boone, Jamie Moyer, Randy Winn and Shigetoshi Hasegawa, among others.

Then we’ll be treated to paying major-league ticket prices to watch a Triple-A team. Yummy.

Now, tell me this again: Why did Bavasi fire Bob Melvin?

Oh, yeah. Someone had to take the fall for 63-99.

By the way, Melvin’s overachieving Arizona Diamondbacks were 29-21 going into Sunday’s game, 1 1/2 games out of first in the National League West.

The saving grace for Everett: At least we have the AquaSox and the undefeated Hawks.

Speaking of the Hawks …

What’s not to get excited about?

The Hawks are 10-0, attendance is slowly elevating, the team appears to have financial stability with Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Sam Adams bankrolling it and the team plays an entertaining style. Their head coach, Dan Maciejczak, knows what it takes to win in the National Indoor Football League.

So we have no quarrel with the Hawks.

It’s much of the rest of the league that’s the problem.

Look at what happened Friday night against the Daytona Beach Hawgs, who simply have to do something about that nickname.

Tuesday, three days prior to the game in Everett, the Hawgs fired coach Ervin Bryson, despite a 7-3 record. They hired a new coach, Pepe Pearson, who, the previous Saturday, scored two touchdowns … for the Dayton Warbirds.

Perhaps out of respect to Bryson, no fewer than nine Hawks on the 25-man roster decided to leave the team. Suddenly, management had to scramble to not only find a coach, but also to sign players, many of whom had roughly 12 minutes’ notice that their presence was required in Everett, 3,000 miles away from the home base.

So as a result, Friday’s game started 30 minutes late because of what was announced as Daytona Beach’s “travel difficulties.”

Translation: The league has a long way to go before it achieves legitimacy.

You KNOW Paul Tagliabue would have broken out in hives.

Tillman’s sad story: I wonder how Pat Tillman’s family feels this Memorial Day. The mother of the former NFL star, Mary Tillman, blasted the military and the government last week, saying the late Army Ranger’s memory was disrespected with lies in the investigation of his death in Afghanistan last year.

Tillman died in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, who mistook him for the enemy as he got ready to defend them. It wasn’t until after the memorial service that high-ranking military officials told the family what had really happened.

Pat Tillman’s father, Pat Tillman, Sr., a lawyer, called it a “botched homicide investigation.”

This is the type of topic I used to discuss with my father, a World War II vet. Sometimes we’d get through the “discussions” without name-calling.

On this Memorial Day, I think of how much I miss him.

Even our “discussions.”