Schoenfield: Worst Seattle sports moments

Tag : Sports Wearing
What could go wrong? A young team, full of All-Stars, a rabid fanbase, an influx of top draft picks on the way … it looked likethe Sonics would be competing with that Magic kid in L.A. forWestern Conference supremacy for a long time.
They messed it up. Johnson fought with coach Lenny Wilkens and wastraded for an over-the-hill Paul Westphal. They spent the two '79picks on James Bailey and Vinnie Johnson (who unfortunately wastraded for Greg Kelser after two years). Williams held out theentire '80-81 season. That fifth pick in 1981 turned into a flopnamed Danny Vranes. The team traded for David Thompson, who wasonly 28, but injuries and substance abuse meant he played only 94more games in his career.
In just a few years, the team sank to near the bottom of theleague.
The Sonics eventually rebuilt and became a power franchise in the1990s.
Now, like kneepads on NBA players, the Sonics are gone.
I live on the East Coast now, and I will admit that fans out hereprobably are more consistently passionate about their pro sportsteams than fans in Seattle. But I'll say this: No city can jump on a bandwagon like Seattle. I mean that in a goodway, a bringing-the-city-together kind of thing. (Most locales aregood bandwagon cities, of course.)
No NBA arena has been louder than the Seattle Center Coliseum andKeyArena were during the Sonics' playoff runs in the '90s, thecrowd going nuts whenever a Gary Payton-led fastbreak ended with athunderous dunk from Shawn Kemp. If you were in the Kingdome duringSeptember and October 1995, when the Mariners made the playoffs forthe first time in franchise history, you couldn't hear yourneighbor talk. The club led the AL in attendance in 2001 and 2002.The Seahawks, when they are winning, like in recent years, areknown for having the noisiest stadium in the NFL.
Those fans, even the bandwagon fans, are hurting today, the darkestday in Seattle sports history. And there have been a lot of darkdays. After all, Seattle's major pro teams haven't won a titlesince 1979.
10. Pilots move to Milwaukee, April 1, 1970
It's not the same losing a team after one year as after 41, but thePilots' one season in the American League was a disaster, with anownership group that went bankrupt after the season. The sale to agroup led by Bud Selig wasn't official until the end of springtraining, and the team's equipment vans actually left Arizona notknowing whether they were heading to Seattle or Milwaukee.
9. Bo runs over the Boz, Nov. 30, 1987 More than anything else, when Bo Jackson ravaged the Seahawks and ran over brash linebacker Brian Bosworth on a short touchdown on "Monday Night Football," it symbolized theineptitude of Ken Behring, one of the worst owners in sportshistory, a California real estate developer who constantlythreatened to move the team. Behring took a popular, successfulfranchise and slowly destroyed it during the late '80s and early'90s.
8. Seahawks lose AFC Championship Game, Jan. 8, 1984
Until the 2005 season, this was the closest the Seahawks ever gotto the Super Bowl. Although just 9-7 in the regular season, theyhad defeated the Raiders twice. But this one was no contest. TheRaiders led 27-0 by the third quarter, and Curt Warner, the AFC'sleading rusher, was held to just 26 yards.