Dave 'Softy' Mahler and Dick Fain

It's finally here! Football! Seahawks football! Yup, it's pre-season football, but we're getting closer to football season. Softy and Dick are live from Jimmy's on First getting ready for the game. Matt Calkins wrote an article claiming that the M's are choking. We've talked about it on the show repeatedly, the team is clear not where they were a couple of months ago, but are they really choking? The team could end up winning 93 games and still not making the playoffs, and at this point, would that be considered success? One big thing to look for in tonight's game is the offense. Bevell got a lot of blame over the last few years when the offense faltered, so it will be interesting to see how things develop under Schottenheimer. How much of the decisions being made are ultimately Carroll's anyway? The MLB's players' nickname weekend is this weekend. The M's team nicknames have been released. The only player to not have one; Kyle Seager. Maybe, with the way he's been playing lately, his should just be his slash line.

Cliff Avril, one half of The Cliff and Puck Show, airing weekdays 10am to 1pm here on 950 KJR gives his expectations for tonight's game. Hugh Millen has been watching the guys practice out at the VMAC. He also joins us with a breakdown of who he expects to se perform well tonight, and what we might see once the regular season begins. Textimonials react to the Mariners woes, and our Hawks analysis.

We've broken down the game from the Hawks' perspective, now we go to Derek Schultz of WNDE in Indianapolis to find out what is expected out of tonight's game from the Colts' fans' perspective. Everybody's fired up on Hey Did You Hear That? Jarvis Landry goes off on his fellow receivers, Aaron Rodgers rips his receiving core, Jayson Werth says nerds are ruining baseball, and more. With such a big shakeup over the off-season, and so many new faces on this Seahawks team, this might actually be the most interesting pre-season game 1 in years. Who is going to step up tonight and show us something that we weren't expecting to see? Dick Baird joins us briefly to talk about what he's seen so far out of the Huskies at camp, but the tech gremlins but an early end to the conversation.

The Mariners had a day game today and once again, they lost. Now at eight games back, it's pretty safe to assume they aren't going to catch the Astros. The only realistic hope now is catching the A's for the second wild card spot. Felix fell apart again last night and things clearly aren't getting better. So what's the next step? Do we put him on the DL? Put him in the bullpen? And how much of this slide in the team is Scott Servais' fault? It only took a couple of days but Brandon Kaho, after his family claimed he had some issues to work out and requested a release from the Huskies, has resurfaced and is ready to play for Alabama.

The first Seahawks pre-season game is just a day away. Curtis Crabtree tells us what he expects to see during the game on In House. Petros Papadakis gives his takes on the Urban Meyer situation at Ohio State, and the news that Brandon Kaho will be playing for Alabama just days after asking for a release from the Dawgs. Textimonials respond to all we've covered on the show.

Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors joins the show to talk about the upcoming exhibition game at KeyArena, the importance of the NBA in Seattle to him, to Kevin Durant, and to the league, and a lot more. It's great that Coach Kerr is so emphatic about bringing a team back to Seattle, and as we've said many times, let's be as loud as possible at the game, show our support. Let's do whatever we need to do to get a team back in this city. Anthony Beyrouti from VenueKings.com gives away some tickets and fills us in on the best deals for sporting events and concerts around the city. Softy and Dick make their final picks in another round of the Major Golf Challenge.

Dick is out today, so Hugh Millen has stepped in to join us today as we broadcast live from the VMAC in Renton. Tickets for the Warriors/Kings pre-season game went on sale this morning, and the Warriors have already reported that only single-seat tickets remain. We've said it before; this is the opportunity for Sonics fans to show up, chant loudly for the entire game, and show the league that we deserve a team. Maybe it doesn't work, but it's the best avenue we have to show our support. Last week, Hugh expressed his concerns with D.J. Fluker. Today, Pete Carroll praised Fluker's performance. Hugh re-visits his concerns, but also highlights some of his positives. Robinson Cano is back in the organization, for now playing with the Tacoma Rainiers. He spoke to the media briefly after his first game back last night. We discuss the situation. Was he selfish or selfless? Will he be as good as he was before? Chuck Powell joins us In House to discuss Cano's return, and what's next for Felix Hernandez?

Softy continues broadcasting live with Hugh Millen in for Dick Fain from the VMAC as we delve into the Urban Meyer story. Zach Smith's lawyer has now come out and said that no one from Ohio State ever contacted her after the allegations of domestic abuse surfaced. Hugh takes a look at the forces at work in this situation: the fact that Meyer has won over 90 percent of his games, our level of tolerance for domestic behavior, etc. Is it enough for Meyer to say that there were no charges filed and thus no further action needed to be taken? Can he survive this investigation? Textimonials respond to this, the NBA pre-season game in Seattle, and more.

A couple years ago, the Dawgs had an incredibly weak out-of-conference schedule, and they got blasted for it. This year, they're starting off by taking on a great team in arguably the best conference in college football. Meanwhile schools like Alabama are facing mostly pushovers outside of their conference. The Dawgs deserve some credit. Pete Carroll talks to the media today and we of course play back some of the audio for you. Hugh Millen talks about what Tedric Thompson needs to do to get the free safety position locked up. Husky Offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan joins us to talk about what he's seen in the first week of Husky camp, what he learned in his year in Atlanta that can help the team, and a look ahead to the Auburn game. In our final minute. Hugh talks about what he thinks Hamdan gained from his short time in Atlanta.

Mariners win yesterday, but they lost the rest of the Blue Jays series. They're now 2.5 games behind the Athletics, and the A's just won't stop winning. If the A's were even just playing .600 baseball over the last six weeks, we probably wouldn't even notice the dip in the M's' performance. So is all hope lost? No. Oakland is still probably going to slow down, and the M's can just as easily find themselves again, but it's been frustrating to watch in the mean time. Blue Jays took over the city this weekend, and earlier today, Ian Furness claimed it was hypocritical for Seattle fans to be upset since we do the same thing to other cities during Seahawks games. This makes no sense. You should be doing whatever you can to help your team. Of course we're going to be upset that the opponent's fans are turning a home game into a road game. You can't blame Jays fans, but we need to do something to take back our stadium on these Toronto weekends each season. Tony Softli joins us for In House to talk about what he saw from Saturday's scrimmage, and what we should expect from this Thursday's first pre-season game.