Currently on my tv right now is the MLS Cup playoffs. Columbus vs Real Salt Lake (that’s Re-al, not real). It got me thinking about how 1 year ago many many seattle people were eagerly waiting the Seattle Sounders FC. On November 25 this years expansion draft will occur, allowing the new team, the Philadelphia Union, to grab one player from 10 of the 15 teams in the MLS. Last year the Sounders picked up starters Nate Jaqua, James Riley, and Brad Evans. Its surprisingly a difficult decision for each team going into the expansion draft, they have to decide who to “protect” meaning they cannot be drafted. Teams are only allowed to protect 11 players, and the rosters are about 20-ish. Now I am not exactly sure on the guidelines for exemption, but for now I’ll just pretend there aren’t any. So there will be two groups, Available and Protected. So here is what I think…

PROTECTED: Freddie Ljungberg, Osvaldo Alonso, Steve Zakuani, Brad Evans, Nate Jaqua, Sebastian Le Toux, Leo Gonzalez, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, Kasey Keller, James Riley, Roger Levesque.

AVAILABLE: Chris Eylander, Michael Fucito, Patrick Ianni, Tyson Wahl, Peter Vagenas, Nathan Sturgis, Tyrone Marhsall, Stephen King, Evan Brown, Fredy Montero, Zach Scott, Sanna Nyassi, Taylor Graham, Lamar Neagle, Terry Boss.

Okay, so you may be screaming right now wondering why I didn’t protect Montero. Well protecting him would be wasting a spot. I think there is little chance Montero is going to be a Sounder next year. He will sign with a team in europe I think. He did the MLS thing, he got his name out there, now he’ll go on to bigger and better things. Almost the same thing with Hurtado, but I think he will stay another year (although he did work out with AC Milan in Italy). If Keller comes back for another year, we need to have zero chance of him leaving, so protect him. Marshall is old and is probably considering retirement so I wouldn’t bother using a spot for him. Levesque showed that he can be Mr. Super Sub down the stretch of the season so I protect him as means of saying we really don’t want you doing that for someone else and also as a if Montero leaves, you’ll play more.

Most likely to get picked: Ianni, Sturgis, King. These three are the young, but also have experience guys. Maybe add Scott to that too. I’d almost go as to say if we don’t protect Keller, protect Ianni. He has played well when he does (the game winning bicycle kick speaks for itself).

The saddest part about this season won’t be if the Sounders lose in the playoffs, it will be that someone most likely won’t come back next year. This team did a lot in fixing the empty place in many hearts after the Sonics leaving, and each of the players was truly a part of something special this season.

Oh, and the SuperDraft (the regular draft) would be a soon after. I say we go for a striker, anticipating the departure of Monteo.

Peace out, stay sweet!

R.L. Judd

So the Mariners season is over. While I sit watching the remaining teams duke it out in the always awesome postseason, I continue to work my little sports mind on what needs/should be done for next year for the Mariners. I’m sure Jackie Z has better and more professional plans, but I like to vent my thoughts anyways.

Priority number one needs to be to lock up Felix Hernandez. Not to just sign him either, we have to put our offer out there right away before he can think about the money Boston or New York would be willing to give him. He had a great year, one to put him on the national map, so now we have to ensure he stays a Mariner for a long time. Other pitching needs are to let Erik Bedard go. He didn’t like it here and couldn’t stay healthy. He did pitch well when he pitched. We get a compensation pick for him leaving. Give arbitration to Ian Snell, David Aardsma, and Mark Lowe. We had a great young bullpen and we should keep that in tact. Snell desperately needed out of Pittsburgh and showed that he can pitch well for us. If Bedard goes, we should look for maybe picking up a pitcher to replace or to help Felix with the young pitchers slotted to take rotation spots next season. If it’s possible, maybe look into eating the rest of Carlos Silva’s contract. He hasn’t been good since the first 2 months of last season. But I understand that 2o something million dollars is a lot of money to just toss away.

In the field its a bit more tricky. Many people are calling for Adrian Beltre’s departure. But until this year he put up his career average numbers of (about) .270 batting average, 20-25 home runs, and 80-90 RBIs. Having that reliable bat and outstanding glove could very much be missed, but he will cost a lot of money. Jack Wilson has an option for the ‘10 season. Take it. He may not be a stand out offensively, but his mastery of the glove and his veteran presence will be contagious to the rest of the team. I think that if he’s up to it, bring Mike Sweeney back. He was one of the driving forces to bringing the clubhouse together that lacked the camaraderie needed to be an actual “team.” The Griffey debate should be closed with his carrying off of the field. He wore sunglasses for a reason in the post game celebrations, and I think it’s because he knows that was his last game. If Junior (and/or Beltre) leave, the front office should take the Branyan road. Which by the way, Russell Branyan deserves a second year in Seattle. Give him another year, 2 max, to play and have Dustin Ackley ready for some major league playing time by next september. Find a middle of the road free agent and give him a shot, I don’t think we should cough up ridiculous amounts of money for a “Richie Sexson” type of player just to watch him underperform.

Players to let go: Bedard, Ryan Langerhans, Endy Chavez, Ken Griffey Jr., Josh Wilson, Beltre, Miguel Batista, Silva?

Players to look at: Jarrod Washburn (bring him back!), Ubaldo Jimenez (possibly look for a trade), Rocco Baldelli (could be a great left fielder sharing time with Michael Saunders), Mark DeRosa (Beltre replacement), Felipe Lopez.

Lets see what happens!

Peace out

R.L. Judd

5: Yellowstone National Park. I made the trek to Yellowstone with my cousins some years ago. It was a unique trip, I really enjoyed swimming in the “fire hole river” that was warm water from the hot springs, did NOT like waiting for 90 minutes for some dinky geyser. Old Faithful was super sweet too. And my and my cousin nick lost RPS three times to my other cousin ashley and her friend. we always had to share a room with my aunt and uncle…

4: Hawaii. Every 5 or 6 years my family takes a big full family trip. the only places we’ve ever gone are Disneyland and Hawaii. Hawaii is super awesome. I’ve parasailed, scuba dived, biked a volcano, surfed and spent a lot of money in that state. It is always fun and ALWAYS an adventure when our family goes places together and add in Hawaii’s super nice weather and awesome activities and you have number 4 on this list.

3: Arizona ([1]lifeboat trip [2] spring training trip). So this is a two-fer. I went to Arizona when i was in 5th grade with my family to go to the Seattle Mariners Spring training in 2001. Anyone who knows me knows that I was in my element. the best part of that was when went to the Oakland A’s stadium and they didnt play louie-louie after the 7th inning stretch and everyone got mad cause thats what the mariners have been doing since forever. the second part is when my bible study when for our last hoorah. we stayed in a SUPER nice house. we had lots of hangout time and good fellowship and bible study times. funny thing i found out there was that most of my friends weren’t very found of me when they first met me.

2: New York. I my trip for graduating high school all planned out by the time i was 12. I wanted to see the baseball hall of fame! so spetember of 08 my mom and i trekked across the country to go visit new york. oddly enough one of my best friends tyler was going the same time for the same trip. We got to hangout all over times square and manhattan and the rest of the city. then my mom and i took the ridiculously long bus ride to Cooperstown in upstate new york. I couldnt tell you how long it was because i slept for pretty much the whole entire ride. But the HOF was pretty much my dream come true. saw all the greats, all my favorites, and even saw Dave neihaus’ plaque too!

1: Balck Lake Bible Camp. does this count? I dont care. I dont live there so i’m going to make it count. I’ve been to BLBC for 10 straight years. 6 as a camper and 4 as a staff member. this is my home away from home. Summer feels empty when i’m not down in Olympia, WA and I see more summers in my future being spent there hanging with campers =)

I’ve now tried twice to post something and it keeps erasing it before it gets published. This is borderline frustrating…

Peace out and stay sweet

R.L. Judd

Brian Aaby has a reoccurring post on his blog. He does a Top 5 post a lot, on many different topics. I was thinking about how cool this is and how it would get me to blog on a more regular basis. So I’ve decided to start my own lists. But I don’t want to call it the Top 5 cause Brian does already and I can’t use Fav 5 cause t-mobile will come after me. So for now we’ll call it the, “5 Things That I Like The Most” My first one will be on something that should come as no shock to anyone… Sporting events I’ve been to/witnessed!

FIVE: April 3, 2008. Highline High School. One of my very best friends, Hayden Rovegno, pitched a gem of a game against Evergreen High School. He threw a 5 inning perfect game! I got to witness the hardest feat in all of baseball AND my best friend accomplished the task. He also went 4-4 with 4 RBIs. I even got to write about it in the school newspaper.

FOUR: August 6th, 2008. Chase Field, Arizona. While on our Lifeboat Last Hoorah!, we went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game. At first, I was all about seeing Randy Johnson pitch again (I actually blogged about this back then), but rookie Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jeff Karstens stole the show. He pitched a perfect game going into the bottom of the 8th. He finished with a two-hitter, but it is still to this day one of the best professional pitching performances I’ve seen personally.

THREE: May 26, 2009. Starfire Sports Complex. Frankie, Nick, Aex, and myself all went to the second round play-in for the US Open Cup for the Seattle Sounders. This was my second game, but getting to tell my best buds all about the new soccer team was so much fun. Plus the Sounders won! (and just this last week they won the whole tournament)

TWO: April 2, 2001. Safeco Field. My dad and I went to opening day for the Mariners in the magical year of sweet 116. Before the game I got a ball from Freddy Garcia, got a picture taken out in centerfield, and had a chocolate pie in the Hit it Here Cafe. Plus they beat the Oakland A’s which is always nice. They won 115 more times that year, *sigh*, those were the days….

ONE: October 1, 2004. Safeco Field. I was at a late season, actually super late season, baseball game with my friend Alex and his mom and a friend of hers. We were seated out in upper deck right field, just foul of the Foul Pole. In the third inning Ichiro hit a single up the middle. He had just broken an 84 year-old record set by George Sisler. Ichiro had hit his 258th hit that season. Sisler hit 257. He finished that season with 262.

More of these to come. And I promise they won’t all be sports. hehe

Peace out, Stay sweet.

R.L. Judd

Here we go again with some baseball polls this year! =) have fun!

So I have now been home for about 4 days or so from Black Lake, and I decided it was time to start this old blog back up again. Even after Brian Aaby took me off his links… (super sad face)

This summer at camp was easily the best one I have ever been apart of. Our staff pastors were fresh off of schooling done in Jerusalem! From the very getgo they instilled a scripture-based spiritual tone during our staff training. The coolest thing from that week was that Stacie, the female staff pastor, preached the entire chapter of 1 Kings 18 by memory. Every night we had small group opportunities to share amongst staff. That week was awesome in many ways.

I was gifted with the opportunity to present the gospel 1 on 1 with one of my campers, and by the end of the night I was able to witness him choosing to follow Christ. This was probably the most memorable moment of the summer for me. This one moment was the exact reason why I chose to work at camp those 4 years ago. Because one counselor way back when I was 12 took the time to invest in me and got to witness my accepting Christ, I felt the urge to be that ‘one counselor’ for whoever God had laid out for me. And this summer was that time. I was so blessed the entire summer with good guys and awesome memories. My Senior High cabin was the same from last year so we already knew each other and we had a blast that week for sure.

The thing that grew the most for me this summer was my use of prayer. Growing up I never really prayed that much, or if I did it wasn’t anything other than the Catholic prayers. So I was always really tentative about praying out loud. But this summer I experienced a change, and it was awesome. It feels good to be able to jump at any opportunity and just belt out a prayer. Because truly, our prayers are how we talk to God, and if we aren’t talking to him, how are we building our relationship with him?

Thank you for those who have showed their support for me and anyone who was involved in any kind of summer ministry! I recommend you check our Brian Aaby’s blog on the link panel to see how Youthmark did this summer and check out the blogs on youthmark.com as well. God worked through many people in that ministry!

Peace out and stay sweet!

R.L. Judd

Wow… I guess I’m just not very good  on staying up to date on things am I? I guess we can all rely on me updating about once a month, yes? Unless something super sweet happens that makes me break this trend. Well here’s a quick update on things…

Countdown to things:

Black Lake for the summer – 17 days

School being over – 12 days

Days till Caroline and Lianna visit from Pine Valley – 12

Baseball All-Star game – 47 days

Soccer All-Star game – 62 days

My 20th birthday – 154 days woo!

Peace out, stay sweet and be Legit,

R.L. Judd

One of my favorite days of the year is Opening Day. I believe it is a holiday, but its a shame not many share this feeling haha. Seattle Mariners play the Minnesota Twins tonight, actually in like 30 minutes. Here are some things that I will say about tonight’s game:

Griffey will go 1-3 and an rbi. Brian Aaby and I talked last night about this but I still don’t think he can stretch one out in the Metrodome into a double. he’ll either hit it high enough to go out for a home run, or (what I think will happen) he will get a long single.

Felix will go 6 innings. Striking out no more than 5. Either a loss or a no decision.

Sweeney will have the best offensive night. He’ll go 2-3 with at least one rbi.

We will not see Morrow tonight, but we will see Kelley or Jakubauskas make their Major League debut.

Liriano is the key for the M’s tonight. If 2006 Liriano shows up ( 12-3 2.16 era and 144 strikeouts) its lights out. But if the Liriano since then (6-4 3.91 era in only 76 innings) *missing the entire 07 season* We have a shot.

Let’s go M’s! Peace out and stay sweet!

R.L. Judd