Stollen

Before anyone gets out their red pens and edits the title, yes, that's how you spell it! You see, Stollen is a traditional German bread-cake usually seen around the holidays. It would remind some people of fruit cake.



Really, it's a bitter-sweet type of aliment that's not too bad (that is, if you've ever had it fresh). While marc w missed the 1997 season to a European excursion, I happened to miss an 8-week chunk of Griffey's 1989 rookie season while in Germany myself (and at least the Internet was more widely available in 1997 -- I still have the newspaper scraps my dad sent me, informing me of Griffey's injury).

So, what's the deal talking about a German fruitcake on a Mariners blog? Obviously the word play would inform you of my true feelings about the Super Bowl. But my real reason to talk about Stollen today is so that we can all break bread together and find some things to laugh about and enjoy looking forward to. To find positives in the current gut-punch.To attempt to cure my current ailments, thinking about the German aliment.

Here's my list:

1) Baseball season is about to begin. Pitchers and catchers report in nine days. I'm fairly certain a good number of them are already down there. Rafael Chaves will actually be an upgrade to Bryan Price, and I do believe the players' hype of Pentland.

2) The Seahawks have something more to prove. They're still hungry. Alexander has motivation to return. As does Hutchison. Reports say that Allen and Holmgren will meet to discuss an extension as soon as next week. Provided the key players (Alexander, Hutch, MoMo, etc.) return, the Seahawks should be the team to beat in the NFC.

3) Days up here in the PNW are starting to get longer. In my neck of the woods, the sun is starting to come out again. Our summer water bills shouldn't be too bad.

4) The school year (for those of you who are students) is closer to its end than its beginning. Sure, that means harder tests and finals, and projects can't be put off any longer. Dare I mention spring break?

5) The negative mojo that seems to have covered the Mariners the past two seasons, found its way across Royal Brougham. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but my loyalties are definitely deeper to the M's right now than the Seahawks. I sure find it hard to watch a Sonics game. But, for Mariners fans (and players), .500 should be a lock this year. I don't expect the playoffs, but a return to .500 would be just fine for me. Were Howard Lincoln to up the budget a bit, giving Bavasi a little bit more flexibility, the playoffs aren't that far out of the picture.

So, that's a few things. Hopefully those morsels, and the pictures of the Stollen brighten your day!