Man, it’s been a while. Sorry for the delay. I’ve been … well, who’s kidding whom? I’m lazy.

There are a million great sports stories going on right now, from the fire sale going on near Safeco to the Seahawks getting ready to Sequim High fall sports right around the corner to … you get the idea.

I wanted to touch on a couple of things:

Youth sports

Congrats to the two Sequim Babe Ruth teams that, like their younger Little League brethren (and sistren?) played hard and fought like heck for wins. Alas, they were knocked out of their respective tourneys.

Big thanks go to local businesses for supporting the team. The Babe Ruth 15-year-olds got a boost from these: El Cazador, Las Palomas, Heather Creek, Hurricane Coffee, Diane Dickey, Sun Valley Realty, Highway 101 Diner, Sequim Auto Clinic, Les Schwab, Dynasty in Sequim, Walt Schubert, A-1 Auto Parts, Peninsula Awards, D&K Rentals, Tootsies, Brothers Plumbing, Village Clock, Peter Black Realty, Wasabi, Tarcisio's Italian Place and QFC (in random order, of course).

The Babe Ruth 14s, it turns out, were a late addition to the state tourney when another team bowed out. They got out-scored 57-12 but looked like they were still playing hard from the first inning to the last. Great work, kids.

Local kid shows off ‘Seal’ athleticism

Loanna Torey from the Sequim School District let me know about her son Jason, a Navy SEAL who’s helping put in the upcoming SEALS fitness challenge in Bellevue on Aug. 8.

"This challenge isn't about 'Hey, come out and see if you're better than us,'" Torey said. "It's about having fun. We try and introduce people to the physical fitness lifestyle that we have as Navy SEALs."

Anyone can participate, including kids ages 13 and up with parents' permission. Advance registration is recommended at www.sealfitnesschallenge.com.

As of Aug. 3, more than 500 people were already registered, including 80 women.

The free event is set for 7 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Bellevue Hilton parking lot, 300 112th Ave SE.

If you have time, go check it out. While you’re there, ask how Jason got the gumption (and guts) to become a SEAL.

M’s try a jigsaw puzzle

Want to see how a Major League Baseball championship team is built? Yeah, me too.

Mariner fans are hoping Jack Zduriencik knows what he’s doing after a slew of trades before the deadline gave the Seattle Nine a new look.

But we’re calling it what it is, with that dangerous “R” word: rebuilding.

Why else do you send Jarrod Washburn and his American League No. 2-rated ERA to Detroit? Some say we should have tossed him to the Yankees last year, and folks in New York are bitter that they didn’t get him this season.

Tough. Wash seems like a decent guy and even though he talked about staying here for good, I got the sense that after being shipped around for nearly a whole season in 2008, he’d probably skip town after 2009.

We’ll see if the Luke French kid can throw against Kansas City this Wednesday. Mauricio Robles, the other piece of the deal, is a single A left-handed pitching prospect. Both are younger than 23, which is nice.

Seattle gave up on C-1B prospect Jeff Clement and tossed the light-hitting yet well-like infielder Ronny Cedeno and three minor prospects to Pittsburgh, and got Nate Snell — he of the oh-my-goodness 2-8 record and you-weren’t good enough-to-stay-on-the-Pirates’-major-league-roster? — along with periodically hard-hitting Jack Wilson.

Nice move. I like it. Cedeno was popular among the players because he can field but was hitting lighter than a dry cappuccino (oh-for his last 26 at-bats as an M), making him the target of fans’ ire.

Wilson, the M’s new shortstop, should go over better. He can hit (.308 in 2004, .296 in 2007 and .272 last year) and play some ‘D.’

Clement seemed to have it all coming out of college, but it turns out the high school record for home runs counts for squat when one can’t field too well, stay healthy or hit consistently.

Perhaps he’ll turn out like Adam Jones, who left Seattle as apiece in the painfully lopsided Erik Bedard trade and promptly became an all-star. I think Jeff Clement will be to baseball what Jeff Bridges is to … baseball.

Snell, on the other hand, is the curiosity. He had a bad ERA for Pittsburgh (5.36 in 15 starts) but looked really sharp in his first start as a Mariner, going six innings and giving up just two runs in a no-decision. Hopefully he’ll keep it together.

The M’s also gave up on Wladamir Balentin, as they chucked him to Cincinnati for Robert Manuel, an inexperienced right-hander pitcher, and shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, whom to packaged to Kansas City for two minor-league pitchers: Danny Cortes (AA) and Derrick Saito (A).

Balentin wasn’t hitting and Betancourt, while he showed flashes of brilliance, wasn’t producing at the plate (.278 on-base rate) either. I liked Yuniesky, if only for his super-cool name.  He’s starting for KC, and though he isn’t hitting well, he should fit in with former M Willie Bloomquist, still the pride of South Kitsap High.

But both Cortes and Saito have put up solid minor league numbers and the M’s get rid of a bunch of dollars in cap space. Solid.

Major-league blip

I ran across this former major leaguer’s stats the other day: Charley Radbourne.

Heard of him? I hadn’t. Saw the name mentioned in a sports column the other day. Dude had a good year in 1884 for the Providence Grays. He went 59-12 with a 1.38 ERA, earning a complete game in 73 of his 73 starts. The other to games he saw that year, he finished. Oh, and he struck out 441 batters in nearly 680 innings.

Nice work. He also hit .230, not bad for a pitcher, and helped lead them to a 3-0 World Series sweep against the New York Metropolitans, throwing three consecutive shutouts. He struck out 17 batters, giving up just 11 hits and no walks in 22 innings.

Why do I mention this? No idea. I just like obscure stats about long-since-dead ballplayers. Oh, another obscure fact? He’s the guy some speculate is the namesake of the charley horse, a painful leg cramp of which he supposedly suffered.

Radbourne’s stats almost convince me to tell people “I want to be like Charley,” but the dude died at age 42. No thanks.

Madden: Housh your mouth!

Then comes this weird little story about T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who says he’s not playing the Madden video game anymore (http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/9834420/Houshmandzadeh:-'I'm-not-playing-Madden-no-more'?GT1=39002#).

Ah, yes. When the story of the day for Fox Sports is why an NFL player isn’t going to play a video game, I think we’ve hit the proverbial finish line tape of civilization.

Why not play, T.J.? He’s boycotting the game in protest over his player rating.

I can’t make this up. Well, I can, but then I’d be making a lot more money for the producers of any number of reality shows.

That’s all for now. See you in the funny pages.