Keith Olbermann they're not

The tradition among game announcers for the Seattle Mariners and other teams is that the voices from the booth will flack any sponsor products or services called for by the script. Game-callers are particularly loyal, of course, to team-supporting sponsors.

Evidently, this message loyalty now extends to political pitches. During the seventh inning of the M's Tuesday, July 29, game broadcast from Texas, KOMO-AM radio play-by-play guy Dave Sims followed a Dino Rossi-for-guv commercial by, in effect, reiterating — some would say "reinforcing" — the Republican challenger's message. The inference listeners might have made was that Sims, KOMO, and the M's offer tacit agreement with Rossi.

Seattle sports observers might also have noted that local broadcasters such as football uber-authority John Clayton have been advocating replacing certain Democratic elected officials, whose perceived transgressions have supposedly included enabling the Sonics to move to Oklahoma. Gov. Chris Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels regularly get trashed by callers to sports-talk stations, whereupon the squawk jocks themselves advocate voting out the incumbents.

One wonders if any of these single-issue (the issue, of course, being the transcendent need for pro sports and anything that will keep them here) arbiters could ever be bothered to, say, offer to sponsor sports-oriented debates between Rossi and Gregoire. In the meantime, in the absence of a broadcasting Fairness Doctrine, one imagines such political sportsmanship isn't likely to happen.