This is 1 of 42 puzzle caches in a series that were created to commemorate GeoWoodstock VIII. There is a Final of this Series that you can find, if you feel inclined to do so. The Waypoint for the Series Final is GC24NBA.
You will need to find the 21 numbers attached to 21 of the 42 puzzles used to create this series. These numbers will be placed on the logbook of the puzzle caches, so WATCH FOR THEM! This cache may, or may not have one of those numbers in it. You will need to have signed the logbook of all 21 of the correct caches to be able to legally claim a find on the Series Final. Good Luck!
Greetings. Yes, for you all you knowledgeable sports fans, the city of Seattle for the last 3 decades has been blessed with great sports. I mean, who needs a ticker tape parade when you can remember the 2001 Seattle Mariners winning the most games in baseball history. Sure they did not reach the World Series and are considered the greatest flop in the last century according to one ESPN poll but it was fun while it lasted wasnt it? The Seattle Seahawks deserved to win that Super Bowl, am sure thats enough for most Hawk fans. And the Sonics, When one looks at the 6 Chicago Bull championships we can say, hey, we almost won game 6! And as for the Seattle Storm, they won it all in 2004. I was there in fact. Sure they have only 10 teams in the league which is as many as the Pac 10, but who is counting?
I could go on about the great legacy of team sports traditions we have had in the last thirty years which does not made me sad but glad to know we have had such great teams from 1980 to 2010. This puzzle is about players. It takes great players to make Seattle Sports what it has been the last 30 years. Take Brian Bosworth for example. Boz was the best the Seahawks ever had. Why can't we draft more players like him. We signed him out of college for a 10 year contract, unheard of the time. He only played 3 seasons with us, but boy, did he ever leave a mark on our team. Bo Jackson will tell you as will John Elway, he was the best Seahawk they ever had to play against.
It got me to think, what other great players have Seattle professional teams had? I can think of other great ones like Steve Trout of the Seattle Mariners, Dan Doornink of the Seattle Seahawks and Olden Polynice of the Seattle Supersonics....legends and household names.
I thought how could I make a geocaching tribute to them. One cant accurate measure a level of calm and peace when it comes to sports, hrm. Statistics of course! Its hard to show how good Brian Bosworth was in stats, he was a defensive player so they do not have very comparative stats so I chose some others. All of these statistics refer to a single season, not a career, and only a season they were with a Seattle franchise. Answer the following 6 questions and you will be at peace with this puzzle and be able to find the geocache.
Baseball
Question A: The following pitcher was the greatest chowderhead in Seattle Mariners history as far as win - loss differential goes (i.e. difference in wins vs losses). He was an astounding 1 win and 16 losses in his great season of 1980. Who was this legendary Mariner?
0. Jamie Moyer
2. Carlos Silva
4. Randy Johnson
6. Mike Parrott
8. Ryan Franklin
Question B. This amazing Seattle Mariner hitter was on absolute fire one year. The baseball gods were shining on his him when he hit an amazing 0.182 in 1978. I looked at all player seasons with a minimum 250 at bats.
1. Dave Valle
3. Leroy Stanton
5. Edgar Martinez
7. Ichiro Suzuki
9. Spike Owen
Football
Question C. Kickers. They do almost nothing but kick the ball and drink gatorade and occasionally hurt themselves while celebrating. Thus, they are specialists at what they do. They train and every kicker in the NFL is awesome. One of our kickers was particularly awesome one year when he made an astounding 1 out of every 2 kicks for us. You could flip a coin and predict his awesome success in 1977.
1. Rian Lindell
3. Efren Herrera
5. Norm Johnson
7. Olindo Mare
9. John Leypoldt
Question D. Statisticians have been trying to find other ways of looking at quarterbacks besides TD passes, yards, how good their supermodel wives look or their number of commercial advertisements. For one season, this quarterback was a rock. He had 15 more interceptions than TDs, did not even throw half of his passes complete and had a pass rating of 49.5. I looked at all seasons with at least 200 pass attempts. Who had this great season in 1976-77?
1. Dave Krieg
3. Matt Hasselbeck
5. Stan Gelbaugh
7. Rick Mirer
9. Jim Zorn
Basketball
Question E. Free throws. I know they are difficult. You just stand there in one spot, the hoop does not move and shoot with all those people looking at you. Its very hard, I mean, its not like you can't practice shooting free throws in your free time can you? We had one Seattle Sonic who was really skilled at this and must have practiced a lot. In 1998-99 for the Sonics he made only 45% of his free throws. (FYI, Shaq had only 1 season this bad) Minimum 100 free throws attempted was the minimum I looked at.
1. Michael Cage
3. Ricky Pierce
5. Vin Baker
7. Ray Allen
9. Jim McIlvaine
Question F. This one lady sure showed Seattle that women can shoot hoops just as badly as men can. She had the worst season shooting in Seattle Storm history and only made 31.8% of her shots in 2001. Minimum 100 field goals attempted.
1. Lauren Jackson
3. Adia Barnes
5. Sonja Henning
7. Simone Edwards
9. Andrea Garner
The cache can be found at N 47 40.ABC W 122 15.DEF
Good luck! The three professional male sports have very easy to find Reference sites for statistics. For the ladies, the main Basketball site has finally added the women too, its http://www.basketball-reference.com/wnba. From that link you can see the links to baseball and football as well. All of these statistics are through the 2009 seasons, thus if someone in 2010 has the "best" season in Seattle Mariners history, the statistics on this page may be out of date.
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