Steve Kelley headed down to Safeco Field for an up close and personal look at the warts and washouts that explain the Mariners' struggles this season.

Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley takes a swing at the NBA officiating scandal that has now cast the shadow of suspicion beyond Tim Donaghy to include Scott Foster, an referee Donaghy called a number of times.

R.J. Bell, the president of pregame.com, conducted a study of games officiated by Foster during the 2006-07 period in question. He found seven games in which the point spread moved two points or more. The movement of the point spread would indicated that a large amount of money was being bet on one side. The teams that were being bet on in those games went 7-0.

The odds of that happening randomly are less than 1%.Statistics alone cannot convict, but it's certainly noteworthy that seven times in Foster's games one team was bet extremely heavily, and all seven times that team won.
    -- R.J. Bell, pregame.com