At one point last season when we were playing in Renton (also phony grass)
and not doing that well at home - and it was probably shortly after the
infamous trip to Denver where we learned to drink lemonade instead of wine,
beer and wine coolers because all our drinks suddenly disappeared on us when
we were searching for the "D" in Sounders - we were all moaning about how
much better our team looked on real grass, even mile-high real grass and
it's too bad we didn't have any so James decided to take matters into his
own hands and we all starting throwing grass at the field.

Well sadly grass does not fly well and is subject to atmospheric conditions,
particularly head winds so the blades did not actually make it onto the
playing field.

So we began to ask various personnel who had access to the field to bring
the grass out there for us. They all thought we were crazy - except for the
security guard whose response was something to the effect of "over my dead
body". Apparently he's responsible for keeping the area clean and not
allowing fans to throw ANYTHING on the field.

Naturally the New Yorker in me took that as a challenge and I decided to ask
the one person the know-nothing-about-soccer security person would dare not
challenge. I approached the coach, I handed him some grass, he looked at me
as though I were nuts, I explained that we'd noticed how much better they
played on the real stuff and we were having trouble getting it onto the
playing field. Not unexpectedly he immediately understood the importance,
the significance and immediacy of the request -Neil's British, you know. He
took the grass to the Sounder's bench, sprinkled it onto the field in front
of the bench, and then ground it into the turf with his boot.

Way cool - don't know if security noticed. Anyway every home game since
I've gotten Neil's attention and have delivered the grass. I'm not sure of
the team record last season after the real grass appeared, but we're all
pretty much agreed on the record this year..