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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, AuguST 20, 2019
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
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Inspirational Griffin on bubble
to make Seahawks roster
Vicki O’Brien
Astoria volleyball players Hailey O’Brien, left, and Julia Norris
are conducting their senior project volleyball camp.
North Coast volleyball
camp starts next week
The Astorian
The annual North Coast
Volleyball Camp is scheduled
for Aug. 26-28 at Astoria High
School.
Students entering grades
2-8 at any school can partici-
pate in the camp, which costs
$35 per player and includes a
camp T-shirt.
The camp runs each day
from 9-11 a.m. for second-
through fourth-graders, and
from noon to 3 p.m. for fifth-
through eighth-grade students.
Registration forms are
available at Lewis & Clark
Elementary, Astoria Mid-
dle School and Astoria High
School. The fee and registra-
tion forms are due Aug. 26 at
the camp.
The camp is the senior
project for Astoria play-
ers Julia Norris and Hailey
O’Brien.
For more information or
for a registration form, con-
tact Norris at jnorris20@
astoria.12.org or O’Brien at
hobrien20@astoria.k12.org.
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
DeShawn Shead (35) and Shaquem Griffin celebrate a play against the Denver Broncos.
Crawford has slowed
down after a torrid
Mariners debut
By RYAN DIVISH
Seattle Times
TORONTO — While J.P.
Crawford has cemented him-
self as the Mariners’ everyday
shortstop, he’s still far from
a finished product in many
ways.
He’s going to play more
games in the 2019 season than
he has played in the previous
two seasons. There’s still six
weeks and 37 games remain-
ing in the 162-game marathon.
The Mariners want Craw-
ford to finish his first season
with them in a strong fash-
ion. It’s part of the reason he
was out of the starting lineup
for the Sunday series finale
against the Blue Jays.
“When we play in stretches
where we play 10, 11, 12 days
in a row, I’m not going to play
him in all of them,” Seattle
manager Scott Servais said.
“We’ve had a lot of off days
here recently, so he’s been
getting kind of a (rest) off his
feet here and there. Today was
a good day for it. I thought
about it coming into the series
that we would give him one of
these days off. We’ll continue
to do that the rest of the year.”
Crawford came into the
game with a .238/.321/.383
slash line, 18 doubles, three tri-
ples, five homers and 38 RBI.
He got off to a torrid start after
being called up May 9, slash-
ing .319/.383/.496 with 11
doubles, two triples, two hom-
ers and 21 RBI in his first 31
games. Since then, he’s slash-
ing .165/.266/.301 with seven
doubles, a triple, three hom-
ers, 17 RBI and 35 strikeouts
in the past 37 games.
“Offensively, teams have
made a few adjustments on
him and are pitching him dif-
ferently,” Servais said. “He’s
grinding through it.”
Crawford is seeing fewer
early fastballs while getting a
steady diet of breaking balls in
fastball counts.
Even with his struggles
at the plate, he’s still been a
solidifying presence for an
infield defense that was awful
with Tim Beckham as short-
stop early in the season.
“He’s doing great,” Ser-
vais said. “He really is. The
defense has been phenomenal.
He’s learning. It’s been a really
good first year with us and I
want him to end it strong.”
While Crawford had a day
off from playing, he still had
other work to do, including
a lengthy meeting with Ser-
vais and performance coach
Jimmy Van Ostrand.
“We went through some
things we want to focus on in
the last five-six weeks with
him,” Servais said. “It’s about
getting a consistent program
and routine with him. You can
talk about the minor leagues
all you want, but there is noth-
ing like the big leagues. You
travel different. You have dif-
ferent things that are on your
mind, different worries and
things you have to take care
of at the big-league level than
you do at the minor-league
By LARRY STONE
Seattle Times
S
EATTLE — It was one of
the feel-good stories of the
sports world in 2018 when
the Seahawks drafted Shaquem
Griffin in the fifth round out of
Central Florida.
It satisfied on multiple lev-
els, reuniting Shaquem with his
soul mate twin brother, Shaquill,
while giving a deserved NFL
opportunity to a player who had
excelled in college without his
left hand.
It had inspiration and pathos.
It had enough heartwarming
elements to make the younger
Shaquem (younger by less than
two minutes, technically) the
sentimental favorite of fans of
all stripes, and the role model for
those trying to overcome their
own adversity.
It was a made-for-Hollywood
true tale that inspired a book as
well as interview requests from
UP NEXT: SEAHAWKS
PRESEASON
• Seattle Seahawks (1-1) at
Los Angeles Chargers (0-2)
• Saturday, 7 p.m. TV: NFLN
around the networks and around
the world. It hardly seemed
to matter that Shaquem’s sea-
son never took off. Inserted as a
starter at weakside linebacker in
the opener against Denver when
K.J. Wright was hurt, Griffin
struggled at the unfamiliar posi-
tion. Other than special teams,
where he shined, Shaquem barely
saw the field again, playing just
nine defensive snaps the rest of
the way.
Now the Shaquem Griffin
story has taken a new dimen-
sion in Year Two. While his abil-
ity to play at the sport’s highest
level with such a disability is no
less inspiring, this year it’s more
about production than sentimen-
tality. In fact, Griffin may well be
on the bubble for making the Sea-
hawks’ 53-man roster, a circum-
stance that would severely punc-
ture the fairy-tale nature of the
twins’ tale.
But Griffin is determined to
forge his way onto the roster and
remain embedded in Seattle with
Shaquill, a mainstay in the Sea-
hawks’ secondary as their starter
at left cornerback — Richard
Sherman’s old spot.
How close are the two? On
Shaquill’s birthday last month,
Shaquem tweeted: “Happy BDay
to my brother, my best friend, my
left hand everyone thought I was
missing, it’s truly an honor and a
blessing to call you my twin.”
Shaquem’s quest has been
complicated by a bruised knee
suffered in the preseason opener
against Denver. It may come
down to Griffin or Ben Burr-Kir-
ven, a fifth-round pick in 2019
See Griffin, Page A7
See Crawford, Page A7
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