Seattle’s LGBTQ community members say they hope that this Friday’s World Cup “Pride Match” between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalized, can be an opportunity to change minds.
Seattle, WA
Mariners Gold Glove finalist Cal Raleigh uses someone else's glove
That Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh was among the finalists announced Tuesday morning for an American League Gold Glove Award should be no surprise for those who follow the defensive numbers.
Two Mariners named AL Gold Glove Award finalists
Raleigh in season and out has gone to great lengths to improve his defense, and the results show in both the eye and Statcast tests. How he got to the top was the result of multiple things – from the initiative he took in working this past offseason with Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges, who posted the best pitch framing numbers in the American League in 2023, to using (and ultimately taking) his resources in the Mariners clubhouse in 2024 when a problem arose. The latter comes via a story shared with Aaron Goldsmith and Gary Hill in a favorite Mariners Radio Network pregame show interview from this past season.
The problem? Raleigh’s glove-hand middle finger was taking a beating.
“Pitches, foul tips, blocking balls where I turned over and my finger would be exposed, I kept getting hit and hit in the same spot. And I’m like, ‘I gotta do something different cause the padding’s not working. The glove’s not working,’” Raleigh remembered.
Raleigh, who was also a Gold Glove finalist in 2022, sought out the advice of other catchers in and around the team and was told there was a simple fix. He needed to get a bigger glove to give himself more space to catch the ball.
“With the glove I was using, I couldn’t shift my hand to the left to give myself more room to catch when it’s not hitting the fingers,” he explained. “Normally when you put your hand in a glove, it goes in straight in and there’s like a slot for each finger. Now I shifted my hand over to where I’ve got three fingers where the pinky goes.”
While his glove wouldn’t allow him to get the fingers out of harm’s way, there was one glove found in the Mariners clubhouse that did. That glove belonged to Seby Zavala.
“It gave me more room to get hit in more places like the palm, where it doesn’t really hurt as much or just not hitting anything,” he said.
Raleigh was sold on the glove, but acquiring a broken-in, game-ready duplicate was just not possible in season. It was Zavala’s original, or nothing at all.
“I unfortunately took his glove. I ended up keeping it,” Raleigh said with a sheepish chuckle. “It was working so well. I’m like, ‘Hey, my hand feels so much better. My finger’s doing a lot better.”
The glove switch did not go unnoticed. The black and silver of Zavala’s previous team, the Chicago White Sox, was not a natural fit with Mariners’ teal. The No. 44 embroidered on the outside of the glove prompted questions.
“‘You have 44 on your glove. Is it for it for Julio?’” I’m like. No, It’s Seby’s old glove,” Raleigh said. “I got him a nice gift for it. I was like, ‘I feel bad for taking your glove, but I need it. I really need it and I don’t have time to break into another one.’”
A No. 1 catcher has got to do what a No. 1 catcher has got to do. As a result, if Raleigh wins the Gold Glove, he will have done it with Zavala’s glove.
“That’s going to be kind of a funny story if that happens,” he said.
If Raleigh wins the Gold Glove, his glove forevermore will be adorned not by the red Rawlings nameplate on all but a precious few, but rather the gold version reserved for the award winners. What his gloves of the future will not have on them, though, is Zavala’s old No. 44.
“The Rawlings guy came the other day and I told him, ‘Hey, this is the glove I want. We’re switching it up.’ This is the glove and it’ll be mine. I’ll have my number and it’ll be mine so I won’t have to steal it from anybody hopefully.”
Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh sets two HR records with one swing
Not wanting to jinx himself, Raleigh was hesitant to talk about possibly taking the award, but he stressed that what is covered by the award is just one piece of what he feels it takes to be at the top of one’s game at catcher.
“It’s hard to win that award and I think it’d be really amazing,” he said. “Obviously you want to be the best of your position at what you do, but to me, more importantly is making sure that you got to do the things that aren’t kind of seen on the field. You’ve got to do the things away from it. Take care of your pitchers, game planning, calling games, running the show. That’s kind of the thing that people don’t really see sometimes when they do the Gold Glove because you’re looking at certain things like throwing out runners.
“You know the actual stats and metrics and all that stuff, which is great because you want to be the best at that as well, but you also want to be known around the league as the guy who knows how to run a staff and win games and do stuff like that. So that’s probably the No. 1 priority.”
The Gold Glove Award winners will be announced Nov. 3.
Listen to the full Seattle Mariners radio pregame conversation with Cal Raleigh in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post.
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SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating a shooting that left a 17-year-old boy injured early Thursday morning in the High Point neighborhood.
At about 12:48 a.m., dispatchers received multiple reports of rapid gunfire near Sylvan Way Southwest and Southwest Morgan Street.
Officers arrived and found a 17-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound to the hip area. Medics transported the teen to Harborview Medical Center in serious but stable condition.
Before officers located the victim, they found a car that had crashed and become disabled near Sylvan Way Southwest and Delridge Way Southwest. Police said multiple suspects were seen running from the vehicle through a nearby Home Depot parking lot.
Officers cordoned off the area and searched for the suspects with assistance from the K-9 Unit, but were unable to locate them. Police recovered the vehicle and impounded it for processing.
During the incident, gunfire struck at least three vehicles and two buildings. No other injuries were reported.
Officers processed multiple nearby scenes and recovered evidence before clearing the area. Detectives with the Gun Violence Reduction Unit will lead the investigation.
Seattle, WA
Council eyes street barricades in fight against violence, sex trafficking in north Seattle
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would give the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) the authority to close off street access for public safety reasons.
The proposal comes after months of outcry from residents in north Seattle who say sex traffickers and sex buyers are looping through the streets surrounding Aurora Avenue North.
The street-closure proposal passed the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on by the full council next week.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predator,” said District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez. “I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those who live there.”
Frustrated neighbors have installed their own homemade barricades after a spate of gun violence between sex traffickers in May.
RELATED | SDOT removes street barricades near Aurora Ave; neighbors doubtful of temporary measures
Councilmember Bob Kettle says street closures will help tamp down sex buying in certain areas, but he emphasizes it must be accompanied by an increase in outreach and enforcement.
“We have to have a sustained effort,” Kettle told KOMO News. “My concern is for every action, there’s a reaction. We need to take this flex and then really attack it … because if we do just a bit and our attention wanders, we could have this conversation three months from now and we’re talking about the same thing.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot near 95th Street and Aurora Avenue North around 10:45 p.m. last night. The teen initially claimed he had been shot while walking down the street, but investigators now say he was shot by a passenger in his car.
RELATED | Seattle police say ‘drive-by’ on Aurora Ave. was actually passenger shooting teen driver
Kettle credited the city’s Real Time Crime Center cameras with helping investigators quickly piece together the events of the shooting.
“Just as important to finding out what happened, the cameras help police determine what did not happen,” Kettle said.
According to Seattle police data, reports of shootings and shots fired in the north precinct area are at their lowest levels since 2021.
Through the end of May, there were 48 total reports of shootings or shots fired, with one fatal shooting and seven nonfatal injury shootings.
That’s down from 63 total reports of shootings and shots fired – one fatal and seven injuries – in 2025; and 64 shootings or shots fired reports – one fatal and 17 injuries – in 2024.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, councilmembers pointed out residents are calling for a new police precinct to be built on Aurora Avenue.
Ten years ago, a new North Precinct building was slated to be built at 130th Avenue and Aurora Avenue North to replace the existing precinct building, which was decades old and did not have enough space for the department’s needs.
Led by former councilmember Kshama Sawant, the “Block the Bunker” movement successfully got the North Precinct replacement project killed in city council.
Kettle said the city’s current financial issues make it essentially impossible to bring back a project similar to the one the previous council defeated.
“We have to connect the dots back,” Kettle said. “If we want to know why we are where we are today, we have to look at decisions made over the last two councils.”
Seattle, WA
Iran and Egypt to play in Seattle ‘Pride Match’ despite earlier complaints | The Jerusalem Post
Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.
So, ahead of December’s World Cup draw, it was only natural that local organizers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a “Pride Match.”
Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were Egypt and Iran.
Egypt’s Football Association urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities, arguing such events clashed with the Muslim-majority country’s cultural and religious values. The governing body in Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.
Some in Seattle have doubts over the teams in the ‘Pride Match’
But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned.
“The World Cup is going to come and go in three weeks,” Hedda McLendon, from Seattle’s local World Cup organizing committee, told Reuters. “The Pride celebration … has happened on this weekend for 50-plus years.
“It is going to happen this weekend, it is going to happen long after the World Cup.”
Some in the city’s LGBTQ community had mixed feelings given the participants, said Jon Cairns, 49, manager of local LGBTQ+ club Kremwerk.
Cairns, however, said his own view was that it provided a platform to promote acceptance that only the world’s biggest sporting event could offer.
“My reaction is let’s have them,” he told Reuters. “International sports is one of the biggest brokers historically of social change and individual rights and freedoms worldwide, including in the U.S.”
He cited black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ raised-fist protest in 1968 as moments where “only international sports could reach that big of an audience.”
“They’re not going to turn off the World Cup on state television in Iran or Egypt to block out a Pride flag in the audience,” Cairns said.
The Pride Match is “a host city initiative” and separate of FIFA, a spokesperson for soccer’s governing body told Reuters.
Seattle’s LGBTQ community sees an opportunity
Egypt and Iran’s involvement in the Pride Match is not the first time the World Cup has grappled with stark differences in attitudes between hosts and visitors.
In 2022 World Cup host Qatar, the emir said visitors should “respect our culture” when asked about gay people attending the tournament.
FIFA threatened yellow cards for captains wearing the “OneLove” armband, citing its rules against political slogans. Teams including England and the Netherlands that had been planning to wear the armbands to protest Qatar’s laws against same-sex relationships abandoned the plan.
For Ryan Webster, a 40-year-old lifestyle manager who was at Kremwerk the weekend before Pride, Seattle’s “Pride Match” was an opportunity to show solidarity with people in countries where their sexuality was outlawed.
“I’m choosing to believe that this is our moment to allow the members of the LGBTQ community that come from those countries to have the opportunity to celebrate themselves in totality that they might not have otherwise,” he said outside the club, which will host a watch party for Friday’s game.
Inside, ‘Venus Fengz’ lip-synced to Cher’s “Believe” before introducing fellow drag performers to the stage, clapped and cheered by a raucous crowd.
Fengz, who only wanted to provide their stage name, said Pride coinciding with the World Cup would bring increased visibility, anticipating perhaps some new audience members.
“I think it’s always great for us to be able to share space and share places with people who don’t have the same experiences as us,” they told Reuters.
“Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and show grace where you can and know that everyone is a human learning (from) different experiences, but also it can get hard — because you’re on the shorter end of the stick, always trying to have to explain yourself around people who don’t grow up with the same worldview.”
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