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OAKLAND, Calif. -- After more than two weeks of close games decided by three runs or fewer, the Seattle Mariners finally had a relaxing ninth inning.Seattle also inched closer to division-leading Texas -- a small but significant step for manager Scott Servais ballclub.Kyle Seager doubled twice and drove in four runs and the Mariners won for the eighth time in nine games, beating the Oakland Athletics 8-4 on Sunday.Its nice to build a little bit of a lead there and really let our pitchers settle in and not throw quite as many stressful pitches, Seager said. Weve been putting pretty good at-bats, top to bottom. I like the way our offense is swinging the bat.Adam Lind homered, Nori Aoki had three singles and Shawn OMalley added two hits and scored twice for Seattle.The Mariners moved within 5 1/2 games of AL West-leading Texas, matching the closest theyve been to the division leaders since early June.A lot of guys chipped in, contributed, Servais said. We needed it. To go out and win the series, you need to score a few runs in the last game, and we got it done today.Wade LeBlanc (2-0) gave up three runs over six innings to earn his second win since being acquired from Toronto in June. The lefty struck out seven and walked one.Khris Davis hit his third home run in three days. He became the first As player with at least 30 homers since Brandon Moss hit 30 in 2013.Im just trying to do me and help the club out and have fun with the boys, Davis said.Ryon Healy and Brett Eibner also homered for the As.Zach Neal (2-2) allowed five runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings.Every Seattle player except designated hitter Dae-Ho Lee had at least one hit. Lee, a late lineup addition, was hit by a pitch in the fourth.Lind homered in the second. Seager hit an RBI double in the third and a three-run double in the sixth.The Mariners also scored in the fourth after an inning-ending double play was overturned by replay. OMalley singled in Lee following the reversal.COLLISION COURSELind is significantly bigger than OMalley but it hardly mattered when the Mariners first baseman and shortstop collided chasing a pop-up near the mound in the third inning. Lind crashed to the ground while OMalley, who made the catch, barely moved. Second baseman Robinson Cano helped Lind to his feet then playfully held up two fingers to see if Lind was coherent.Shawn always talks about he was a really good football player, that he might have been a better football player than baseball player in high school, Seager said. Im kind of starting to believe him. But he kind of hit a helpless receiver there.TRAINERS ROOMMariners: Lee was in the lineup after Seth Smith was a late scratch due to a right foot contusion. ... James Paxton emerged from his bullpen session feeling fine and is slated to start Tuesday in Anaheim. Paxton was hit in his left elbow by a line drive in his previous outing Aug. 7.Athletics: Right-hander Jesse Hahn (right shoulder strain) will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville on Tuesday.UP NEXTMariners: RHP Felix Hernandez (6-4) pitches Monday in Anaheim and will be going for his 16th career win against the Angels.Athletics: LHP Ross Detwiler (1-0) makes his second start for Oakland when the As open a three-game series in Texas on Monday. Detwiler pitched eight scoreless innings against Baltimore in his debut on Aug. 10. Jim McMahon Bears Jersey . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward Brandon Sutter said. Dick Butkus Jersey .7 million, one-year contract, a raise of $2.2 million. Wieters had asked for $8.75 million and the Orioles had offered $6. http://www.bearsrookiestore.com/Bears-Tarik-Cohen-Jersey/ . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. Brian Urlacher Bears Jersey . Wall made the comment in a speech to a Regina business crowd that included Lesnar. The U.S. wrestler and retired mixed martial artist says he was visiting his brothers farm in Saskatchewan and decided he wanted to hear what the premier had to say. Roquan Smith Youth Jersey . Isner, ranked No. 14, won his eighth career singles title and took the title in New Zealand for the second time after his victory in 2010. The match was similar to Isners quarterfinal victory over fifth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber which went to three sets, all tiebreaks and contained no breaks of serve. For the first time in more than three-and-a-half years, the top-ranked player in womens tennis is not named Serena Williams. The long-standing No. 1, who held that ranking for 186 weeks, hampered by a knee injury, lost in the US Open semifinals Thursday night to 10th-ranked Karolina Pliskova. And with it, she also lost her shot to break Steffi Grafs record for consecutive weeks atop the rankings.Until we get the opportunity to watch Williams play in another major -- which wont be until the Australian Open in January 2017 -- all conversation around her will invariably involve some sort of assessment of her career and legacy, attempting to put into historical context one of the greatest athletes weve ever seen.The key word there is athlete, not womens tennis player. As Williams herself said after her third-round victory last Saturday, Im a female, and Im an athlete. And Im an athlete first.Too often the coverage of Williams qualifies her as one of, if not the greatest, female athletes of all time -- something were?just as guilty of here at espnW. Its certainly important to acknowledge Williamss womanhood. Her femininity has constantly been denied due to that toxic mix of sexism and racism known as misogynoir -- her hair, her body, her demeanor and even her sartorial choices are endlessly scrutinized, while both her strength and her sexuality have been used against her.But the focus on Williamss gender when evaluating her athletic career usually isnt about humanizing or empowering her. Most likely, its said with a wink and a nod to separate her from the men.The subtext is, Yeah, shes the GOAT, but at a girls game. Framing it in this way does more than merely undermine her success. It spares people from needing to consider her among legendary male athletes without comparing her to them.A common tactic in disparaging womens sports is to argue that female players wouldnt be able to beat men in one-on-one competition. This, of course, entirely misses the point: Williams is in the category of all-time greats who similarly dominated their field. Nobodys going around asking if Mariano Rivera would beat Muhammad Ali in the ring.?The need to uphold male athletes as the standard-bearers is often excused away by some lazy argument about quality of competition, but its really about the inability to see sports as something other than just for men. In a column for VICE, Rick Paulas argues that those looking for a woman to beat a man within the same sports are overlooking the fact that most of the major sports were designed to suit male skill sets:I tend to cringe when ascribing such specific attributtes to broad gender groups, and I disagree with the implication that if women cant run or swim or serve as fast (Williams can, by the way), that makes womens sports inherently less worthy.dddddddddddd But the idea that sports were designed exclusively with men in mind continues to segregate sports as a space thats not meant for women.And the tactic used to justify that is the straw man of direct comparison. A male athlete is simply an athlete, the natural order of things, while a female athlete is an anomaly -- and a supposedly inferior one, at that. Its this thinking that continues to stand in the way of equal pay for women players while holding back the confidence, support and investment needed to help womens sports continue to grow.It doesnt help that those covering sports, including tennis, continue to be overwhelmingly men. According to FiveThirtyEights Carl Bialik, men comprise 73 percent of journalists covering the US Open this year. Thats how you get a reporter telling Andy Murray hes the first tennis player to win two Olympic gold medals, and Murray having to remind him that Venus and Serena have won four each.While this might be an extreme example, it goes to show how separating men and women athletes in our minds can serve to erase female players entirely from our consciousness.But women athletes arent going away, and its up to those of us in the media to continue to nag people into acknowledging their existence and worth. It might be a blatantly self-serving move, but Nikes new campaign declaring Williams the greatest athlete ever is meaningful for both contextual and material reasons. The hesitance of major companies to see marketing value in female players has been a major barrier to the growth of womens sports, and here you have one of the biggest sponsors in sports declaring the supremacy of an athlete who happens to be a woman.At the end of the day, if youve somehow managed to forget one of the greatest athletic careers weve ever seen, the only person who missed out is you. Rio and Flushing notwithstanding, Serenas numbers speak for themselves, and the utter electricity with which she lights up the court is undeniable. And she hasnt just been an incredible boon to the profile of womens sports; she has managed to keep tennis relevant in the U.S. during years of futility by American men. Its not a far cry to imagine a young boy at the Williams sisters Los Angeles tennis academy dreaming of one day becoming Serena. We should all be so lucky. ' ' '