Of the Seattle Mariners

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result (the internet says Albert Einstein said that, but the educated historian in me, knows he probably didn’t).   Insanity...that’s a good way to put it, I guess.  I am insane...I am a Seattle Mariners fan.

I have and always will be a Mariner’s fan through and through.  Yes, those Mariners.  The same Mariners that haven’t seen the postseason in 16 years.  The same Mariners that had a $100+ million payroll and lost 100 games.  The same Mariners that traded Adam Jones for Erik Bedard.  The same Mariners that had the skinny, A-Rod.  From the Kingdome to Safeco Field, I have listened or watched games with an optimism that some find amusing, but I continue to come back year after year.  I come back with hopes of reliving ‘95 or 2001, but I keep getting ‘08 or ‘10.   The team is a rollercoaster...a rollercoaster with deep lows, but moderate highs.

I’m deeply rooted in the Seattle Mariners, so my insanity seems terminal.  I hit the age where you start playing organized sports when I lived in a small town on the west side of Washington, called Rainier.  It had nothing to do with the majestic peak, our state is known for, but is a small town of less than 1500 people.  The town had the feel of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo Radley house and all.  Anyway, this is where I started to play organized and backyard sports with my friends.  It just so happened that this point in my life occurred around 1995 and 1996.  If you’re not a Seattle or Washington sports fan, let me put that in perspective.  The Seattle Sonics were still a thing, and, in fact, in the midst of one of their most memorable runs outside the 1979 Championship run.  They had The Glove and The Reign Man (Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp) and I was getting buckets in the Thurston County 2nd and 3rd grade league.  I remember watching the Sonics win their games in Seattle and send the ‘96 Finals back to Chicago with a little pressure on MJ and the Bulls.  As the final buzzer sounded, I’d look down the hill from my grandparents house into Seattle from Kent, and see the colorful bursts of the fireworks being shot off the Space Needle.  The city was celebrating with the team and during the late Spring of 1996, every kid in the state was a part of that team; even those 20-30 year old grunge kids, put down Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, and Eddie Vedder for a 7 game series (even though it only went 6).

It just so happened that during this time, the Mariners had also decided to be a fun team with winning ways.  The year 1995 was the year of the Mariners.  They had icons of the game, along with a future icon.  The team was led by the greatest player to ever grace the diamond: The Kid, Ken Griffey Jr.  They also had the most intimidating pitcher to ever take the hill: The Big Unit, Randy Johnson.  From the infectious smile of baseball’s brightest star, to the terror opposing hitters showed at the thought of Mr. Snappy, the 1995 Seattle Mariners made an improbable run into baseball’s postseason, and it almost never happened.  Early in the season, Griffey, the team’s heart and soul, crashed into the centerfield fence making an superhuman catch to steal extra bases, but shattering his wrist in the process.  The team hit the skids and floundered through the All-Star Break.  The M’s were out of it and had been written off, and then August rolled around.  As the season was winding down, the team went on a run that sparked the moniker, The Refuse to Lose Mariners.  Griffey returned and the Baseball Gods looked down favorably on this group of players that the rest of the league had forgotten about.  They just kept winning and forced a one game playoff with the Angels.  They won and went on to eventually play the Evil Empire from New York.  The series was in the Seattle and the Mariners were in a must win situation.  What happened next is simply known as “The Double.”  “The Double” is a moment that still sends chills up my back when I see or hear Dave Niehaus belt out his excitement over the air waves.  “The Double” encompassed the entire 1995 season into a single play...into a single pitch.  With two men on, future Hall of Famer (yes, I said future Hall of Famer), Edgar Martinez stepped to the plate and with one swing of the bat saved baseball in Seattle.  Junior rounded third and the whole state waved him in; the throw was late and The Kid jumped into the arms of his teammates.  A dog pile ensued with sport’s most infectious smile beaming from underneath an 18 year old Alex Rodriguez and a pile of Mariner players; the Seattle Mariners had beat the Yankees. Yes those Yankees.  The same Yankees that have 27 World Series rings.  The same Yankees that had all the money in the world.  The same Yankees that fielded teams involving Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris, and keep going on, I’ll wait.  The rumors of the team moving had been, “lined down the left field line,”  and when Junior scored, support for a new stadium had a sharp uptick.  The Mariners had us excited about baseball, and the state was screaming, “My, Oh My!”

Two years.  That all happened in two years of my life, at a time when I was fostering Big League and NBA dreams.  I still love basketball as a sport, but not like I love baseball.  The NBA took basketball from me, and I don’t know if I will ever get it back.  Sure I have Gonzaga and Husky basketball, but when you grow up with a Shawn Kemp poster hanging on your wall, sleeping in your Gary Payton jersey, and modeling your jump shot after Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, the Sonics become a part of your life.  A part that has left a void inside me.  

Baseball has helped fill that void.  I love baseball.  I don’t think there is a more appropriate way to put it than that; I LOVE BASEBALL.  Everything about it: 10 to 9 games, 1 to nothing pitcher’s duels, how teams are put together, what the stats say about players, nostalgia, and looking ahead.  It’s a game I spent years of my life trying to understand and I don’t take that for granted.  Some call it boring, others say it’s dying; I say you have to understand it to appreciate it, and there will always be those who appreciate it.  It’s been around longer than football and basketball and isn’t going anywhere.  It’s a simple game, but at the same time complex.  The idea of it in a broad sense is to hit the ball and keep the other team from hitting the ball.  The intricacies of the game become apparent when you’re standing in the batter’s box with another guy standing 60 feet 6 inches away preparing to hurl a small, hard ball at you.  You know it’s coming, but where and how.  Is the pitcher left or right handed?  Is it coming at your body or head or over the heart of the plate?  Is it going to be three feet outside or behind you?  Is it going to be 90 mph or 70 mph?  Is it going to be a straight fastball or a breaking ball?  Is that breaking ball a slider which runs away from you or a curveball that drops off the table?  All of this has to run through your head before you decide to swing or not, and you have to make that decision in a split second.  And that’s just the batter, there are 9 players in the field on defense making similar split second decisions on every pitch.  Pitchers are constantly playing a game of chess to try and keep the hitters off balance.  Thoughts like, “they think I’m going to throw a fastball, so I’m going to throw a curveball...but if they think, I think they know I’m throwing the fastball, then they might think I’m throwing the curve, so I should throw the fastball…”  That’s only two pitches, what if he had a changeup or slider?  Warren Spahn put it best, “hitting is timing and pitching is upsetting timing.”  A quote that appears simple, yet holds multitudes of possibilities.

Baseball is a game that can change in an instant.  One swing of the bat or one pitch can decide a game.  In basketball and football, you can hold a lead and kill clock at the end of the game to secure a victory; there is no clock in baseball.  Each team gets 27 outs.  That’s 27 outs to score more runs than the other team.  No matter if you have the lead going into the 9th or not, you and your opponent still get 3 more outs, and anything can happen until that final out is recorded.  You have to pitch to the other team whether you have a lead or not, you can’t just hold the ball and wait for the clock to hit zero.

So what does all this mean?  What do the Sonics have to do with why I love the Mariners?  Why do I live and breathe with a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since I was 11?  Why did I name my dog Griffey?  Is it insanity or loyalty?  Or a mix of both?  

The Mariners are a constant in my life between April and through September (October someday).  Not always a positive constant, but a constant regardless.  In 2008, the Sonics were taken from me, and moved to Oklahoma City.  They were my constant as a child who grew up playing basketball and watching games with my Grandma, and they were snatched away, by greed and a man who claimed Oklahoma City was a better economic market for a professional sports team than Seattle, who had supported the team for 41 years, along with the Mariners and Seahawks.  That hurt.  That still hurts.  In 1995, Ken Griffey Jr. and the Mariners made an improbable run that kept the team in Seattle and ultimately built Safeco Field, and that didn’t happen for the Sonics.  The experience taught me a deeper meaning of the phrase, “you don’t always know what you have until it’s gone.” I knew the Sonics leaving would hurt; I prepared for it.  I tried to be a Blazers fan, but even the proximity of Portland couldn’t fill the void of Seattle basketball.  The memories of Gary, Shawn, Nate, Ray, Rashard, Hersey, and on and on and on, were still there and still haunt me to this day.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to attend another NBA game in Seattle, but I do know one thing, and that is that I can still attend a Mariner’s game.  They may be heart-breakers and trash, year in and year out, but they’re my pile of trash and misfortune.  I already lost the Sonics and, I don’t want to see the Mariners go.
 

If it makes me insane to put so much into a team that rewards so little, then I don’t want to be sane.  What they have lacked to give me in wins or championship rings, they have made up for with memories and an undying love for a beautiful game.  So I thank you, Ken Griffey Jr., Dave Niehaus, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, Brett Boone, Ichiro, Felix, Adrian Beltre, Kyle Seager...hell even you Dustin Ackley.  From the bottom of my heart, I thank and appreciate you.   See you at the corner of Edgar and Dave for years to come.  My, Oh My!