Opening day is upon us! I get excited for the start of baseball season like I do for no other sport. I thought it would be fun to look at an article I wrote at the start of the M’s 2001 season…
One could sense something in the air Monday night during the Seattle Mariners season opener at Safeco Field. Something electric. Not just the cold that had turned my hands the same color blue my hair was dyed, or turned my feet into unfeeling stumps.
As the M’s rallied from a 4-0 deficit to beat the Oakland Athletics 5-4, a feeling of joyousness collected the fans into one, cheering mob.
That was a fun game. My brother Peter had some nice seats. Also, we both contend that we’re responsible for the I-CHI-RO! chants that are so common at M’s games today. The Mariners were trying to get everyone to do a lame G0! Go! Ichiro! chant through the jumbotron. The entire crowd refused to participate in such lame cheering. Peter & I started bellowing I-CHI-RO. Slowly, those around us joined in, and within a few minutes, the whole stadium was participating. True story.
Here was a team in Seattle, which in case you’d forgotten (as impossible as that may seem) has lost three future hall-of-famers in the span of three years, beating the team they just couldn’t beat last year in the A’s.
Yeah, that was a rough spot. I remember being optimistic that we would keep A-Rod. After losing Griffey & Randy in the years prior, a serious sense of doom loomed over the franchise. Much like what we feel today. Also, even back then the M’s couldn’t beat the A’s (except for 2001).
A sense of Oakland’s impending doom fell upon the crowd when Seattle took the one-run lead in the eighth. Kazuhiro Sasaki would finish them. That’s what he does, and that’s what he did.
So we have J.J. Putz now, and he’s pretty good, too.
Most sportswriters pick the Mariners to place third this year. That may very well be, though I’d like to think they’ll beat out Texas for second place behind the A’s. Still, for one shining moment, all was well in the heart of the M’s fan. Alex Rodriguez had made the blooper reels by tripping himself up on his own shoelace the day before, and the team that he left beat the out and out favorite to win the AL West.
Yep. No one expected the Mariners to win anything near 90 games, let alone 116.
It seemed that the fans were ready to support the Mariners for the long haul, despite no prevalent superstar on the team. Then, without warning game two of the series took place the following night. The stadium looked half full, with more open seats than filled ones in right field. The A’s took it to the M’s 5-1 and no one seemed to care. It seemed expected. Opening night was a fluke. Only a few loyal fans remained to watch Carlos Guillen strike out for the final time that night.
Pretty standard stuff I was at home for this game, I did see the final game of the series, though.
Here’s where I start to rant. Is it just me, or are Mariners fans some the most fickle group of folks in the Pacific Northwest. Last summer, when the M’s were in the hunt for the postseason, you couldn’t look sideways without seeing some guy in a shiny new M’s hat (with the $1.50 waterproofing no less). My M’s hat is dirty and smells and I’m quite sure my wife would throw it away if she didn’t already know I’d cry like a baby if she did. I wore than hat all during fall and winter only to encounter those same people saying that the Mariners are a lost cause, and without A-Rod they won’t make it, blah, blah, blah.
So what? What if the Mariners lose 90 games? Isn’t going to be so different from the way baseball has always been in Seattle?
There was a time, before Sweet Lou came along, that a five hundred season seemed the sweetest things an M’s fan could get. All of a sudden, Seattle was on a tear in the mid 1990’s and a flock of born again baseball fans flooded the Kingdome. They did it again in ’97. After a losing season in 1998 and 1999, the only thing keeping the Mariner’s popularity alive was the emergence of Safeco Field. Then a winning season in 2000 whipped everyone into a frenzy again.
Now, two games have gone by as I write this, and already I’m hearing naysayers forfeit the season. Not enough offense to do it all again. Granted, keystone games such as A-Rod’s return, the All-Star Game, and anytime the Yankees come to town will sell out, but the way I see things, let all these ‘new-wave’ fans disown the M’s. More seats for the rest of us.
The fickleness of sports fans in general has always gotten on my nerves. Just look at the hot & cold love affair people have had with the Sonics for the past 10 years. I suppose complaining that your favorite team stinks is part of what people like about following pro sports, people like to complaing about things naturally (that’s why blogs exist for the most part), but there ought to be a grace period. People had already written the M’s off after two games in 2001, and they may not have been more wrong about anything else in their lives (unless they’re betting against God).
“I had A-Row, that’s what I call him – he hates that, into my office and told him to sit down.” said Anspach. “I looked him straight in the eyes and said ‘The bad news is that Posada, Cordero, and Rivera aren’t playing with us next year, and I didn’t even get a chance to talk with [Torri] Hunter or [Mike] Lowell. But we’ve got an option to pick you up, so I guess you’re it.’”
Rooting Against: The Colorado Rockies. I’d rather not, though. They’re a lot like the 1995 Mariners. So that’s cool. If they end up knocking off the Phillies, I’ll most likely switch allegiances. I’m not that loyal to any team in the NL. I just have a favorite as a matter of order, sort of like how the toaster is my favorite appliance. It’s best to have these sorts of things decided in advance in case someone ever asks you.
The question of whether or not the M’s should be 
