I'm looking at the Mariners' roster and I see a lot of potential. Not future positive potential, but past potential that was never met. I see names like Brandon League, Chone Figgins, Jamey Wright, Jack Cust, Milton effing Bradley... guys who've shown flashes of brilliance in the past, but have since performed disappointingly once significant time and money was spent investing in them. These are guys the team picks up, hoping/gambling for that break-out season that would prove that lofty contract was actually a shrewd move. This is a game the Kansas City Royals have played for years. It's unproductive and terribly annoying.
There are, however, authentic glimmers of light this season. There is always Ichiro. Sweet, sweet Ichiro. Felix Hernandez is coming off of a Cy Young Award-winning season. Some guy named Justin Smoak is being deceptively productive. The pitching staff as a whole has been surprisingly effective.
And yet it would surprise nobody if Seattle finished in the bottom half of the AL West. The AL West, by the way, is a historically crappy division. And, historically, its forgotten cellar is where the Mariners belong.
My personal connection to the M's is tenuous at best. The franchise itself is only five years older than I am, and while I spent my early youth in the American mid-west, the Mariners invisibly trudged through the 1980s, hidden from me by their consistently awful performances and cast way over in the upper left-hand corner of the United States. For a while I wasn't even convinced they were a Major League team. What was a "Mariner" to a seven-year-old anyway?
But then, of course, Ken Griffey, Jr. came along, and while they team played only marginally better for the next half-decade, Junior made the team relevant to aspiring ballplayers like myself.
Then, almost all at once, they became contenders and even developed a peculiar rivalry with the New York Yankees, a favorite team of mine.
And then came Ichiro. Ichiro, my goodness. His singular name alone is like an untranslatable word that describes grace and finesse and suaveness and gazelles and hot Asian sex.
But as Ichiro ages I wonder if the team and it's character will wither away, or will the Mariners move towards another decade of prominence and relevance on the shoulders of guys like Smoak and King Felix.
There are, however, authentic glimmers of light this season. There is always Ichiro. Sweet, sweet Ichiro. Felix Hernandez is coming off of a Cy Young Award-winning season. Some guy named Justin Smoak is being deceptively productive. The pitching staff as a whole has been surprisingly effective.
And yet it would surprise nobody if Seattle finished in the bottom half of the AL West. The AL West, by the way, is a historically crappy division. And, historically, its forgotten cellar is where the Mariners belong.
My personal connection to the M's is tenuous at best. The franchise itself is only five years older than I am, and while I spent my early youth in the American mid-west, the Mariners invisibly trudged through the 1980s, hidden from me by their consistently awful performances and cast way over in the upper left-hand corner of the United States. For a while I wasn't even convinced they were a Major League team. What was a "Mariner" to a seven-year-old anyway?
But then, of course, Ken Griffey, Jr. came along, and while they team played only marginally better for the next half-decade, Junior made the team relevant to aspiring ballplayers like myself.
Then, almost all at once, they became contenders and even developed a peculiar rivalry with the New York Yankees, a favorite team of mine.
And then came Ichiro. Ichiro, my goodness. His singular name alone is like an untranslatable word that describes grace and finesse and suaveness and gazelles and hot Asian sex.
But as Ichiro ages I wonder if the team and it's character will wither away, or will the Mariners move towards another decade of prominence and relevance on the shoulders of guys like Smoak and King Felix.
