Skip to main content

Go, Mariners! (Part I)

 

Good luck to the Mariners as they begin their best-of-three series against the Blue Jays later today!  Personally, I don’t think the Ms have a very good chance.  They’re an abysmally poor-hitting team, for one thing, with a team batting average of .228, (28th (of 30) among all MLB teams.)  The Blue Jays are #1 at .263, blistering by today’s standards.  Not one Mariner hitter is even close to .300.  We can only hope that they can get two (very) good showings from their admittedly good pitching staff.

JRod

The Ms pulled me in this year.  After a long hiatus, I became a fan again.  I was an avid Mariners fan from 1982, the year 43 year-old spit-baller Gaylord Perry, aptly nicknamed for that one season The Ancient Mariner, picked up his 300th career win, until 2004, when Edgar Martinez, my favorite player, retired.  That’s 22 years as a fan, watching or listening to most of the 162 games (in non-strike years) every summer.  At the time of my death, presumably, every inning of all those games will pass in an instant before my eyes, and even more regrettably, every radio and TV commercial between innings. Since then, it has been 18 years as a non-fan, occasionally using my time more profitably.

As a recently returned, (formerly long-term) fan, I feel qualified to compare this year’s squad with a couple of teams from the not-so-recent past.  First, let’s remember the 1995 “Refuse to Lose” Mariners, who in early August came from 13 games back of the Angels to tie for the AL West lead, and then win a thrilling one-game playoff to get into the Division Series against the hated Yankees.  And then beat the Yanks in a best-of-five!  (And then lose to Cleveland in the ACS 4 games to 2.)

ARod, 1995 Rookie card

Ah, when I say that team had some ballplayers, I am not exaggerating.  That roster boasted no fewer than four future Hall of Famers:  Ken Griffey Jr., the aforementioned Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, alias “The Big Unit,” and Alex Rodriguez, (later nicknamed ARod) in his rookie year.  Add to them a stellar cast of all-time Mariners favorites such as Jay Buhner, Joey Cora, Dan Wilson and Mike Blowers, who to this day provides commentary on Ms’ TV broadcasts.  The Ms had three hitters with more than 100 RBIs, and Blowers with “only” 96.  (And Griffey, injured for half the year, wasn’t even one of them!  And that was in a strike-shortened season of only 145 games!  Compare that to this year’s team that has not one hitter, in a full schedule of 162 games, with more than 86 RBIs.  Pathetic!

Scanning this year’s roster, I can see not one player with Hall of Fame potential, with the possible exception of 21 year-old rookie Julio Rodriguez (JRod).  He’s got a lot of work to do, and one wonders whether the long-term $210 million contract he recently inked will prove to be an incentive or a detriment to his development as a player.  That’s IF he can stay healthy, which, judging only from his several injuries this year, Is a big, big IF.  And who knows if there will even BE baseball 20-30 years from now?  But alas, has it not always been so?

Now--Ah, Yes--let us consider the team of 2001, the Millennial Mariners!

(To be Cont.)

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Few Random Thoughts on “Drink the Kool-Aid” as a Political Metaphor

  Recently, in the agonizing run-up to this God-forsaken election [1], I’ve been coming across the idiom “Drink the Kool-Aid” much more often than I’d like or even expect. Accordingly, I took it upon myself to express my indignation.  Before clowns got creepy Then I thought: Do I even know what it means, really? Where did the phrase come from? I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t sure people who have been using the phrase were sure. (I’ve become forgetful in my geezerhood.) And so, like so many of us do when we aren’t sure, I resorted to Wikipedia: "Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an expression used to refer to a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards. The phrase often carries a negative connotation. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion. The phrase originates from events in Jonestown , Guyana , on November 18, 197...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Astronaut and the Acid Head

The Astronaut and the Acid Head August 18, 2019 First, a short warning:     This piece is about books, with only passing references to real life, (if there is such a thing. )  First, I recommend a book by Scott Kelly:  Endurance:   A Year in Space,   A Lifetime of Discovery. This memoir was a lot better than I was expecting when I picked it off the Current Shelf at the local library.   Scott Kelly spent a year on the International Space Station.   (You might have seen the PBS documentary about it: ( https://www.pbs.org/show/year-space ).   Meanwhile his identical twin, Mark (husband of Gabby Gifford), also an astronaut, stayed on the good old Earth.    It’s a good mix of the gee-whiz tech stuff with the personal insights of an intelligent and talented man.   Please don’t be put off if you’re not particularly interested in science or space.   Actually, a second-hand recommendation might be more ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Basketball Hurts

  Basketball Hurts April 8, 2021 Three days after the dispiriting defeat by Baylor in the title game, our Gonzaga flag still hangs limply and listlessly above our porch.   I’ll take it down soon.   It got wet in the rain this morning; it has no flap left in it.   Down it goes. Sad Suggs Ever since the Elite Eight run in1999, the  that began this 22-year streak, The Zags have lost a game in the Big Dance  that ended the season.   I can remember every one of the losses. Every single one of those defeats—twenty-two of them—has provided a unique flavor of disappointment.   I won’t bother recapitulating the worst ones—the 2006 melt-down vs. UCLA and the 2013 loss to Wichita State [ 1 ] come immediately to mind—but this last loss against Baylor on Monday night produced a particularly bitter taste, most obviously because it spoiled the “perfect” 32-0 season, something that hadn’t been done since Indiana did it 45 years ago.   Limply it hangs. ...
Post a Comment
Read more