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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.)

 

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