The M's first act

I realize we're in the first act of the baseball season, but that almost makes it sound like the movie has really begun, or the season, as the case may be. The M's are four games into their season, starting their second series, so I'd guess the theatergoers have sat down with their popcorn, and the stragglers (me!) are finding their seats, but the coming attractions have come and gone, and we're at the point where it's rude to still be talking when the opening credits roll, but you're allowed to do that in movies, or certain people accept it. I always thought it was fair to talk at the very beginning of movies, because they really didn't pretend to be high art, and only became so accidentally. If you wanted the stuffy old theater or opera then you'd go to that, but the movies were fun, and you could talk in them, without disturbing the actors, only the moviegoers around you.

The Mariner's have been the equivalent of a B movie for so long, that it would seem perfectly natural to talk through the beginning of a game, or maybe even a season. They are truly one of the worst teams in sports, and have let down the fans here year in and year out, so that most Seattleites barely get excited for opening day, but this year was supposed to be different. We were supposed to hold our breath, and watch this team jump out of the gate like a thoroughbred on the inside post certain of victory, and opening day was optimistic. King Felix pitched well and the team got some runs, but they've hit a three game losing streak early on, and all the old problems of last year, and the year before, and the year before, are sinking in. Most notably, the hitting sucks and that has been their problem for this installment of the M's, the post Griffey/Ichiro/Edgar/Buhner era. I knew I should be worried when several friends told me the M's had been getting good pre-season press, and this worried them unduly, but maybe they are bigger Mariners fans than I will ever be.

I'm a pizza driver and I've taken the M's on because the games are little symphonies to me when I drive around, but some years are better than others. Last year, was very fun to listen to because the M's had no expectations, and were better in spots than they were the previous year, when they were awful, but more so were exciting to listen to, and that's a hard thing to describe. The best words I have are that you knew that they felt they could win every time they went out to the diamond, and this was an unbelievable feeling for a ball team crushed by history, in a sport based on history more than the others, the national pastime. They weren't my favorite team of all time, but like I wrote they had the feeling of the early Eighties Mets before they went to the series, and this was refreshing. They had a new skipper, a 'cool cat' in the words of Shannon Drayer, Lloyd McClendon, and the M's felt free of a mediocre history throughout the season, even though they missed the playoffs by a game. When they looked like they were about to falter in late August, they bounced back, and a baseball season really is grueling, so like a movie they kept the fans attention, leaving us wanting more. The 2015 season is the sequel to the exciting 2014 season and they are either going to go to the playoffs or bomb, because given the expectations put on them they can't repeat a performance like last year, as fun as it was. They've either got to top it, or sink low.

I moved to Seattle in '96 when the M's were on fire and arguably had their greatest season ever when they unexpectedly beat the Yankees in the playoff, and then had the best winning record in a regular season five years later making them THE Seattle team not the Seahawks, but boy do times change. Mariners fans have almost become ashamed to admit it, and it strikes me that this must be how it was growing up an M's fan in the Eighties and early Nineties, when they were a terrible franchise who never got their shit together. In the last five or six years the M's have slipped back into the mediocrity they sprung from, making only die hard's remember that SAFECO field, a great baseball park, was the house that Griffey built. Oh yeah, the taxpayers really built it after SAFECO was voted down on a ballot initiative, but that's another story for another day, and say's more about sports dominance in the society than any pithy remark.

Structurally, the season is very young, and the announcers are reveling in it. They are discounting the terrible opening scene of the 2015 season as an anomaly to an otherwise great picture we've yet to see, but I wonder if that's how it's going to go down. I want to laugh along with them at how silly it is to write off a season after 5 games, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you this was a horrible harbinger, and they are lying to, or obscuring the truth, because they are salesmen and women for the Mariners organization, and they can't let on that all is not right, especially given the hoopla and the better attendance. Shit, I listened to Shannon Drayer talk about how the M's are happier on the road than at home because they are not weighed down by the routine of life, and can really concentrate. It was the weirdest reason I ever heard especially since I was taught and the very rules agree that home field advantage, is an 'advantage.' You win it at the end of the season by having the BEST record, not the second best, and only a team as historically hapless as the Mariners would take excuses like that to heart. I know the announcers are M's fans and to be fair are exerting some wisdom, because this opening stumble will be forgotten if the M's end up in a pennant race, or God forbid the World Series. But a fall from grace really took shape tonight with a 12-0 drubbing by the Oakland A's, a division rival, and it felt really monumental. The offense was terrible save for Austin Jackson who got a couple of singles, but not one of my favorite acquisitions (he's boring).

I'm going to put on my pessimist's suit now and tell my loyal Mariner fans who I love and want to succeed, my dark vision of the season. Last year's M's were exciting but a lot of this had to do with them being under the radar and exceeding expectation, and would take a real fan in the bleachers to spot. Late in the first act of the season, or maybe into the second act, a transition from May to June, I recall listening to many Mariners post game shows, with Shannon Drayer et al., talking about how on paper the M's shouldn't have been doing as well as they were, and that there was something special about the club. Sure, they had the same problems with the offense as the 2013 squad when they must have lost a thousand games 1-0, or 2-1, making it one of the most maddening seasons ever, but the offense also showed brilliant flashes of light when they'd break out with a 12 run ball game, or more impressively, come from behind late in the game and score a few runs when it mattered. Not to analyze it too much but their timing was very good last year, and this can't be calculated or gauged by the men in the front office. I'm not a big baseball fan outside of the Mariners because I don't have cable and see very little but I fear Nelson Cruz, the acquisition who was really supposed to put the offense over the top is over the hill at 36 years old. Rick Riz calls him 'Nellie' and while this may have been Nelson Cruz's nickname for his whole career it troubles me, and only adds to my fear that Ol' Nellie has seen his best days like many veterans who come to the Mariners to die. Aside from Nellie, I'm not sure what the M's have done to trigger the offense and after listening to the new DH strike out in a comeback attempt in the bottom of the 8th against the Angels, I fear another mediocre season, but the season is young and as the announcers keep reminding me this team will come alive, right?

As a disclaimer, these sports pieces are hard to write (I wrote right, and that scares me some more, thinking I must be subconsciously right). If I was working for a legitimate online magazine or publication, I would be held accountable for my hunches. What if the 2015 M's turn it around in May, or by mid April, and end up winning the World Series. I'd be out of a job, but thankfully I don't have one, and don't have to think about such things.

*it's April 22nd, deeper into the first act, and my piece was pretty much right, except for the comments on Nelson Cruz, 'Ol Nellie.' He has been tremendous and if he was here last year for the pennant run the Mariners timing would be perfect.

*On May 6th, the M's lost two games to the Angels in the bottom of the 9th or 10th. They remind me of that quote about a beauty having all the right parts in all the wrong places.