Get into the bombast M's fans, this is going to be a bumpy ride

Tragedy turns into comedy and a good bad movie can either be art or bombast. The M's have all of these qualities in one, but don't expect a World Series, or a good review, for this ball club, because they are very bad, nor will they live in the memory of the fans as a bright shiny good moment that only an M's fan could appreciate, because there is nothing of that spirit in this team, absolutely no fire or love. If anything, they seem like a bunch of individuals either whining individually, or just kind of looking out for their own skin.

There are different kinds of bad movies, or seasons, and I'd say the M's are closer to "Showgirls" than "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training," both bad movies, that only a sliver of society would appreciate, and yet bad for different reasons. The "Bears" may have lacked fundamentals, but something beautiful bloomed out that piece of repackaged shit, and the story became about Kelly Leak and his fractured relationship to his father. Jackie Earle Haley gave a James Dean/Montgomery Clift worthy performance, and more than carried what could have been a forgettable piece of schlock into something truly moving, but I don't see that coming out of these M's. They have no heart, and there is no story, but they sure are excitng to watch lose.

I guess bad movies turn good, like baseball seasons, and that may be what happened to the M's in the 2014 season. I compared them to the Bad News Bears last year, or the Eighties Mets, before they won the series, because the M's clearly lacked talent, and yet they made up for it in heart, and super human performances by a bunch of unknowns, especially in the bull pen. It was hard to tell if it was Lloyd McClendon, the new skipper, or Robinson Cano, perhaps bringing some moxie and style to a bunch of extras, but whatever the equation they were a fun team to like, but not these M's. They are underperformers, and what's worse is that for the last week or so, the beginning of the second act, they have taken out their inevitably bad season in a series of lopsided wins or losses that feel like a real beating, both internally and externally. I do think bad movies do one of two things, they either bore you to death, or they are SO BAD that they are good. Hopefully, the M's may be so bad they are good but it would take a true baseball aesthete to appreciate it, and something that will be lost on the average fan.

The 2015 M's are bombast, and are more like watching "Showgirls" or some over the top piece of shit, that makes you wonder what went wrong, even if your analytical mind can intrude on your subconscious, and put the pieces together. I just read Josh Wilker's book about "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training," and while he's more of a man than me to write it, the scenes he brought back to life of Kelly leak peering out of the blinds at the Astrodome, or Tanner watching 'the Gipper' alone in a motel room, are etched in my mind forever. I'm pretty sure all of my friends loved "Breaking Training" as much as the first film because it really was its own movie, with its own heart and soul, and while it couldn't have existed without the first film, it was really just as good deep down, just a different story with a lot more flaws, so I'd call it a good movie, or a uniquely personal bad movie, or something between good and bad, that only movies know how to do, but it wasn't bombast. These M's are a "Showgirls" and are moving so fast at the speed of bad the fabric of daily life can't keep up with them.

6/20 the solstice: I just saw Taijuan Walker pitch for the first time and he was fantastic, a shining star. The M's have played really good baseball the last two nights against the division leader, and though I wrote this team off less than a week ago, I may go back on that, or at least hedge. I was brought up when the American League and National League had two divisions, and you had to win your division to make it to the playoffs. Now there are three divisions, and a couple of wild cards, so the masters of baseball, the owners and commissioner, made it much easier for slightly above average clubs to advance, and watered down the game.

Rick Rizzs marked the date last night, and I have to admit the M's I saw tonight looked like winners. Taijuan gave up a couple of early solo home runs, but you knew when he settled into his rhythm the Astros were going to have a hard time. The M's also showed some real shots of offense with the long ball, and knew how to get runs without hitting when they took pitches wisely and got a couple of runs walked in early on.

The other big bright spot is they have a new closer, and that could make a big difference. I mean this kid shut down the Astros in 1 and 1/3 innings, something Rodney could never do.

Cano is having a sub-par year, and the best I can say for him is that he looked hurt. Either that, or he was lazy, and I don't want to think of that. Hell, I gave the Moose a high five so things must be looking up!

7/6 The M's played the Tigers tonight in a 7 game homestand bleeding into the all star game. They got destroyed 12-7 as Iwakuma made his return to the mound, but he's no General MacArthur (ha!) and he shall not return. In all seriousness, I really like Iwakuma but I'm afraid his career is over, and that was only one of the rude surprises tonight. The other was just how mediocre a club this is and how there is no coming back from it. If only the MLB hadn't created the wild card NO ONE would be talking about how this club stood a chance of achieving anything, but now that nearly EVERY club is in the running for the wild card at least until August, I'm going to have to listen to the hyper partisan M's announcers talk about how if these guys can only get hot, who knows what glory awaits them!

The best thing that can be said about the 2015 M's is the bombast, and it's thick. I'd say no game could exemplify it more than tonight. The old wounded star comes back to pitch one last time, and he's shellacked. The M's come back in the bottom of the 5th inning to erase a 3-0 deficit to go ahead 5-3, a lead that would have easily won them many games in 2013 and 2014, but not now. The bombast is so thick that I knew a 5-3 come from behind lead couldn't hold, and that say's a lot about a team. These M's are really mediocre, but I'm sure there are worse teams without any of the bombast, and I'll admit it makes them interesting to listen to. Everyone knows they are not good and yet you have to marvel at how bad they are, which can almost convince you they are good, because they don't lose in normal ways, that define a dull loser, so here's to schmaltz, in all of its hideous drama! I can almost imagine this team losing a no-hitter, or something unfathomable like that. There really is no end to how strangely awful they are, a trait that always leaves one guessing, in sports and life.

7/7 Robinson Canoe drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning, to give the M's a dramatic 7-6 victory against the Tigers, and turned this 3 game set into a classic (do I hear rivalry?). Taijuan Walker was on the mound, my favorite M, and he didn't pitch great, but like a great defense in football, Taijuan bent but he did not break, and survived long enough on the rubber to give the M's a victory. He's not immortal yet, but I really think Taijuan has it in him given his youth (I'm not sure he's 22.) The M's were up 5-3 around the 5th inning, and it struck me as a strange that the score was the same as last night before the Tigers broke out for 9 unanswered runs. Like last night, I didn't have any hope the M's could win and indeed the Tigers came back and all but proved the disbelievers right (the disbelievers, ha! The M's are seven or six games below %500!) But tonight the M's overcame their mediocrity for a dramatic victory, and God bless them. There is hope in Mudsville, and hold onto that beer, the bumpy ride continues!

7/10 The M's lost to the Angels ignobly tonight. Boy, is the season in the refrigerator, but the kids and the lovers get into every game, so fuck the critics to kingdom come! I would've been hugging Robinson Canoe too a couple of nights ago. Every game is an eternity!

7/12 I hate to toot my own horn, but boy is this team bombastic! I don't even have to look in the box score anymore. If the M's won on Tuesday, they lost on Wednesday, and if they lost on Thursday, they won on Friday. The M's have absolutely no consistency except for King Felix, but even he isn't having a banner year, and no one is talking Cy Young. The team is getting the fans into the stadium because of all the pre-season hype, and the sheer bombast they bring to the diamond, but gaudiness should never be mistaken for quality, and this team is sincerely lackluster, maybe the only thing they are sincere about.

7/20 The M's were up 5-4 in the 8th and I delivered a pizza to a guy saying they were winning but that I never had faith they'd hold onto a lead. Sure enough, I got into my car and heard someone from the Tigers hit a two run shot to put Detroit ahead in the bottom of the 8th. The M's are so dead on their feet that you knew they wouldn't tie, or God forbid, retake the lead in the top of the 9th, and indeed they went down 1, 2, 3, and left their fans with one of the more stinging defeats of the season. The M's are so bad that every game is a must win, or if that's too dramatic they got to play about %.700 baseball for a few months, but not these losers. I don't know how many times a season can unofficially end, but this one may hold the record.

8/15 The 2015 season is a horrible bloody epic of a B movie, but not even I could have predicted how bombastic things would get. On Wednesday, Iwakuma, a pitcher who I thought was washed up, throws a no hitter in the afternoon, and gives the fans a reason to wake up. The next two games in Boston they give up 15 runs, and then 22 runs, numbers that aren't even possible in baseball.

10/3 It's the last day of the season and the M's suck. They made ripples in early September after a five game winning streak, because in this era of baseball almost ANY team that gets hot in September has a chance of being a wild card, but the M's didn't fail me, and they floundered the second a few sports writers started scribbling something good about them. They are a truly bad team, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly why the season went south, save the obvious like how the bullpen went from one of the best in the league last season, to one of the worst this season, or how the starting rotation was besieged with injuries, but these kinds of stats don't begin to describe the soul of a team, a soul that was sucked out. The Rangers didn't have their ace all year, and they are going to the playoffs so why not the Mariners?

The M's got a new GM and I'm sure he's going to be analyzing questions like this for the next few months, trying to figure out where to begin with a club that showed so little spirit it was odd listening to them. I'm pretty sure good and bad teams are measured by their spirit as much as anything else, because to think the Mariners were plagued by bad luck this season would be folly, considering they got a super human performance by Nelson Cruz, and the ace Felix Hernandez put in another strong season. They petered out in June and only die hard's clinging to pre-season predictions had any reason to hang on after the All Star break, capping another mediocre season in a near history-less franchise, playing a sport based on history. If I have to hear one more time about the momentous day that Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. hit back to back home runs in a meaningless game back in the '90's I'm going to puke.

Well, I just read an interview with Jerry Dipoto the M's new GM, and heard about the great Mariners offense the second half of the season, but I think that's a joke. Anyone at the major league level can play well when NOTHING is on the line, and I listened to nearly 2/3 of the games this season and I don't remember a speck of clutch hitting in the first half or the second half of the season, just bombast one way or the other. This team needs more than a tweak at a position or two, but the baseball Gods will do what they will with the mediocre and maybe the M's will rise next season, but it's going to take a new spirit to fill in those teal blue Friday night suits. Maybe a return to the old suits will do it, the classic Neptunean trident.