Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

‘It was carnage’: The oral history of the Mariners’ pickup basketball game from hell by Corey Brock on The Athletic

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Links:

The Light Bat Publishing Inc. Clearinghouse on Bluesky’s Rob Refsnyder hit tracker

My conversation with Jage on his podcast, Words from the Wharf, where we warned against making declarative statements about the Seattle Mariners

My newsletter about the Ichiro statue’s broken bat

Jeff Sullivan, Jon Shields, Patrick Dubuque, Meg Rowley (listen to her episode of The Enni Way here), Scott Weber, Matt Ellis, Colin O’Keefe, David Skiba, and Samuel Joseph

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Find Shannon on Seattle Sports’ website and YouTube, and on X.com

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

How 2025 Mariners compare with 2001 team and others in MLB playoffs by Larry Stone for the Seattle Times

How the Mariners’ George Kirby is learning to control his ‘Furious George’ tendencies by Adam Jude for the Seattle Times

Julio Rodriguez, Ichiro are Mariners stars, but they have more in common than that by Larry Stone for the Seattle Times

Angels owner Arte Moreno draws MLBPA criticism after saying fans don’t prioritize winning

On his path to the Hall of Fame, Edgar Martinez never forgot his humble hometown in Puerto Rico by Larry Stone for The Seattle Times

Josh Naylor’s connection to Mariners fans grows even more with cleat giveaway by Ryan Divish for the Seattle Times

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Democracy at the Ballpark: Sport, Spectatorship, and Politics by Thomas David Bunting

The Mariners season preview episode of Effectively Wild

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Ichiro was the first one to notice that his bat was broken. It was a gray early afternoon outside T Mobile Park, on the corner of Edgar and Dave. A crowd was gathered around an enormous blue tarp draped over something nearly two stories high. Longtime Mariners play-by-play announcer Rick Rizzs stood behind a podium, serving as master of ceremonies. Hall of Famers Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr stood holding the tarp’s skirts in their hands. The man of the hour, recent Hall of Fame inductee Ichiro Suzuki, stood before rows of admirers in a sharp blue blazer, dark cuffed jeans, and bright white sneakers, still as trim and put together as he was when he first arrived in Seattle in 2001. He knows it’s true because he put that rookie year uniform on when posing for the statue set to be unveiled today. The bronzed figure depicts Ichiro in his iconic batting stance: right arm extended toward the pitcher, left hand adjusting the right sleeve, bat perpendicular to the plate.

Until now. When Rick counted down and Edgar and Junior yanked the tarp back, the force bent the statue’s bronze bat back 45 degrees. It twisted akimbo as blue and green confetti burst into the air. Ichiro pointed. Junior buried his face in Edgar’s shoulder. Ichiro, still pointing, put an arm around Edgar and all the men laughed.

On the outskirts of the mildly horrified crowd stood an unassuming figure in a teal sweatshirt, hood pulled over his head. One hand was tucked in the pouch pocket, the other holding a 4K Sony camcorder, capturing the whole scene. Though he had a game in just a few hours, Julio Rodriguez wasn’t about to miss Ichiro’s special moment. He watched the debacle unfold with a wide grin.

At first blush, the moment seemed like a disaster—an emblem of the 2026 squad’s face-plant out of the gate. Julio and his teammates were fresh off a road trip where they dropped five games in a row. They were off to their worst start in 15 years. And most alarmingly, the problems started at the top. The superstar bats at the top of the lineup had been ice cold, including Julio. For the 25-year-old center fielder, it looked like it might be the fifth straight year where he’d be dogged by endless questions about starting slow.

So this statue snafu could have been an augur of doom. Instead, it seemed to break a spell. Don’t forget, that bat twisting in the wind imparted to all onlookers, these are the Seattle Mariners.

⚾

My final moment with the 2025 Mariners was at home on my couch, a pillow clutched to my face as Julio swung all the way around, bat meeting nothing but air. It was devastating. But that season was so special. It got me out of a rut and into a whole new world. When the new season came along, I knew I wanted to do it again, but even better. This time, with podcast!

I wasn’t the only one with higher expectations. Heading into the 2026 season, FanGraphs projected the Mariners as favorites to win the AL West, with 80% odds of making the playoffs. The only team they projected with a better chance of winning the world series was the Dodgers.

For Julio, they projected 31 home runs, more than 100 RBIs, 26 stolen bases, .477 SLG and .807 OPS. They expected him to do better than any other center fielder in baseball.

And the Mariners made no secret of their World Series ambitions. Problem is, higher expectations mean more pressure.

⚾

I drove to Seattle for Opening Day. I’d never been to a home game on the first day of the season and I was excited. It was a gorgeous early-spring day, clear and brisk. The T-Mobile magenta carpet was rolled onto the field and streaking flames erupted as each of last year’s superstars—Cal Raleigh, Bryan Woo, Josh Naylor, Julio—were announced. I had a brand new scorebook. I was so, so happy to be back. And yet.

The ballpark was packed. But I had an odd feeling, like a bunch of strangers had just poured into my house party. Lines for everything were endless. I hadn’t yet figured out my lovely new scorebook and I no longer remembered every single player’s number by heart. (Sorry, Cole.) I had woefully underestimated the cold and had to buy a wool beanie and gloves. A woman in the bathroom needed a tampon and I didn’t have one. When I think of last season, I remember: my five-game rotation of jean shorts and vintage jerseys; my clear plastic bag a Mary Poppins bonanza of every tampon, band-aid, or ear plug you’d ever need; everyone around me wearing witch hats, pinching their fingers in the air for Dom Canzone, singing along to Mr. Rager. This was not that. I was unprepared, flat-footed, and totally without a rhythm.

And so were the Mariners. The team with a franchise history of disappointment is freakishly good on opening day, but they dropped this one to the Guardians. They went on to lose that series, and the next, and the next. Julio’s malaise was profound. He had a .148/.246/.148 slash line in his first 61 plate appearances. His .394 OPS ranked 186th out of 191 qualified MLB hitters. He had not had an extra-base hit, much less any home runs.

I released three podcast episodes but the newsletter part of my newsletter lay dormant; I had absolutely nothing to say. The bats were cold. The dugout seemed muted. The Mariners were languishing and, most alarming of all, they were something they’ve almost never been: boring. Even though Julio, Randy Arozarena, Andres Muñoz, Dom, Eduard Bazardo, and Naylor were representing their home countries, every Mariner seemed to have been infected by the stifled, performatively hardass ethos of a USA team captained by Aaron “Mr. Yankee” Judge. Even ever-ebullient, incandescent Julio.

The vibes were sour around the team. And the most toxic part of the Ms fanbase—the Julio haters—was scrambling for their soapboxes. Last year, after a particularly noisy response to a (relatively) tepid first few months, Julio declined an invitation to the All Star game. In spring training this year, Seattle Sports’ Shannon Drayer reported that Julio was unusually quiet. “He has always been one of the ‘hear him before you see him’ players,” she wrote, “but this spring Julio Rodríguez was seldom heard, his interactions with non-teammates limited to a single word or wave or nod while passing by. The actual sight of him stopped in one place, limited to the playing field.” Julio, she noted, “seemed to have learned to control the noise around him.” Was this a sign of maturity? Or was the relentless critique of a fanbase cutting their sky-high expectations with seasonal depression finally wearing down Julio’s edge, one of the most precious commodities in modern life right now: infectious joy?

I don’t know how Julio felt. But I started feeling something in the neighborhood of despair. I had considered the chance that the Mariners wouldn’t be good; It never occurred to me that the team wouldn’t be fun. Even at their most dysfunctional, the Mariners have delivered enough eccentrics, enough sly humor, enough attitude to stay entertaining. Was devoting another summer to following these guys around a huge mistake? I felt very seen when I read this from Lookout Landing’s John Turpin: “Spring has always come, the elephant on my chest has always risen and trotted off, baseball has come and swept the cobwebs of my spirit loose, reminding me who I am, but what if it doesn’t this time?”

And then. Then, Ichiro’s ceremonial bat nearly snapped in half.

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Of course Julio was there to commemorate the moment—the current and former outfielder have formed a close bond. In 2020, Julio was just 19 years old and attending spring training as one of the most-hyped prospects in franchise history. Ichiro was spending his first season with the Ms as a special assistant after retiring the previous year. When Julio found himself without a partner to play catch, he asked the living legend. Julio—who had played as Ichiro in MLB’s The Show since he was seven—was starry-eyed. Ichiro said yes. And they kept playing catch, year after year. They talked ball, and how to dim the chatter that comes with expectations.

In 2024, Julio and Ichiro filmed a Mariners commercial together, a spoof of Julio’s “No Fly Zone” mantra/fan section. In it, Julio attacks locker room flies with a pink swatter until Ichiro shows him, with the gravitas of a sensei, how to simply snatch a flying pest out of the air. Behind-the-scenes footage shows Julio unable to keep a straight face as Ichiro tries to film the climax of the scene: stoically mimicking Julio’s crossed arms, the “No Fly Zone” signature move. Julio couldn’t take the serious Ichiro. He knew the goofball, the Ichiro we’ve come to know more now, in retirement. The man who, in an early interview with Bob Costas, said his favorite American expression was “August in Kansas City is so hot it’s like two rats fucking in a wool sock.” Who, in his Hall of Fame induction speech, told the Miami Marlins that before they signed him in 2015, he had never heard of their team. The mentor who told a GQ reporter, grinning: “When I’m asked about Julio, there’s really nothing bad that I can find, and that kind of makes me mad.” Ichiro and Julio are both, to paraphrase Lookout Landing’s Kate Preusser, funnier in their second languages than most people are in their first.

So it was all-too-perfect that it was Ichiro’s statue with an equipment malfunction. As the appendage spun in the wind like a bronzed weather vane, Ichiro, through an interpreter, blamed bat-breaking legend Mariano Rivera.

Following all the Opening Day hooplah, the rolling out of the 2025 AL West Champions banner, the Mt. Rainier-sized expectations, this all-too-Mariner sideshow broke the self-serious tension. The team posted an “updated” version of their statue giveaway. And that night, the cold spell snapped like that ceremonial bat. The Ms scored a season-high nine runs. And not in a normal way: on a bases loaded hit by pitch, then a bases loaded walk. Left fielder Randy Arozarena danced past an outstretched glove to stay safe. In that gush of strange and effective offense, Julio had a downright normal play: a bloop of a single that arced over the pitcher’s head, landing in no man’s land and loading the bases.

I was listening to that game on the radio on my drive down the coast. It wasn’t until that day—waking up in a strange rented room, hunting through a national park gift shop for the worst postcards, stretching out at a winery’s snack bar while a family jam band played—that I felt like I was back in the rhythm of what a baseball season feels like to me. Travel, serendipity; time slowing down, reserves filling up. I pounded the roof of my car when Julio loaded the bases. Then, the next night, Julio got his first extra-base hits: a double, and his first-of-the-season home run. The following night, he stole his first base. On Monday night, when Josh Naylor hit his first home run of the season, Julio was the one who welcomed him with a bear hug and a lion’s roar.

Randy Arozarena played air guitar on the trident. Logan Gilbert, Naylor, and Cal put on a vaudeville show to pick off Jose Altuve. George Kirby’s fiance is baiting him in TikTok videos. There’s a fucking enormous Humpy now; maybe in memoirum, because on his plushie night Humpy was accosted by a bear.

Athletes talk about playing loose. With joy, like when they were kids. The older I get, the more I understand that seeking joy in what you have to do every day anyway is more than just a route to “success”—it’s kind of the whole fucking thing.

Thank god. This team can lose games—and we know that they will. Julio might slump into June as he’s done every year. But for god’s sake, can we loosen up and have a little joy? This I know above all: we can’t be the Yankees.

⚾ 🔱

🎵 I made a road trip playlist for this journey and maybe you’ll enjoy it? Crucial to note that on road trip playlists, cringe does not exist.

🗣️ I listened to Joyride by , read by the author, and it was fabulous. She spends 10x more time talking about her drunk Twitter rant during COVID than she does to her bout with lung cancer. Brava.

📚 My quest to carry a book with me at all times this year is paying off: immersing myself in ’s Seek the Traitor’s Son, a sprawling intergenerational space vengeance epic / exploration of lingering COVID trauma (out May 12) is a blast and it’s sooooooooo much more fun than staring at my phone!

Theme music by Jerome Barnes

Kate on Bluesky and X

Lookout Landing on Bluesky and X

An early example of Kate’s fan posts: The Unbearable Lightness of Batting: On Edgar and Reshaping Narratives

Kate’s piece about Victor: 40 in 40: Victor Robles and annus horribilis, mirabilis

War Pigs by Black Sabbath

Lookout Landing’s reporting on disgraced former president and CEO, Kevin Mather

Kate’s crockpot & goo setup as chronicled on Bluesky and on the Meet at the Mitt podcast

Holding Kourt, Kourtney Turner’s podcast about being a WAG (wife and girlfriend) of a professional baseball player

Josh Naylor welcoming Jen Powel, MLB’s first female umpire (MLB)

Kate’s piece on Cole Young’s offense: Mariners’ Cole Young makes early bid for Most Improved Player

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Jordan on Bluesky and X
CespedesBBQ on Bluesky, X, and IG

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Victor Robles winning the sim game Salmon Race
Marcus Mariota built out of various sandwich parts

When athletes say this, they’re typically holding a championship trophy and bathing in confetti. Run it back means try to get back to this mountaintop again, win it all. But in a more nuanced way it means keep the team together. It’s emblematic of a group that has gone through highs and lows in pursuit of a common goal, forming a special bond. Together they work a strange, special alchemy.

When I decided to go (strategically) insane about baseball last year, I was following a gut instinct. Doing what felt right. And it paid dividends beyond my wildest dreams. It wasn’t a given that I would do it again. I let the offseason develop and didn’t think about it so much as felt it out. When the Mariners announced the 2026 game day giveaways, I knew. I wanted to be there again, outside among friends. In my own head in a way that makes me feel alive and in tune. In my body in a way that makes me appreciate it exactly how it is—this age, this shape. In this community that has held so many surprises, so many new friends. Let’s run it back.

This year, it’s going to look a little different. I will still be writing essays about the Seattle Mariners that are really about myself. But I’m adding a podcast element. Every Thursday I will have an episode with a Mariners fan, someone associated with the Mariners organization, another Mariners obsessive, or similar. I have some amazing guests lined up, and I can’t wait to share.

I will also be opening this Substack for subscription. As of now, I don’t plan to hold much content behind the paywall. But my hope is that at least a few people enjoy the newsletter and podcast episodes enough to chip in a bit.

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You can also follow along on Bluesky and Instagram.

Look forward to more soon and, as ever, Go Mariners. ⚾ 🔱

It isn’t obvious. The case for sports being meaningless was described perfectly by the late, great Chris “Wes” Wesseling—an NFL Media analyst and beloved co-host of the Around the League podcast who died from cancer right before the Super Bowl in 2021. In 2014, years before his death, Chris was asked about Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Reggie Wayne playing through a torn tricep. Chris said: “Reggie Wayne is playing through a torn tricep and is playing as bad as any wide receiver in the NFL. He’s also a respected team leader and I’m sure within those walls they want him to battle. They want him to battle through this and show what he can do. So I feel like, maybe we should give it a little more thought. I mean, why would adults be interested in sports? I think this kind of speaks to that. … Athletes naturally rage against the dying of the light. And I think Reggie Wayne’s doing that and we have to let him do that.”

This morning, I woke up to the news that Lindsey Vonn had completed a trial run on a torn ACL. An Olympic downhill gold medalist, Lindsey retired in 2019 in the wake of mounting medical issues. But in 2024 she partially replaced her right knee. Now, at age 41, she’s setting out to make a triumphant return to Olympic competition. She made the team and was in Switzerland last week competing in a World Cup race when she crashed and blew out her left knee’s ACL, the most important ligament. Just days away from the chance to secure her second gold medal and complete one of the unlikeliest comebacks in the history of downhill skiing, Lindsey faced a choice: accept normal limitations and walk away, or take the risk of competing through injury. Take the risk of being something more, something extraordinary. After completing this successful trial run, she made up her mind. She plans to ski in Cortina on Sunday. We’ll all be watching, not because we care about skiing but because we want to see Lindsey fight against the dying of the light.

After I read about Lindsey’s decision, I listened to the latest episode of NFL Daily, a remembrance of Chris Wesseling on the fifth anniversary of his death. The host, Gregg Rosenthal, was a co-host of Around the League with Wes for years. He shared the clip of Wes talking about Reggie Wayne and the human pursuit of greatness to recognize that Wes was more than a football analyst. He often took the chance to step back and ask: what are we doing here? Why does it matter? “If I was to hire a sportswriter, the first question I would ask is: how do you reconcile the essential meaninglessness of sports?” Wes said. “At its best, sports is: look at what humans can do. It’s like Shakespeare’s poems or Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. This is going above and beyond. We’ve seen examples of the best: Willis Reed hobbling out of the tunnel. Kirk Gibson limping up to the plate against an unhittable closer. Michael Jordan and the flu game. When an athlete is injured and especially toward the end of his career, like Reggie Wayne is—look, older players can still get it done. It’s just those plateaus are fewer and farther between and I think there’s something to be said for an older player trying to do that. There could still be some light in Reggie Wayne.”

There was, a bit. Going into the 2014 season, the Indianapolis Colts had the highest possible expectations. The previous season had ended with a loss to the Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs. In 2014, the Colts went 11-5 and clinched their second-straight division win. Reggie Wayne was in his 14th season. He’d been a first-team All pro, been to six Pro Bowls, and was one of just nine players in NFL history with at least 1,000 receptions, 14,000 yards and 80 touchdowns – just in the regular season. Now, on the strength of third-year quarterback Andrew Luck, he was as close to the Super Bowl as he’d been since the Colts won it in 2006. His play was sub-par, but he wanted to win so, so badly. They made it all the way to the AFC Championship Game where they fell to the eventual Super Bowl champion Patriots. Reggie Wayne logged just one catch in that postseason, a 12-yard gain in the Wild Card round.

There’s a clip of Reggie’s locker room interview after what would turn out to be the final game of his career. In it, a reporter asks: “How do you make your decision?” Quickly, reflexively, Reggie says: “To do what?” After the reporter clarifies that she, obviously, is asking if he plans to retire, Reggie takes a long breath. He looks up and over the gaggle, eyes unfocused, staring into an uncertain future. “I don’t know. I’ll be somewhere warm, thinking about it.”

Reggie has been a finalist for the NFL Hall of Fame every year since his eligibility window opened. He was just denied again, but he is consistently recognized as worthy of the honor—not because of the one year his team won it all, but for all those years he gave everything in the pursuit.

Last night, I told my friend about my fantasy football team. I inherited the team, the Killer Rabbits, from my dad when he died in 2008. Stepping in to run the team was a simple choice, in some ways. I wanted to stay connected to his memory and to the other people in the league—his childhood best friends, men I’d known my whole life. But it wasn’t easy. Carrying on my dad’s legacy also meant risking tarnishing it by forgetting to draft a kicker, accidentally playing someone who was injured, or finishing dead last in the league. I’ve done all those things; my dad would have hated it. But I try to learn from it and be more thoughtful and, most importantly, I continue in the league to this day. In fact, I’m in the PNW this weekend to celebrate the end of the league’s 40th season. My dad would love that.

In high-stakes sports moments, we witness athletes facing their greatest test. Their stories are our stories—their ability to overcome floods us with hope; their failures, hopefully, fill us with compassion and the maturity to honor the attempt. Look what humans can do.

All these moments came together for me this morning. The Olympics begin today, my beloved Seahawks are competing in the Super Bowl. Memories of Wes and my dad are a blessing. So now is a good time to tell you: the off-season is nearly over. The Enni Way is returning for a second season of (strategic) insanity. I’m excited to think about what humans can do, and why it matters. I hope you’ll join me.

10/20 @ Blue Jays (L, 4-3)

“You don’t do well with endings,” my therapist told me once. I can’t recall the context of the comment. We could have been talking about so many things: all the times I moved around as a kid which, pre-internet, had the same effect as all my friends being raptured; when, after college, my dad died; or, not too many years after that, divorce. To counterract the aches, I clung to what was close. I always said yes to another round of drinks; I was reliably the last one at the party. I hate endings so much that when I went to that therapist, I asked her to extend our sessions to 90 minutes. Endings are so predictable but we spend most of our lives avoiding thinking about them—all the little ones and, most especially, the big one.

By contrast, a baseball season is seemingly endless. When I started this journey with the Mariners in April, I was wearing long pants, closed-toe shoes, and sweaters. I was so sad. It had been a very rocky start to the year, and it was becoming clear I wasn’t doing great. Sometimes, to change your life, you need to change your life. So I got on a bunch of planes and trains and automobiles, and went to ballpark after ballpark.

There was always a new game, a new series, a new road trip or home stretch. I spent much of the first half not drinking and not eating meat. I vowed never to rent a car and forced myself to figure out each new city’s public transportation system. I walked. I walked so so so much. I wrote so much. I learned to keep score which kept my eyes, and my mind, off my phone. A whole summer rolled by and it just kept feeling right.

And then September. The refusal to lose as the Mariners became a juggernaut, slaying franchise demon after franchise demon: trouncing the Astros in Houston; clinching a postseason berth; 60 home runs; sealing up the AL West; eliminating Detroit in 15 innings; Geno’s ALCS Game 5 grand slam. Each milestone was a catharsis.

But two final bosses remained: win the World Series, sure, but first actually make one. And the Mariners fell short.

⚾

In sports, a loss is a discrete thing. In baseball, it’s a series of errors, missed pitches, bad takes, poor routes, mismanagement. Regardless of stakes, each game is a universe unto itself, analysis of which could go on forever. After Julio took that final swing Monday night, many people were ready to start. There was anger, and a villain to direct that anger toward. A lot of fans were ready to deal with the loss. But I was thrown into the thing I’d been avoiding: the ending.

For the past seven months, there has always been a new Ryan Divish or Adam Jude article, a recap from Lookout Landing, or an essay by and mind-bending vibe compass from . For the stretches when I was home in L.A., late afternoon walks for a dipped cone at Foster’s Freeze while Shannon Drayer, Gary Hill, Jr., and Rick Rizzs gave context and play-by-play. In Seattle, going to games with my extended family, connecting with them in a new way. On the road, always another airport to sprint through, rental apartment to figure out, ballpark to critique. Spontaneous and surprising conversations with strangers, some fellow travelers. On the walk home, win or lose, Anders Hirst and Chris Crawford on the Locked On Mariners podcast with their reactions. While brushing my teeth, Refuse to Lose, Marine Layer, and podcasts teaching me so much about the game. I started caring about these players so much. I had not felt this pure a fandom since I was a kid; I didn’t really know I could still feel that way. The baseball season was bursting with conversation and community. But its ending is an almost physical space: a gray area where everyone is ultimately alone to process, and cope.

Endings are where the next phase begins: making meaning. You know—what makes us human. It’s messy, hard, and bittersweet. It brings up scary feelings like regret and loss. It forces you to set down your expectations and sit beside the dying embers of hope. It was supposed to be this year. Until it wasn’t.

What I’ve learned through all my endings is that hope—like creativity—is not a finite resource within ourselves. It has ebbs, to be sure; in April, my hope had ebbed frighteningly low. So I turned to a baseball team with a reputation for disappointment and was rewarded so handsomely I may never find all the words to describe it. But words are what I’m turning to in hopes of making meaning this time, each keystroke bringing me closer to how I actually feel.

I needed the boys this year. I like to think that, in some ways, they needed me. That is no small thing, even if all those days are now yesterdays, and all the possibilities have turned to memories. Soon, I’ll feel strong enough to dissect the loss. But right now, I’m riding the wave of its ending, overwhelmed by how much I loved this season, these Mariners, and so, so sad it’s over. Now, in the off-season, I will think and write and remember and cry and before long it will be time for the best thing: the beginning. All over again.

⚾ 🔱

Thankfully, this is not the end of the (strategically) insane project, nor of this newsletter. Stay tuned.

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On September 6, the Mariners arrived at Truist Park outside of Atlanta. They were set to face the Braves, but in reality they faced a much bigger, more existential opponent: the hex of this franchise’s history. The fanbase was staring down the homestretch of the season with dread, burdened by the past two years of catastrophic late-season failure that kept us out of the postseason by margins so slim they pierced like knives. That’s when a pure-hearted fan asked an Etsy witch to “unfuck” the Mariners, and set in motion a months-long hero’s journey where the team has summoned up its darkest, most malignant demons and staked them in the heart, one by one.

First this team—this collection of individuals, many of whom were active participants in these September slides—reversed that spell, going 17-1 to confidently secure a postseason berth and win the AL West for the first time since 2001.

That quest complete, the Mariners found themselves elevated to the next level of bosses. The ghosts of playoffs past; foul spirits all the more potent because the chances of exorcising them have been so few and far between.

The stage was set for history to repeat itself.

In 2022, the Mariners hosted their first playoff game in more than two decades. It was the third game of the 2022 ALDS series against our most recent primary antagonists: hated division rivals, the Houston Astros. The game, Seattle’s first at home since 2001, was a marathon 0-0 affair that lasted six hours and 22 minutes, until Jeremy Peña ended the Mariners’ postseason hopes with a heartbreaking sweep of the bat. The Ms could not answer, and the game ended in a 1-0 loss. In Seattle’s first whiff of October baseball in a generation, the team failed to score a single run.

That history loomed large on October 4, in the first game of the 2025 ALDS series against Detroit. Like in 2022, the sell-out crowd rose to its feet from the first pitch. In the bottom of the 4th inning, Julio stepped to the plate. A superstar who began his major league career in the 2022 season, Julio has been a divisive figure in the fanbase for one primary reason: his tendency to slump through the first half of seasons, and his perceived failure to live up to the legacy of Ken Griffey Jr., the Hall of Fame Mariner to whom he was most often compared as a prospect. Despite statistically ranking as one of the most valuable players in the sport on a Hall of Fame trajectory at just 24 years old, the allegations of disappointment have dogged him.

But some of the pillars of the Griffey legacy have this year been matched or exceeded; on September 20, catcher Cal Raleigh hit his 57th home run of the season, beating a record Griffey held since 1998. And he did it in a ballpark Griffey so despised, he literally left town rather than endure it.

And in this game, Julio mashed a 97-mph fastball into the right-center field seats—the fan section dubbed the “No Fly Zone” to honor his dominance as a center fielder. As he rounded second base, Julio pumped his arms up and down. Hyping up the crowd, expressing his joy, and maybe lifting a bit of that pressure from his shoulders. He’d brought us something we hadn’t had in 24 years: a home playoff score.

But the Ms dropped the game after 11 innings. The curse of postseason losses endured.

The next night, the Tigers overcame the Ms’ two-run lead and tied the ballgame in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the inning, Cal torched a ball into right field and blew past his first base coach’s stop sign to turn a double play. With Cal in scoring position, Julio cranked a double into left. As the ball bounced around the far corner of the outfield, Julio ran 180 feet and seemed to cycle through years of emotions: first a fist-pump with his head ducked, a private moment of relief and joy; then, approaching second, a ferocious clap, an athlete’s unspoken LFG; then, after tapping second base, he fully unleashed with a fist pump so strong he had to compensate with a leg kick. Julio stomped back to the bag while pressing his fists toward the ground, again and again. He looked to the dugout, crowd at his back, and flapped his arms like he’d grown wings. Weight lifted, spirit buoyant, hex unhexed.

In the words of another internet witch:

If you are suffering the ill effects of a curse, you can absorb that energy and transform it. Energy is energy and a spell works because it is energy given a specific purpose. But, once that energy is sent, it’s ‘fair game’ and can be manipulated if you have that level of competence and understanding. You can absorb the energy and transform it into loving, compassionate, healing energy and return it to the sender.

The Mariners won. We all cried. The series was tied. Some major demons had been faced and bested. For this team and these fans, the energy had been absorbed. Now it was in the players’ hands to redirect it, transmogrify it, create something entirely new.

⚾

Once more, history threatened.

The Mariners and Tigers split the games in Detroit. The ALDS came down to a fifth, winner-take-all game in Seattle. The situation evoked another elimination ALDS game held in the city 30 years ago, the most significant matchup in this franchise’s existence.

In that game, held on October 8, 1995, the Mariners faced down the New York Yankees. The 11-inning affair ended when Edgar Martinez doubled down the left field line, scoring Ken Griffey Jr. from first. Replays of that hit—known as The Double—are inescapable for this fanbase. We are reminded annually, endlessly, of a moment whose pure ecstasy is made all the more painfully nostalgic by the more than three decades of comparative mediocrity that followed.

Two players from that 1995 squad have an active hand in this year’s team: catcher Dan Wilson is serving his first full year as manager of the club. And Edgar Martinez, Hall of Famer and author of a play so great we named the street outside our ballpark after him, is in his first full year as hitting coach. Opening ceremonies for the October 10th do-or-die game included another player from that team of legend: Ken Griffey Jr. toured the field in a black 1967 Chevy Camaro with teal flames.

Never far from that moment—never able to replace it with something better.

On the mound for Seattle was George Kirby, also known as Furious George. George’s only other elimination game start was that 18-inning heartbreaker against the Astros three years ago. He dealt seven scoreless innings in that battle, and then sat in the dugout as the game ground on and on and on, ending with an offseason.

The Detroit Tigers started Tarik Skubal, the reigning American League Cy Young Award-winning pitcher who is a lock to win that coveted award again this year. Put simply: he might be the best pitcher on the planet. The only team who has had consistent success against Skubal just happened to be his opponents—the Mariners had won each of the three games in which they faced Skubal this season, including the second game in this series. That win came in large part because of two home runs from switch-hitting second baseman Jorge Polanco. After an utterly dismal 2024, Jorge has had an up and down season. But starting in September, as the Etsy witch’s unfucking unfurled, he went on an extra-base bender. His ripping off not one but two homers from this year’s Ace of Aces felt divine.

In Friday’s match, Kirby cooked, stringing together more than five innings of no-run baseball before being relieved in favor of left-handed pitcher Gabe Speier. Gabe immediately gave up a two-run home run to give Detroit the lead. Skubal dug his heels in, striking out a post-season record seven in a row. Knowing the sixth inning would be his last, Skubal served a flurry of scorchers. His last pitch was a 100.9-mph fastball that blew past Cal, the Home Run Derby champ.

Then both starters were on the bench. And the Ms set to work. Jorge led off the seventh with a single, and first baseman Josh Naylor followed suit. Then Leo Rivas was tapped to pinch hit. Not only was this Leo’s first postseason at bat, ever, it was also his 28th birthday. He jumped at a changeup and knocked it into the left field gap, sending Jorge home and tying the game. On the 710 Seattle Sports call, Gary Hill Jr. summed it up: “Leo Rivas is a hero!”

The game stayed tied. Inning after inning, the Mariners rolled out their most elite pitchers and sat the Tigers down. The Ms got baserunners but hit into seemingly endless double plays. The 12th, 13th, and 14th inning came and went.

The crowd never flagged. But it was impossible not to think of the 2022 playoff game, the endless impasse. The feeling that the Mariners would have to fight harder than other mortals to achieve something seemingly so simple—one measly run! They were up against excellent pitching, decent fielding, and otherworldly voodoo.

The Mariners in-game production staff felt it, too. So, in the bottom of the 14th inning, they deployed the nuclear option: Humpy.

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Mascot races are the most sublimely stupid in-game events to happen in all of sports. It all started more than three decades ago, when Milwaukee graphic designer Michael Dillon approached the Brewers’ marketing team with a crazy idea. For years, the team had played cartoon races showing three sausages—bratwurst, Polish, and Italian—vying to be the first to get to the stadium and cross home plate. Michael approached the team with a strange idea: he wanted to bring the digital race to life.

He got the green light, and designed and produced the costumes himself. On June 27, 1993, before the sixth inning, the jumbotron displayed the digital sausage race as usual… but as the racers approached the ballpark, the screen went blank. Then, the left field gate burst open and three enormous foam versions of the cartoon sausages sprinted onto the field.

The crowd went insane. A mustachioed, lederhosen-clad Bratwurst won that first race—Michael, wearing his homemade creation. The sausage race continues to this day and has spawned many imitators. Now, nearly two-thirds of MLB teams have their own regionally-tailored version. Including, since the start of the 2024 season, Seattle’s Salmon Run.

There are four salmon characters who face off at T-Mobile: King, the perpetual frontrunner who wears a crown and cape as a callback to Mariner great “King” Felix Hernandez; Sockeye, the grunge one who wears flannel and a septum ring; Silver, the nerd-coded salmon with glasses who runs with Microsoft devices and is dogged by cheating accusations; and Humpy, who wears flotation devices and has never won.

Other teams have pulled the “perpetual loser” stunt. I’m most familiar with the Washington Nationals. In 2006 they began the Running of the Presidents, where the four men carved into Mount Rushmore are reimagined as 10-foot, bobble-headed mascots who will stop at nothing to beat one another in a footrace. For 533 straight home games, Theodore Roosevelt was boxed out. I worked in Washington D.C. as a reporter in that time and “Let Teddy Win” was the only cause I could openly lobby for. Teddy did eventually win on October 3, 2012, during the first game played after the Nationals reached the postseason for the first time. It was odd, even at the time: a Wednesday day game, with little fanfare. Meant as a celebration of the team’s success, it lacked impact after years of build-up.

The Mariners have been so committed to the “Humpy Always Loses” bit that even the players got into it. At one of their post-season scrimmages during the bye week, the team staged a salmon run for the small crowd in attendance. Suspicious that the unusual occasion might call for an unusual result, right fielder Victor Robles sprinted onto the warning track and overtook all four mascots, crossing the finish line first. When asked later why he joined the race, Victor told Seattle Sports’ Shannon Drayer: “I don’t want Humpy to win. Zero wins!”

In Friday’s game, the salmon run happened at its normal time, mid-5th inning. And it felt, for the first time, completely out of step. We all know the race is scripted; it’s a narrative, a show, performed for us courtesy of the ballpark production team. In this race, Sockeye won, which felt particularly soulless since, as far as the salmon go, it’s the most obvious corporate shill. There comes a time when you have to make a distinction between loveable and loser. As Lookout Landing’s Bree Everfolly wrote:

Humpy is an underdog, but by design. The fact that is by design is important. It was a choice by the team’s marketing, to make a character that would be a perpetual loser, but with the affability to be a crowd favorite. … Yet the longer the bit goes on, the weaker it has become. Losers always lose, and underdogs, at least sometimes, win.

In the middle of the15th, the outfield wall opened. The mascots burst onto the field. Over the ballpark PA, the announcer declared, “There will be a second salmon run!” I held my breath. Could this be the day?

King, Silver, and Sockeye took a solid lead. But then they converged in a scrum, so concerned with their usual opponents they forgot about Mr. Last Place. When Humpy broke through that finish line ticker, the crowd of more than 47,000 exploded. The players in the dugout freaked out. And with that extra boost of energy, the team broke through something, too.

Over the next ten minutes, shortstop JP Crawford singled, left fielder Randy Arozarena was hit by a pitch, and both runners advanced on a flyout from Cal. The Tigers intentionally walked Julio to load the bases for Jorge. And he lined a walk-off single into right field to secure the win.

The ballpark, which had been baseline loud and borderline seismic the entire game, exploded into a firebomb of dimension-shattering noise. Humpy started a mosh pit in the center field stands.

Immediately, Jorge’s knock was compared to The Double. Finally—a play with such stakes, evoking such catharsis, that it matched Edgar’s achievement in 1995. The Mariners had come just three innings shy of mirroring their 2022 game, and perhaps retreading that path, going that far into the heart of darkness, is what let them create a fresh break. Now they could reset, and heal.

With that victory, the team shook off a pall of losing that hung like a curse. A force field of defeat that almost felt like fate. They’ve danced with their demons and faced history head-on. Now, we see what their redirected energy can achieve. It is time to look forward, free and unscripted. It’s time to play ball.

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If you want to watch along with me, find me on BlueSky.

A championship serves two purposes: for fans of the victorious team to see their squad win it all, and for other fans to be forced to watch it happen. Finally, the last fanbase standing has something they can point to, objectively, as proof of their long-held conviction: I’ve known these guys were great all along, and now no one can deny it. Sporting events are attended and broadcast so excellence can be observed; a game won alone was never a game at all.

But who will witness the fans?

On Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5, I saw the Seattle Mariners lose, then win, against the Detroit Tigers. A few days later, via ’s newsletter, I learned that the Mariners have partnered with a Chicago-based company to offer a digital momento to fans who go see games in person: the chance to look up your seat number and see images of the person in that seat (presumably you) during major moments. Here I am, losing my shit at both games:

This is an eerie reminder of the extent of our panopticon-like surveillance state. It also moved me to tears.

I went to these games—as with so many this season—by myself. I don’t mind going to games solo, in fact in many ways I prefer it. But it does mean that my experiences are not commemorated by friends or family. I high-fived and hugged strangers. The only evidence I was there at all are whatever selfies I took, and my trusty scorebook.

Until now. Witness me.

When Colin posted about this on the everything site, many people replied with their own pictures—friends, family, high fives, hugs, tears. Witness us witnessing something great. We were there. We won, or lost, and cried and sang and shouted. We were there.

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I just happened to learn about this digital record right after reading about independent news outlet 404 Media’s ongoing investigation into how one Texas county Sheriff’s office used AI to search a database of license plates in order to monitor a woman who got an abortion. They claimed at the time they were monitoring her out of concern for her safety. Contemporaneous filings now prove they were gathering evidence to charge the woman with a crime. The surveillance state exists, a cold, unnerving fact; what other human beings do with all that data is where things get nefarious.

I’ve long been preoccupied with Silicon Valley’s sinister turn from at least trying to seem like utopic millennials enabling connection for a better world to ruthlessly defending their new class of ultra-wealthy, craven, right-leaning wannabe dictators who have enshittified the internet and the United States, possibly beyond repair. It’s the beating moral heart at the center of my 2019 book, Tell Me Everything. I am terrified of the self-dealing bubble they’re inflating around generative AI and the financial and environmental disaster we’ll be left to address when they’ve all consigned themselves to endless mutual masturbation sessions on the long flight to Mars.

But and also. Technology is the reason I can have a job I really like, and work from home (which I also like). AI-generated transcripts in Descript are pivotal to my job; there are no doubt countless other AI-enabled things I use every day without realizing it. Like any new tool, AI can be used for good or ill.

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CCTV-like cameras weren’t the only ones trained on the crowd over the weekend. As they do with every televised ballgame, the national Fox crew scanned the crowd for unscripted crowd moments to add a layer of humanity to the broadcast. And they found a gem:

That’s Saul Spady, whose family founded beloved Seattle burger chain Dick’s Drive-In, and his partner Shakira Ericksen. He’s a season ticket holder who, going into this season, promised himself he was not going to let the team hurt him again. He stopped coming to games. But late this summer, he couldn’t deny himself any longer. The moments of joy seemed like they might, finally, be commensurate to the pain. So there he was in the stands in the bottom of the eighth inning when Julio Rodriguez hit a double to left field to send Cal Raleigh home, putting the Mariners in the lead, 3-2. That would be the final score as the Ms secured their first home playoff win since 2001 and tied the series, 1-1.

Jake Mintz, one half of the baseball reporting duo known as Céspedes Family BBQ, took to twitter to comment on the video of Saul’s tearful reaction:

Hell yeah. More crying in baseball fandom. Let it all mean something. Good for this dude and the Ms and Seattle. All the feels.

If all you see is a guy crying in Game 2 of an ALDS I feel sorry for you. I see 24 years of disappointment. I see Dustin Ackley and Jack Zduriencik and Franklin Gutiérrez. I see the rise and fall of King Félix. I see Ichiro in pinstripes. I see the 18 inning game in 2022.

I see late nights, long winters and fan base that just wanted something to believe in and finally FINALLY got it. That the moment of catharsis came from — a franchise player so perfect that he almost feels like a hallucination — made it even sweeter. Crying is cool.

When asked how it felt to be suddenly thrust onto a national stage as the tear-soaked face of America’s pasttime, Saul was unequivocal: “I’m so damn joyful to be representative of that — that there is crying in baseball, and that you can cry as a Mariners fan,” he told the Seattle Times.

By witnessing Saul, the broadcast went from covering balls and strikes to conveying the emotional peaks and valleys of everyone in the stands and those at home, too. It’s a commercial exploitation of a private exchange between two people who did not know they were being filmed… and an example of the very best a sports broadcast can be.

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Another Mariners fan captured hearts during this series, this time for being perfectly—maybe overly—prepared for a TV moment. In the third game, the first in Detroit, the Mariners were putting the finishing touches on a victory to put them up a game on the Tigers. In the top of the ninth inning, Cal Raleigh squared up a sinker and sent it soaring into the visiting bullpen, his 61st home run since opening day.

The ball bounced into the glove of a fan wearing a custom shirt literally made for the moment. It read: Dump 61 Here!

The home run was a beaut. The catch was incredible. The shirt was immaculate. But what sent this fun fan moment into another dimension was when the man put his glove down and removed his shirt… to reveal a nearly-identical one underneath. Only this one read: Dump 62 Here!

The fan, Jameson Turner, had worn this shirt combination at the final regular-season game at T-Mobile Park late last month. He said he bought a seat in the front row of left field hoping Cal would pull on the next homer. Because of his quick reflexes, and the lingering eye of Fox’s cameras, his dreams can true. After the catch, Mariners team officials found Jameson and brought him to the area outside the visiting team locker room to meet Cal.1 While he waited, Jameson agreed to be interviewed by a scrum of Seattle media. Visibly taken aback by the microphones and cameras, he said, “This is just overwhelming.”

He asked us to witness him and we were more than willing. But it’s one thing to hunt the spotlight; it’s quite another to be caught in its cross-hairs.

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As fans, as humans, we yearn to be recognized. Technology is giving us what we want. Or what we think we want; Saul’s gentle moment with his partner belongs to all of us now. Jameson’s shock is a viral moment that will forever come up when you Google his name. And, now that I know about it, I’ll be thinking about the ever-present eye trained on me at T-Mobile Park throughout tomorrow’s Game 5. My unremarkable, unfiltered game experience has gone the way of boredom, literacy, curiosity. Actual memories I have of watching Jorge Polanco’s line-drive homer soar across my horizon into the left field stands now live alongside this false memory: me watching myself watch that play.

My thoughts about going alone to ballgames were rich and layered, food for thought; my knowledge of being surveilled is a cold reality. And yet. I loved looking at these photos, sharing them with you. The beginning and end of fandom is inviting other people in—for a high five, for a sweet, lingering hug, for a congratulatory slap on the back. But in our desire to share and be shared—in our quest to remember everything—what do we forget?

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🎵 Let’s all just listen to Mr. Rager for a while more, eh?

🗣️ I talk more about my experiences at the game, and Zan shares her IRL Dodgers Wild Card experience, on the newest On the Bleachers:

🔶 Apple bit.ly/3KAPzTJ

🔶 Spotify bit.ly/471NW91

6/21 @ CUBS (L, 7-10)

June 21 is the solstice, the official beginning of summer, the calendar day containing the most sunlight all year long. Every year, my dad would sigh deeply and declare it the “worst day of the year.” In his view, that day was the crest of our annual roller coaster, the beginning of our plunge into darkness.1 The sun is the source of energy for all life on earth… but like anything, it is best in moderation.

On this solstice, The Mariners and I were in the midwest when a dangerous heat wave gripped the region. The Mariners—inexplicably wearing dark blue road unis—took to Wrigley in the midst of an extreme heat warning. In Chicago, temperatures rose to 91 degrees. The ballpark, crammed with a sell-out crowd, was about 4 degrees warmer than that. On top of the blazing heat, 20 mph winds were swirling everywhere, turning every routine fly ball into either an inexplicable home run or an error-in-waiting.

Though there was plenty of warning that temperatures would be dangerous for average citizens—much less athletes—in the middle of the day, moving first pitch was a non-starter. The Friendly Confines are downright hostile to night games. The 111-year-old ballpark was supposed to get lights in 1942, but those plans were dashed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In 1988, the Chicago City Council voted to allow eight night games a season, and 18 in future seasons.

I was grateful that I’d checked the weather and shadedseats.com before buying my tickets. My section was shaded throughout. But the field was in full sun all game. In the sixth inning, the heat went from inconvenient to outright dangerous. The home plate umpire, who was wearing heavy, black gear, paused the game to chug Gatorade. He then stumbled into the Mariners dugout and threw up, multiple times. He was ushered into the bowels of the stadium and another ump suited up to take his place.

Eventually, game play resumed. Despite staring down an 4-run deficit, the Mariners had managed to stay in the game. Defensive stumbles from the Cubs had given them a real chance to battle their way back—as had the steady play of right-handed reliever Trent Thornton, who stepped onto the mound in the 8th to pitch his third consecutive inning.

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Trent Thornton is a 32-year-old right-handed reliever from North Carolina who wears sports specs because contacts make his eyes too dry. He grew up in a family of football players but, at just six feet, Trent felt he was too small for the full-contact sport and turned to baseball. He went to the University of North Carolina and was the starting pitcher in an elimination game at the College World Series. Then, in 2015, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Astros. He was promoted from the AA Corpus Christi Hooks to the AAA Fresno Grizzlies in 2017, but was nowhere near the big league roster when Houston went to the World Series.

Ahead of the 2019 season, Trent was traded to the Blue Jays. He showed up to spring training with low expectations; rather than hunt for an apartment, he booked a hotel room at the Marriott connected to Toronto’s Rogers Center. But injuries led Trent to secure a role in the starting rotation and, in the fourth game of the season, he made his big-league debut. By the end of that season, he’d become the unexpected workhorse of the Blue Jays’ pitching staff, leading the team in starts and innings pitched… but he never did manage to move out of that hotel room.

In August 2020, Trent was caught messing with his arm in the dugout—he was manipulating bone spurs floating around in his elbow. The team pulled him. Trent had surgery to remove spurs the size of molars, which he gifted to his mom. He was thousands of miles from Toronto, at home in North Carolina recovering from surgery, during the Blue Jays’ brief foray in the post season. The next year, he was shifted to the bullpen. In his new role as reliever, Trent shuttled between the majors and AAA ball in 2021 and 2022. In the end, he was left off the lineup for the Blue Jays’ wildcard series, which they dropped to the Mariners courtesy of Cal Raleigh’s pinch-hitting heroics.

In August 2023, Trent went to the Mariners as part of a trade. By this time, he’d added a devastating slider to his arsenal; the Seattle pitching staff wanted a look at him. After an off-season at the team’s In the Zone pitching bootcamp, he turned into a bullpen workhorse. In 2024 Trent was the Ms’ primary middle reliever, appearing in nearly half the team’s games. But his career continued to feature October disappointments; Trent suffered through two seasons where the Mariners missed October baseball by single-digit games.

But 2025 was immediately different. By early May, the team was off to its hottest start since 2003. They’d won nine straight series, held the top spot in the division, and were set to host Trent’s old team, the Blue Jays. But that’s when Trent started feeling ill. After talking to team medical staff, Trent was rushed to the hospital, where he had surgery to remove his appendix.

A month later, Trent was back in the bullpen, but the Ms were a more humbled team. They’d fallen to second place in the division. On this hot, humid day in June, the team was hoping for a win to avoid falling to .500. Trent was squirreled away in Wrigley’s hidden bullpen, watching as starter Emerson Hancock gave up a series of home runs and clutch hits. By the fourth inning, the Cubs had gone up 9-1. But the Ms were clawing back. With a steady stream of men on base, the Ms managed to score five runs and, by the time Trent got the call to get up for the bottom of the sixth, the score was 10-6.

Despite the ump retching in the dugout and the relentless heat, it felt like anything was possible. Dry, hot gusts seemed to carry every pop fly for miles—a win was within reach, if only the bullpen could hold. And that’s just what Trent did—he managed to make it through the heart of the Cubs lineup over the next two innings. In the 8th, just as shade began to creep behind the back of home plate in a promise of relief to come, Trent was still battling. He’d thrown 51 pitches—a season high. By staying in the game, he was helping us preserve bullpen arms for the remainder of the series. It was a huge benefit to the team, but it came at a cost.

Trent took the mound and struck out Vidal Bruján, but his command was slipping. After walking Ian Happ, Trent stumbled, face shining and red. He huffed, then crouched on the infield grass. Cal hopped up from behind the plate. Manager Dan Wilson strode out of the dugout. Trent took deep breaths and put his hands on his hips as his teammates gathered around. Then he buckled at the knees, collapsing into the arms of utility player Dylan Moore. Shortstop JP Crawford motioned to the Mariners dugout for help. Third baseman Ben Williamson opened a bottle of water and helped Trent take a long sip as Dylan and the team trainer wrapped their arms around him, physically holding him up.

Dan ducked under Trent’s arm and, along with the trainer, helped him off the field and into an ice bath. The crowd cheered out of empathy and respect. “Thornton doing everything he could today for his team,” Ms play-by-play announcer Aaron Goldsmith said on the broadcast.

In the ninth inning, Cal Raleigh hit his 30th home run of the season; the Ms fell to the Cubs, 10-7.

Trent made a dozen more appearances on the mound before the late-July trade deadline as the Mariners battled to stay in contention. On July 31, on the heels of a demoralizing 3-4 road trip, the front office delivered a jolt of hope by trading for third baseman Geno Suarez.

The Ms rode that high on the first home game back, coasting to a 6-0 victory over the Rangers. Trent came into the game in the 8th and 9th, retiring five before facing down right-handed slugger Adolis García. With two outs and two strikes, Adolis hit a ground ball up past first base. Moving on instinct, Trent turned to jog to first to cover the bag. But when he planted his left foot, something popped. Trent fell to the ground, writhing in pain. His Achilles was torn; he had to be carted off the field. And, just like that, his season was over.

Trent had surgery, and spent some time at home in North Carolina and the team’s Arizona facility, recovering. He was probably reminded of 2020, miles from home while his team rode for glory. But this pitching staff was not willing to let Trent become a footnote. They started hanging his jersey up in the bullpen. Admittedly, the effect was more “in memoriam” than “thinking of ya, bud!” But the intent was pure. And the bit played out, night after night. The team was even careful to be sure Trent’s jersey matched what the players were wearing that day.

In September, as the Mariners put together a 17-1 run to propel them to the postseason, Trent was back at T-Mobile park, with a bright blue mobility scooter. Over time, the scooter started to reflect the clubhouse: the sides were adorned with flame stickers, a pair of mini Truck Nutz hung off the back, and the handlebars boasted a devil rubber duck. “Some places, you go on the IL and it’s like, out of sight, out of mind,” Trent told Lookout Landing’s Kate Preusser. “Here, I’m so lucky to have the support of everyone.”

On Tuesday, September 23, the Mariners could clinch a trip to the postseason with a win. The team was down 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth when Josh Naylor slapped a three-run double deep into the left-center gap to put the Ms in the lead. Andrés Muñoz mowed down three batters in the ninth and the ballpark exploded. The players and staff streamed out of the dugout. Fireworks soared into the air—the arc of lights on the retractable roof shone in a celebratory W. “October Baseball” shirts were handed out.

Then, the broadcast cut to something happening at second base. Left leg tucked onto his scooter, Trent was making his way to join the celebrations. When he reached the infield, at JP’s urging, Trent swerved onto the basepath. Leaning over the handlebars, Trent furiously propelled himself around third and careened into home. When he crossed the plate, the Ms production staff sounded the horn that plays with every home team score. Cal Raleigh handed him the trident. And Trent got a moment no relief pitcher ever gets: the high of rounding the bases, the warm embrace of a team huddle at home.

The next night, the Mariners sealed the division. To celebrate, the entire team circled up for a celebratory dance and Trent and his scooter were right in the center. When the circle broke, Bryan Woo ran to Trent, wrapped his arms around his waist, and led the group in cries of “Thorny!”

As of the release day of this newsletter, we are standing at the precipice of the Mariners’ 2025 postseason. I do not yet know what will happen to my favorite team. In just a few weeks, what does happen will feel as though it was predestined, carved in the past, memorialized—good or bad—by the obsessive nostalgia machine of baseball fandom.

There’s a lot of talk among fans about what makes this team special. What they have already achieved is rare: individually, Cal Raleigh’s season as a catcher may never be topped. As a team, we’ve secured the division title for the first time in 24 years and got the team its first-ever bye in the playoffs.

In the second game of the ALDS series against Detroit, the team asked Trent to take the field between innings and address the crowd. “Mariners fans! These guys have had my back all year. Now it’s time to have theirs,” he said, knee bent on his scooter. “Let’s bring the noise, it’s freakin’ go time!” He hoisted the trident as the 47,000+ fans cheered along.

Watching Trent be a liminal member of the team—both in and out—felt like watching an avatar for the fans. We are a part of this, though we control nothing. Every time the players, who hold our emotions in their hands, reach back to us and let us in, it’s a dopamine high rarely topped by things that happen in my actual, real life.

They’re special to me. This year has been special. And I don’t know if we’ll get any more. But there comes a point when you have to say: I want more. I want the best. Why not me. Why not us? Why not now?

Let’s fucking go.

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I know exactly where I was when I realized the Cal Raleigh story had broken containment: at Chicago’s Midway airport on June 24, on my way to Minnesota. That morning, Cal appeared on Pardon My Take, one of the most popular sports podcasts in the world. The night before, he’d hit his 32nd home run and was on pace to hit 66 by season’s end. Cal was on the verge of locking in his role as starting catcher for the American League All Star team, and he was not being shy about saying he would participate in the Home Run Derby if asked—which, days later, he was. He was talked up on SportsCenter, written up in GQ, and sat down with Dan Patrick. The Athletic published an article that summed up the conversation that would eventually coalesce around Cal’s extraordinary year: “Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is having an all-time great season. Is it enough for MVP?”

The first step to being voted MVP is making sure everyone knows your name. The same week Cal seemed to be everywhere, Hannah Keyser of The Bandwagon posed the question: what does it take to mint a new main character in baseball? The June media blitz introduced The Big Dumper to the broader sports world (every single article and interview went on, at length, about the nickname). Then, Cal set about making sure everyone would remember it by becoming the first switch-hitter and first catcher to win the Home Run Derby; beating Salvador Perez’s record for most home runs in a single season by a catcher; breaking Mickey Mantle’s record of most home runs in a season by a switch-hitter; tying Ken Griffey Jr.’s record for most home runs in a season by a Mariner; and closing in on Aaron Judge’s 2022 AL single-season record of 62 home runs. Oh, and he’s the reigning platinum glove winner at the sport’s most demanding defensive position, and has led the league in innings caught over the last two years.

For the Mariners, Cal’s value goes far beyond his performance on the field. He is pushing the franchise to slough off the existential burden of 50 years of losing and rewrite its very self-conception. In his time with the team, especially this year, Cal has asked fans to believe, and demanded the front office give them something to believe in.

Cal wrote himself into Mariners legend in 2022 with the silky-smooth swing that busted the drought. But he wasn’t content to continue clawing and scraping for wild card slots; Cal wants to win. That starts with holding accountable the people holding the team back. That’s why, the following year, after the Ms were eliminated from playoff contention on the final day of the season, Cal told a media scrum exactly why the ballclub had limped to such a dissatisfying end: “We’ve done a great job of growing some players here within the farm system,” he said. “But sometimes you’ve got to go out and you have to buy.” The system was flawed—players can play, and fans can cheer hard. But only owners and front offices can pony up the money to get talent. If the Mariners were going to win, the brass needed to get serious.

It was a shocking statement; players don’t talk publicly that way. And the next day, then-manager Scott Servais lowkey scolded Cal about containing his emotions. Cal later apologized for the remarks. But the bell could not be unrung. He’d emboldened fans to hold team leadership responsible. Just days later, when asked why the club failed to build on the momentum from its first playoff season in more than two decades, President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto gave a now-infamous answer: that Seattle’s baseball executives were shooting to win 54% of games a year. “If what you’re doing is focusing year to year on, ‘What do we have to do to win the World Series this year?’ You might be one of the teams that’s laying in the mud and can’t get up for another decade,” he said. “So we’re actually doing the fan base a favor in asking for their patience to win the World Series, while we continue to build a sustainably good roster.”

Cal had broken the dam on assigning blame at the top and, in the wake of the 54% comments, the fanbase exploded. Loyalists of a team that’s failed to so much as appear in a World Series in its 50-year history were not pleased to be told, in patronizing tones, that they should be grateful to keep waiting. Especially from an executive in his eighth year on the job who, in backtracking his comments, had to publicly clarify: “Our goal isn’t to be mediocre.”

Despite that, the front office went into its usual hibernation leading into the 2024 season. No megastar free agents got a series offer from the Ms. Ownership was cheap, and the Mariners missed the playoffs in heartbreaking fashion again in 2024. Though the addition of Randy Arozarena’s hot bat was welcome, it was too little too late; a 10-game lead evaporated after the All Star game, getting eliminated just a few days before the final game of the season.

Fans were livid—or, worse, numbly disinterested—harping endlessly online about 54 percent. They skipped the ballpark; attendance dropped by more than 100,000 compared to the prior year. Ownership was skewered for pinching pennies in The Seattle Times: “[W]hen your spending is middling, the results will be, too.”

A few months later, unshackled from the franchise, a former Mariner confirmed what we knew to be true: the players all echo Cal’s sentiments. Thirty-nine-year-old veteran Justin Turner had been acquired in the middle of the 2024 season, and was an immediate favorite in the clubhouse. He grew especially close to Cal, giving the younger catcher advice on hitting and life as they hung around the batting cages; in November of that year, Cal flew to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to be part of Justin’s 40th birthday celebrations. Despite explicit encouragement from players to re-sign him, Justin received a paltry offer from the Mariners which he rejected, opting instead to sign with the Cubs. Afterward, he spoke about the decision with USA Today columnist Bob Nightingale for a column that went viral. “The fact that they missed the playoffs by one game and didn’t go out and add an impact bat or two when you have the best pitching staff in baseball just seems absurd to me,” Justin said. “What the hell are we doing? Are you trying? … The team is very profitable. And they don’t spend.”

Going into the 2025 season, there was a singular indication that the criticism had sunk in: In the midst of the September slide to irrelevance, Scott Servais was axed. And, rather than name an interim manager, the team named Dan Wilson as its new skipper. Dan played for Seattle from 1995 til 2005—he was a teammate of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ichiro, and was on the team the last time they went to the playoffs and won any meaningful games. He was also, crucially, a catcher. He’d spent time talking to and mentoring Cal. Now, this vet who understood Cal’s position on the field and in the clubhouse, was calling the shots. He was unlikely to tell Cal to calm down.

In March 2025, the team approached Cal about extending his contract. Before signing anything, he insisted on meeting with Dipoto and General Manager Justin Hollander. After a spring training workout Cal, still in full uniform, sat down in a suite across from the suits. He took out a notebook and started grilling his bosses. He demanded answers about their philosophy, their plans for developing up-and-coming talent, and whether they planned to keep his pitching staff together. The issue of payroll and of being un-unserious must have come up. Whatever they said, it was seemingly enough; days after heavily implying—if not outright stating—that he would walk unless he saw changes, Cal signed a six-year, $105 million extension.

That already looks like a bargain. Before the ink was dry, Cal was logging a historically incredible season, putting the entire team on his back. Four months later, at the trade deadline, he’d managed to get the Ms to a winning record. The deadline was the first true test of whatever promises the execs had made in Peoria. And they delivered. The Ms signed the two best bats available: Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor, both from the Arizona Diamondbacks. “These were the things we talked about [at spring training]—these moments,” Cal told MLB’s Daniel Kramer. “It makes you feel good about those guys following through." Later, Dipoto told Kramer that he considers Cal an assistant GM.

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Fast forward to September 6. The Ms were in a skid, having lost six of seven on a brutal east coast road trip. They sat 3.5 games behind the Astros in the AL West; the division and maybe even the wild card slot were slipping out of reach. Likely unaware that an Etsy Witch had gotten the call-up, Cal went to the Dude Bag-o-Tricks to get off the shneid: growing a mustache in about 36 hours. Standing in the batter’s box at Truist Park, Cal bent into his stance, shoulders heavy with the weight of a fanbase desperate to shrug off 50 years of falling short. And he scorched home run #52 into the Chop House—the familiar landing spot for so many of his Home Run Derby Championship dingers. It was a statement, a promise of his own: This year won’t be like the others.

After that, Seattle went on to win 15 out of its next 16 games, including a weekend sweep of the Houston Astros that hit the fanbase like a full-on exorcism. On September 23 while playing the Rockies at home, Josh Naylor cleared the bases with a double and secured the postseason berth. In the middle of the champagne shower in the clubhouse, Cal found Jerry and loomed over him like—as one of the longtime Ms beat writers for Lookout Landing described it perfectly on their “Meet at the Mitt” podcast—like a pitcher giving a loose cannon reliever a come-to-Jesus. Adam Jude with The Seattle Times reported that Cal was saying, “Let’s go win a World Series.”

The next night, Cal hit two home runs to reach 60 on the year, and the Mariners clinched the American League West Division Title. The Mariners won the pennant. It seemed hit to Cal as he was running the bases. After the game, he was handed a live microphone. The communication between Cal and the fans was now direct. No intermediary, no one to tell him to temper his emotion, no one to talk about efficiencies or salary considerations. Cal took in the more than 42,000 people chanting MVP and welled with emotion. Then, he said it perfectly:

The AL MVP is a footrace between the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Cal. And while Aaron Judge is having arguably the best season of his already legendary career, the story of the 2025 baseball season is Cal Raleigh and how he’s leading a franchise out of the wilderness through sheer force of will. He’s demanding that we consider what it might be like to win. To do something unprecedented, and long overdue.

A world-beating fWAR is cool. But Cal is the epitome of value.

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🗣️ What do you know about Imelda Marcos? That she had 3,000 pairs of shoes? My friend, it’s so much darker than that. Join me in hating this living villain by listening to the Imelda Marcos Part 1 episode of Scamfluencers!

📚 To Clutch a Razor by is out now! A fantasy, a heist, a novella! (But start with the first in the series, When Among Crows!) Every V book is an immediate yes, but this series in particular is really helping me with the everyday scaries.

9/1 @ Rays (L, 2-10)

9/2 @ Rays (L, 4-9)

9/6 @ Braves (W, 10-2)

9/7 @ Braves (W, 18-2)

An Etsy Witch may have unlocked the Seattle Mariners’ path to the World Series. Or… maybe it’s the mustaches, high pants, or good luck Cheetos. . .

Welcome to September baseball.

The first day of September was miserable for the Ms. The team arrived in Tampa having dropped two out of three games to the Cleveland Guardians, an inauspicious start to a three-city east coast road trip where they were desperate for wins. The path to winning the American League West was narrowing, and the Texas Rangers were on an unlikely heater that had them nipping at the Mariners’ heels for the final wildcard slot. If the Ms didn’t get right, they risked missing the playoffs entirely. With the season on the line, the lads took the field against the Rays and… lost by 8 runs.

The next day, players and staff held an hour-long private meeting.“It was more of an open forum, and it was guys having a chance to say what they felt,” manager Dan Wilson said. It may have resembled the airing of the players-only airing of grievances held in the dark days of 2023, and in 2022 before that. They were also visited by all-time-winningest Mariners skipper, Lou Pinella, he of the thrown bases and kicked hat. When asked what wisdom he imparted to Dan—who played under Lou for 10 years—Lou said, “Have the guys have fun. It’s important, but it’s not the end of the world. I wish I had that in me when I managed.”

The guys put up a fight in the game that followed but ultimately fell in a demoralizing series sweep by the Rays. In Atlanta, they took a well-earned day off. And many used their 24 free hours to do something critical for the team: grow a mustache. A few mustachioed Mariners was not enough to slow the skid: the squad dropped their fourth straight, the sixth of seven on the nine-game trip. They were four games back of the Astros in the American League West. The Rangers were only half a game back in the race for the last wildcard spot. The fanbase was apoplectic.

Enter Ms fan, Steven Blackburn (known on X as NotB0bR055). Facing down the proposition of a bleak September slide out of relevance, Steven decided to try something desperate: paying a witch on Etsy $20 to “unfuck” the team. Specifically, Steven asked that the spell command the Mariners to “get their act together and start winning baseball games again,” maybe even “make their way to the World Series and win.” He signed off with: “I know this seems like a little much but I’m desperate lmao.” On September 6, SpellByLuna confirmed she’d completed the spell. Now all he needed was to ”stay positive and accept the manifestation of the spell,” SpellByLuna reassured him.

Steven was not the only one turning to, let’s say, alternative solutions to shake the team out of its slump: former Mariners outfielder and current development coach Mike Cameron was burning sage in the clubhouse. Elsewhere, Cal Raleigh switched to high pants and President of Baseball Operations Jerry DiPoto stopped by the radio booth to give longtime announcer Rick Rizzs a bag of “lucky” Cheetos. The starting lineup held a pre-game huddle on the field. And Cal made another change, too: he joined the swelling ranks of Mariners sporting a mustache.1

Reader: that night the Mariners scored 10 runs. The next day, they scored 18. The team’s official account credited both the power of the stache and the power of the Etsy Witch for the reversal of fortune.

Since SpellByLuna, the Ms have won four straight games, scored 37 runs, and hit 12 homers—including #52 and #53 for Cal, who’s creeping ever-closer to tying the franchise record for homers in a season (current record is 56, the number hit by Ken Griffey in both the 1997 and 1998 seasons). The team maintained a 1.5 game lead over the Rangers and, as of publication of this newsletter, they are within one game of overtaking the Astros at the top of the AL West. During this stretch, Cal has continued wearing high socks, Jerry Dipoto has stopped by the radio booth every day to give Rick Rizzs more Cheetos, and no one in the clubhouse has dared shave.

The Mariners—and almost every team in contention at this point of the year—is in the grip of September psychosis, clinging to whatever ritual, mascot, or aesthetic choice prefaces a victory. The San Francisco Giants have cleared out a locker for a lucky statue of Jobu, the spiritual leader of Major League’s Pedro Cerrano.2 In 2024 the New York Mets used the power of Grimace, the purple McDonald’s mascot, their teammate’s Latin hit song, “OMG,” and a literal pumpkin to make a postseason push. In 2000, a random clip from Ace Ventura played on the Angels scoreboard birthed the “Rally Monkey,” a lasting good luck mascot for the franchise.

Remember what Lou said: Have the guys have fun. Talking about facial hair and benign occult activity is a hell of a lot more fun than the white-knuckle grip this fanbase has on its hopes of making the post-season for just the fourth time this century. And the Mariners are leaning in: during an inning break in the September 9 game against the Cardinals, they played “I Put a Spell On You” and zoomed in on fans wearing witch hats holding a sign: “Mustache! Magic! Manifest!”

Best of all, the magic hasn’t been limimted to wins; so many people wanted to pay Steve back for finding the most effective witch since Sally Owens, he has urged them instead to donate to The Trevor Project. The idea spun into a donation chain that’s still ongoing.

There are lots of ways to be in community, and shared whimsy is—in my opinion—one of the finest. Have the guys have fun. Later this month, when the team is in the most intense days of the home stretch, you’ll catch me at the ballpark with a witch hat and a Waluigi stache, hoping this magic continues into the real spooky season: October.

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🎵 Right now I am listening to Radiohead non-stop while I try to manifest tickets to one of their just-announced shows 🤞

🗣️ In our latest On the Bleachers, Zan and I talk about week one of the NFL; fans needing to act right at games; the cost of watching sports; and the president at the U.S. Open.

🗣️ And on Scamfluencers, we’re talking about one of the biggest heists in U.K. history—pulled off by a ragtag crew of septugenarian grandpas.