A most definitive result

MONDAY, SEPT. 22, 2025 — There is a book passage I always think of whenever I am tempted to believe that the Mariners are bound to eventually find their way to a World Series. 

I’m just not completely certain which book the passage is from.

I THINK it’s “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” by W.P. Kinsella,² and as the narrator is trying to parse the difference between commitment and insanity he references a radio host in Cleveland who – after the city’s baseball team finished five games back of the White Sox in 1959 — vowed to sit atop a billboard until the Cleveland won the pennant. 

This was extreme, to be sure, but not necessarily crazy. Cleveland had won the pennant in 1954 and 1959 was the fourth time in five seasons that Cleveland had finished second in the league. 

However, Cleveland finished no better than third in the American League in any of the next nine seasons. Then, after the American League split into two divisions beginning in, 1969, it finished in the bottom half of the AL East for 24 consecutive seasons.

As for that radio-host character in Kinsella’s novel? 

“I assume at some point he came down,” says Kinsella’s narrator.

I always think of this because there are no guarantees in sports. You are not assured that your team will eventually win, and the willingness to stick with a team through an enduring lack of success is either a badge of honor or a sign of stupidity.

I have had friends who have broken up with the Mariners. This is incredibly logical. One stated quite specifically that he refused to make further emotional investment into the team because he believed the team’s inability to win a championship bothered him more than it bothered ownership.

I’m not saying he’s wrong. I’m not programmed to look at things that way. I don’t think I should have to quit rooting for my team just because the owners suck. 

I have hung in there along with thousands of other people, and while I’m not going to say this weekend made it all worth it, it felt really fricking good.

The Mariners went into Houston and they slayed this division’s dragon or perhaps they slew it, depending on how grammatical you want to get. 

Seattle bludgeoned the Astros on Friday night, hitting four solo home runs. They hung in there on Saturday, weathering a seventh-inning grand slam and then watching as Victor Robles came racing from right field to make a diving catch on Carlos Correa’s line drive, doubling Jake Meyers off at second base to give Seattle the 6-4 win.

On Sunday? Well, on Sunday, Seattle hung seven runs on the board in the second inning with home runs from J.P. Crawford and Cal Raleigh and Seattle completed a three-game sweep in which it hit a total of seven home runs – two from Raleigh – and its starting pitchers surrendered a combined total of one run.

With six games left, Seattle’s magic number for clinching the division is three, and the Mariners also currently have a two-game edge on Detroit for the second-best record in the American League. In other words: Seattle is currently positioned to get a bye through the first round of the playoffs and proceed directly to a best-of-seven divisional series.

MONDAY, SEPT. 15, 2025 — Seattle’s last victory over the Angeles was its easiest.

An 11-2 parade that included Cal Raleigh’s 54th home run of the season and left the Mariners alone in first place in the division, a game ahead of Houston.

The series against the Angels got progressively easier:

• An extra-innings victory on Thursday;

• A one-run win on Friday thanks to a home run from Mitch Garver;¹  

• A two-run win on Saturday;

• A nine-run win on Sunday.

With Houston having lost 8-3 to Atlanta, the Mariners are now alone atop the division. The last time the Mariners led the AL West this late in a season: 2001.

The last time they won nine games in a row: 2022 when they ripped off 14 straight.

George Kirby was great, Jorge Polanco doubled for the seventh consecutive game and Seattle has an off-day on Monday before beginning a three-game series in Kansas City on Tuesday.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 5, 2025 — The Mariners will play the first of three games in Atlanta today. Now the Braves are 63-77, the third-worst record in the National League. They have lost five of seven.

I’m not sure any of that matters as much as the fact that the game is being played in Atlanta, and the Mariners have become utterly incapable of winning anywhere other than Seattle.

A rational explanation for this would point to the fact that in spite of its sterling reputation, Seattle’s pitching staff hasn’t really been that good this year. In fact, it has been worse than most people realize not just because of the aforementioned reputation but because Seattle plays its home games in what is considered to be one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the league. The quality of Seattle’s pitching—or more accurately its lack thereof—has been laid bare on the road.

Of course, I tend to view the Mariners through a slightly less rational framework.

I believe their struggles to be a challenge from on high, and in that way, I would say I feel very much like Lieutenant Dan in “Forrest Gump” the night that Hurricane Carmen came sweeping through.

Now it’s very possible that you don’t recall this particular scene. In fact, I’ve found that some people harbor some hostility toward this movie.

I, however, have always enjoyed it.

Lieutenant Dan—played by Gary Sinise—is the character whose life was saved by Forrest during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Dan loses his legs, and in the years after the war, becomes angry and resentful, feeling he was denied his destiny of dying in the battlefield while fighting for his country.

It’s more than nihilism that has taken hold. Lieutenant Dan is actively angry at the world, and when a tropical storm comes besieges the shrimp boat he’s working with Forrest, he becomes defiant, sitting atop the mast, an American flag behind him as he shakes his fist at the heavens.

At the risk of being overly dramatic, that’s kind of how I feel about the baseball gods right now.

Is this it? You call this misery?

Because as a Mariners fan, this feels kind of like Tuesday. Seattle has made the playoffs five times in 50 years of existence so I know I can endure a little bit of suffering.

And maybe there’s a small ray of hope in my stupid cinematic reference. You remember what it was like for Forrest and Lieutenant Dan after the hurricane, right?

Shrimping was easy, and they wound up with more money than Davy Crockett.

1  That is not a misprint. Mitch Garver homered. In the seventh inning. I saw it and it was incredible.

2  This is not a recommendation. Kinsella is best known for “Shoeless Joe,” the book that formed the basis for “Field of Dreams.” However, “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” — which was published in 1985 — included way too much magical realism for my teenage brain. There’s also a heart-rending death involved.