Too ugly to ignore

I spent Tuesday evening at the park.

Central Park, that is.

Sharon and I had a picnic there, sharing a No. 3 from Zabar’s¹, cole slaw and a totally unsatisfying Magic Bar.²

We then watched an utterly incredible performance of “A Winter’s Tale” at the Delacorte Theater. Turns out, in opting to see Shakespeare, I missed a Mariners tragedy (though I’m not sure “missed” is the most appropriate verb to use in regard to this game).

Afterward, as we waited for the cross-town bus, I checked Twitter. The first thing I saw was the clip of Julio Rodriguez tossing the ball into the outfield stands, thinking it was the third out of the inning when it was only the second.

“Oh God,” I thought to myself. “People are going to hate him.”

I rewound the clip. This is easier said than done when you’ve got fat little sausage thumbs as I do and are trying to manipulate an iPhone 13 mini. In my initial viewing of the clip, it seemed the pitch that preceded the flyout had lacked major-league velocity. Upon further review, it was, in fact, a position player on the hill: Leo Rivas.

“Oooh,” I said to myself. “Things must not have been going well.”

Then I zoomed in on the score bug: 19-0. Before Julio’s brain fart.

“Heh,” I chuckled. “Ha, ha, ha.

“Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

I then showed my wife the play and explained the context.

Honestly, I love that this happened.

Some of that is because I have surrendered any hope I once held for this season. It’s gone. I realized that on Friday when I watched Andres Munoz blow a two-run lead in the bottom of the tenth against Houston. When Christian Walker hit that three-run homer to win it, I turned off the TV, brushed my teeth, went to bed and slept like a baby.

This team can no longer hurt me.

But more than that, I think this kind of loss can be useful, and in order to explain why, I’m going to ask that you indulge me in a cross-sport comparison.

The Seahawks stood at 5-7 heading into a mid-December game against Houston. Jim Mora was in his first year as the team’s head coach, and while it had been a thoroughly disappointing season, Seattle had managed back-to-back victories for the first time all year, having beaten the Rams and the 49ers. President Tim Ruskell was gone, having resigned between those two games, and there were plenty of people who thought things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

Actually, they were worse. Much worse.

The game in Houston made that clear.

Receiver Andre Johnson scored a 64-yard touchdown early in the game, and by early, I mean it was Houston’s first play from scrimmage. Houston scored three touchdowns on its first four possessions, pushing out to a 24-0 just over 2 minutes into the second quarter. At that point, the Seahawks had yet to gain a first down.

Johnson caught 10 passes for 184 yards IN THE FIRST HALF ALONE. It wasn’t a game so much as a crime scene, but the thing I will remember most about that day was what happened after the game.

Mora acted incredulous that his center, Chris Spencer, had struggled while trying to play despite a broken right thumb.

“We’ve got a center that’s trying to snap with his left hand,” Mora said, “and has a cast on his right hand, which he’s had on it seems like forever, which I’m not quite sure why he’s still got a cast on his hand, but he does.”

I was there when Mora said it. I followed up by asking Spencer about it afterward.

“What happened today was embarrassing,” he said of the three snaps that failed to reach the quarterback without bouncing. “I just don’t know, I don’t have an answer.”

The contrast always struck me.

On the one hand, you had a coach whose defense was treated like a tin can tied to the back of a newlywed’s car, complaining about the way an injured player snapped the ball.

On the other hand, you had a player willing to play despite being physically compromised, offering no excuse.

The following week, Seattle lost 24-7 at home to a Tampa Bay team that hadn’t won a road game in more than a year. The Seahawks long-snapper had to leave the game because of what turned out to be a collapsed lung. He was replaced by Kelly Jennings, a cornerback so slight he was nicknamed “Slim.”

“It is exasperation,” Mora said afterward, “to believe that we could actually be at the point where our backup right corner is long snapping for us. I say to myself, 'How did this happen?' He's 172 pounds, dripping wet."

It was such a trivial thing to be focused on.

The weight of the backup long-snapper had absolutely nothing to do with the reason why the Seahawks collapsed that season. Neither did the injury to Spencer’s thumb.

What you saw was a coach searching for scapegoats.

The Mariners season is on the brink of caving in.

Perhaps it already has. There is a lot to learn by putting a magnifying glass over what the participants say and do going forward.

There is a clarity to be found in the wake of disappointment. A chance to see which people accept responsibility and which ones attempt to deflect it. Sometimes this is subtle; often, it is not.

While I’ve given up hope in this team, I’m going to be watching closely the rest of the way. Unless I have tickets to a show, of course.