Watching the Yankees clobber Seattle in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, I realized that had it been 8, 9, 10 or 11 years ago, tears would probably have been streaming down my face.
As it was, there were no tears. My fingers never curled into any orange shag carpeting, then or now. When Aaron Sele fell apart, followed by the Mariners bullpen, I did not think the world was crumbling with them. But, as always, there was that sense of immutable frustration: another season down the drain.
Seattle is one of two cities I call home, and obviously it’s where my professional-sports loyalties are based, so I’ve yet to experience a championship in my lifetime. This last disappointment may have been the saddest.
This year there was something more: what was dashed was not just my infantile desire to see the Mariners pull out a championship. The breaking wall that was the Yankees turned back the very tide of history.
116 wins … and out? It didn’t seem possible. Seemed more impossible than that the 116 wins had come in the first place.
Seattle made the playoffs for the first time in 1995 and produced the greatest Mariner moment ever: Ken Griffey, Jr. scoring from first base in Game 5 of the Division Series. That season, losing to the Indians in the ALCS was an afterthought because the unimaginable had already happened. Just six years later, failing to win the World Series is unacceptable because of the pressure of 116 wins. Oh, the irony.
Don’t get me wrong, I never expected Seattle to win the World Series. But I never expected they would have a regular season like they had in 2001. It’s a weird thing, watching a team year in and year out and always hoping that this year is the one but never really knowing or expecting that it truly is.
That’s the way it is for just about everybody. Most sports fans are cynical, assuming something is going to come along each season and ruin their hopes. Others are dreamily optimistic, but don’t believe deep down that those hopes will come true.
Last October, it didn’t occur to me till halfway through the ALCS that the Mariners might go to the World Series. I knew that’s what they were playing for and thought they could win, but never imagined them actually there. That’s how it’s always been.
But, I had that realization this season halfway through the summer. Now I’m still imagining.
I can also only imagine what it’s like to be a Yankees fan. Something like what Celtics fans felt in Bill Russell’s prime, I suppose, but can’t possibly really know.
It must be like shooting a free throw, or putting from three feet. Sure there’s some chance it won’t go in, but there’s really no reason why it shouldn’t.
Everyone gets a chance, at some point in their life, to sip world-championship champagne vicariously through one of their favorite teams. There is something special about being one of those fans that goes through years of agony before finally being rewarded with a hometown championship, or so I hear.
The Mariners probably will win a World Series someday (though right now it feels likely the Seahawks will win a Super Bowl before that happens, which is more or less akin to saying Napoleon is about to record a single with BG and Django Reinhardt).
Whatever happens, I doubt I’ll ever have the same confidence as fans of the Torre-era Yankees or the Jordan-era Bulls. I just wish those teams didn’t have to beat the Lars-era Mariners or Sonics.
Some people hate the Yankees. I don’t hate them any more than those Bulls teams, which Jordan’s magical qualities made impossible to hate.
Specifically, I don’t hate the Yankees because I remember when they walked a tightrope as precipitous as the one the Mariners tried to negotiate this October. In 1996, New York was an unproven team up against the Atlanta Braves, defending world champions, team of the "90s (to that point). I rooted for those Yankees because they were up against the Braves dynasty.
It’s the dynasties we hate, because its all hometown fans can do once our teams have been eliminated. We hate dynasties because they are what keep our favorite teams from breaking through. So expect me to cheer for the Diamondbacks now, but not when the Mariners are in the World Series next year.
