2011 Seattle Mariners Post-Mortem

Habitually, I went to check the MLB app on my phone this morning while riding the bus to see who was pitching for the Mariners tonight, only to realize that no one is pitching for them tonight and won't be doing so in a game that counts for another 181 days or so. That's a familiar hollow feeling.

The marathon is over and the Mariners finished, but barely. It's hard to believe and even harder to remember that this team was briefly in contention for the AL West or at least for the Wild Card. Then they stumbled. Then they got back on track. Then they lost 17 straight games. 17 fucking games. In a row. After it got around 10 games I just kinda wanted them to just keep losing for the absurdity of it all. They fell about 5 games short of the historical record for consecutive losses. They couldn't even win at losing.

So much went wrong. Not as much as in 2010, but still, so many things went wrong. There was Justin Smoak's multiple injuries and terrible slump after his hot start. There was the Carlos Peguero experiment that lasted about 2 months too long. There was the continued struggle to score runs. Again. Not as bad as in 2010, but still really really bad. Ichiro "slumped" as much as a player like Ichiro can. Yeah, he had a bad month and a half, but falling just short of 200 hits after 11 seasons is hardly a failure in my eyes. Chone Figgins bascially ceased to exist. Milton Bradley continued to be wildly entertaining to watch, but still couldn't hit the ball to save his life. Then he got released around the halfway point. Like it would have made a difference. Oh, yeah and Adam fucking Kennedy batted clean-up multiple times during the season. I mean, come on.

Pitching continued to be a bright spot. Felix had another incredible year and Michael Pineda debuted and had an impressive rookie year. Dustin Ackley made his debut and was every bit as awesome as every smart baseball person said he'd be. Perhaps even better. Mike Carp proved he belonged in the majors after his second call-up of the year and established himself as a legitimate clean-up hitter. There are more promising young players in the organization then any other time I can recall, which does give me some amount of hope for the next few seasons.

I went to about 15 games this year, I think. Sitting in the King's Court for the NL rules "road" series against the Florida Marlins was my favorite. Perhaps my favorite game I've been to at Safeco. Felix became the first Mariner pitcher to get a hit at Safeco. Miguel Olivo hit a clutch home run right to where everyone's "Hit It Here" sign was pointing as we chanted his name. It was glorious. Needless to say, whomever came up with the King's Court promotion deserves a raise.


I also witnessed the 8 run comeback against the stupid Toronto Blue Jays, although that was more the work of Toronto's terrible bullpen than Seattle's batting line-up, but you know, that's why they play the games and all that.

Having a job at Harborview and being able to walk down to the stadium after work provided me with a lot of good times this year. I'm thankful for that. I already miss having that as an opportunity on any given day during a homestand. Something to look forward to next year, I guess.

Watching the results of last nights crazy tie-breaking Wild Card games made me intensely melancholic, nostalgic and jealous all at once. Those moments, those god damn victorious moments, are exactly why people follow this stupid game. They are so glorious because they are so god damn rare. I legitimately worry that the Mariners will never provide me with moments like those ever again. I don't even know what I'd do with myself if the Mariners were to make the playoffs again, let alone get a shot at the World Series. It seems so fantastic and unrealistic. I can't comprehend it. But, the mere thought of such things quickens my heartbeat and gives me shivers.

There's no other way to end this post than by quoting Joe Posnanski since I basically paraphrased/plagiarized him above:

"Elation. Sadness. Mayhem. Champagne. Sleepless fury. Never been a night like it. Funny, if I was trying to explain baseball to someone who had never heard of it, I wouldn’t tell them about Wednesday night. No, it seems to me that Wednesday night isn’t what makes baseball great. It’s all the years you spend waiting for Wednesday night that makes baseball great."

"Heat" (1995) Dir. Michael Mann

Once every year or two, I get a strong urge to re-watch the movie "Heat" for many reasons.

1. I love Michael Mann's visual style
2. De Niro's character and his dedication to professionalism with no words wasted
3. Pacino's character and his wide-eyed freakouts and dogged determination
4. Kilmer's character and his badass ponytail
5. The bank job/shootout scene in downtown LA
6. Incredible soundtrack
7. It was a pivotal movie of my youth

My dad took to me to see it in theaters. I was in 5th grade, which means this movie is now 16 years old. Wow......anyways, I remember it having a ton of hype because the big name actors involved. I don't think I'd even seen "The Godfather" movies at that point, but I knew it was a "big deal" that Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were in the same movie for only the second time ever. My dad was psyched as hell to see it.

We emerged from the theater some 10 hours later (movie is super long, man!) and I was just floored by the whole thing. I didn't comprehend some of the more subtle themes of movie, but it was such a visceral, raw and emotional movie-going experience. It had weight. It wasn't a comic book movie or a hollow action flick. For whatever reason, it resonated with me even then.

And I would revisit the film often as I got older, noticing new cool things about it here and there, quoting some of Pacino's more ridiculous lines and always regarding it as personal favorite of mine. It made me a huge fan of Michael Mann and lead me to discover his earlier gems like "Thief" and "Manhunter." No one tells a crime story quite like Mann. And no one films it as well as he does either. And he can also bust out incredible action/adventure films like "Last of the Mohicans." Okay, enough gushing already.

I think the major reason why "Heat" stuck with me so long as youngin' was that it dealt heavily in shades of gray with its characters and story in ways that I probably hadn't been exposed to much at that point. Pacino is the good guy, the cop, but he completely neglects his family life. De Niro is the bad guy, the bank robber, but he's really a pretty decent human being with many admirable traits. His crew of dudes, Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, the guy who played Cerrano in "Major League", are also decent people trying to provide for themselves and their families. You end up rooting for the bad guys and it's heartbreaking when they lose. The protagonist/antagonist storyline that dominates so many of our fictional stories couldn't be further from reality and sometimes that's what we want. There's nothing wrong with that. Escapism is more fun. But, the accurate portrayal of complicated real life morality in "Heat" is what made such an impression on me and for that I will always appreciate it.

“You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we’ve been face to face, if I’m there and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it. But I tell you, if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife you’re gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.”