Baseball has helped fill that void. I love baseball. I don’t think there is a more appropriate way to put it than that; I LOVE BASEBALL. Everything about it: 10 to 9 games, 1 to nothing pitcher’s duels, how teams are put together, what the stats say about players, nostalgia, and looking ahead. It’s a game I spent years of my life trying to understand and I don’t take that for granted. Some call it boring, others say it’s dying; I say you have to understand it to appreciate it, and there will always be those who appreciate it. It’s been around longer than football and basketball and isn’t going anywhere. It’s a simple game, but at the same time complex. The idea of it in a broad sense is to hit the ball and keep the other team from hitting the ball. The intricacies of the game become apparent when you’re standing in the batter’s box with another guy standing 60 feet 6 inches away preparing to hurl a small, hard ball at you. You know it’s coming, but where and how. Is the pitcher left or right handed? Is it coming at your body or head or over the heart of the plate? Is it going to be three feet outside or behind you? Is it going to be 90 mph or 70 mph? Is it going to be a straight fastball or a breaking ball? Is that breaking ball a slider which runs away from you or a curveball that drops off the table? All of this has to run through your head before you decide to swing or not, and you have to make that decision in a split second. And that’s just the batter, there are 9 players in the field on defense making similar split second decisions on every pitch. Pitchers are constantly playing a game of chess to try and keep the hitters off balance. Thoughts like, ôthey think I’m going to throw a fastball, so I’m going to throw a curveball...but if they think, I think they know I’m throwing the fastball, then they might think I’m throwing the curve, so I should throw the fastballà÷ That’s only two pitches, what if he had a changeup or slider? Warren Spahn put it best, ôhitting is timing and pitching is upsetting timing.÷ A quote that appears simple, yet holds multitudes of possibilities.

Baseball is a game that can change in an instant. One swing of the bat or one pitch can decide a game. In basketball and football, you can hold a lead and kill clock at the end of the game to secure a victory; there is no clock in baseball. Each team gets 27 outs. That’s 27 outs to score more runs than the other team. No matter if you have the lead going into the 9th or not, you and your opponent still get 3 more outs, and anything can happen until that final out is recorded. You have to pitch to the other team whether you have a lead or not, you can’t just hold the ball and wait for the clock to hit zero.

So what does all this mean? What do the Sonics have to do with why I love the Mariners? Why do I live and breathe with a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since I was 11? Why did I name my dog Griffey? Is it insanity or loyalty? Or a mix of both?

The Mariners are a constant in my life between April and through September (October someday). Not always a positive constant, but a constant regardless. In 2008, the Sonics were taken from me, and moved to Oklahoma City. They were my constant as a child who grew up playing basketball and watching games with my Grandma, and they were snatched away, by greed and a man who claimed Oklahoma City was a better economic market for a professional sports team than Seattle, who had supported the team for 41 years, along with the Mariners and Seahawks. That hurt. That still hurts. In 1995, Ken Griffey Jr. and the Mariners made an improbable run that kept the team in Seattle and ultimately built Safeco Field, and that didn’t happen for the Sonics. The experience taught me a deeper meaning of the phrase, ôyou don’t always know what you have until it’s gone.÷ I knew the Sonics leaving would hurt; I prepared for it. I tried to be a Blazers fan, but even the proximity of Portland couldn’t fill the void of Seattle basketball. The memories of Gary, Shawn, Nate, Ray, Rashard, Hersey, and on and on and on, were still there and still haunt me to this day. I don’t know if I will ever be able to attend another NBA game in Seattle, but I do know one thing, and that is that I can still attend a Mariner’s game. They may be heart-breakers and trash, year in and year out, but they’re my pile of trash and misfortune. I already lost the Sonics and, I don’t want to see the Mariners go.

If it makes me insane to put so much into a team that rewards so little, then I don’t want to be sane. What they have lacked to give me in wins or championship rings, they have made up for with memories and an undying love for a beautiful game. So I thank you, Ken Griffey Jr., Dave Niehaus, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, Brett Boone, Ichiro, Felix, Adrian Beltre, Kyle Seager...hell even you Dustin Ackley. From the bottom of my heart, I thank and appreciate you. See you at the corner of Edgar and Dave for years to come. My, Oh My!

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