Down and Out in Emerald City

July 5^th, 2011. The last time the Seattle Mariners won a baseball game until today. It was a 10^th inning victory over the Oakland A’s. At the time the Mariners had improved to a .500 record. Since then the Mariners went on to lose 17 straight games over the course of 21 days, until their dominating victory over the Yankees today. The record for losses in a row is 23 games by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies. Seattle will be glad not to top that mark, but they may flirt with it again soon.

It was only a matter of time before ‘King’ Felix led them to a win. Chone “Mendoza Line” Figgins even got a few days off recently that no one noticed, due to a family emergency, though I believe he just wanted to get away, right now there is a team emergency happening.

The M’s leading hitter is batting .266. That would be Mr. Ichiro. The man has not batted less than .300 in all ten of his MLB seasons, and never less than 200 hits. But this year folks, I think things will change.

What a woeful turn this franchise has taken or better yet, what a woeful road this franchise has been plodding along on. This is an organization, which has never even been to the World Series, and they have been floundering about the AL West almost three and a half decades.

The Mariners tied the MLB record for most wins in a season in 2001 before being destroyed by the NY Yankees and Andy Pettite’s strong-arm tactics 4 games to 1 in the American League Championship.

I was a huge Ken Griffey Jr. fan growing up.

#24 was the most hyped player of my generation and for good cause.

It was a common belief he would be the one to break Hank Aaron’s

Home run record, not Barry Bonds. Instead he wound up finishing his career taking naps in the team clubhouse and 219 hits short of 3,000. (Though he did finish with a respectable 630 career home runs most likely without the aid of performance enhancing drugs, but who knows.)

I suppose it is somewhat sad that Seattle’s 2011 season will only be remembered for a truly amazing losing streak, but this is the fate of certain teams in Bud Selig’s Milwaukee League Baseball. The bullies of the block will continue their reign into the foreseeable future. Get used to seeing New York/Boston or Philadelphia/San Francisco as champions for the next five years.