Ugly Anniversary Sweep Symbolizes Futility of Mariners Nostalgia

Outsiders have doubted this franchise for 49 years,” Alvin Davis said to cap off the Mariners’ 50th anniversary. “Let that doubt fuel you; prove them wrong. We believe in you; prove us right.”

There comes a point where the past and future clash and one side must win. For the Mariners, this was no more obvious than when the team celebrated the 50th anniversary of the team’s inception over the course of 1976.

To put it diplomatically, the previous 50 years have been some of the most comically inept and irrelevant in American athletic history. Until “the Kid” came along, the most famous man to ever wear a Mariners logo was a serial killer; By the time Bill Bavasi was done with the team, the city saw him with equivalent contempt.

It’s hard to run out of ways to describe the depths of humiliation the team has found in 50 years. At least the Jacksonville Jaguars haven’t ever had that much raw generational talent; the M’s wasted the Hall of Fame primes of Ken Griffey Jr., Ichiro, and Edgar Martinez. If Randy Johnson hadn’t “quiet quit” more than two decades before that word entered common parlance, he would have suffered the same fate.

Nostalgia can be destructive even when the thing being looked back upon is good, but in the Mariners’ case, nostalgia seems diametrically opposed to success. It is as if there is a giant blinking neon sign telling the organization that it can choose one: dwelling on the past or winning a World Series. The M’s need not forget the past, but the outright reverence that the organization holds towards failure brings nothing but a rather karmic continuation of such.

After all, in 49 years of outsiders doubting the Seattle Mariners, those outsiders have been right 49 times. And based on the way the Mariners played against the Tampa Bay Rays - and the situation they put themselves in - there’s no reason to think that season 50 will end any differently.