Now that summer has started, I’ve been spending a large majority of time surfing over old baseball statistics on Baseball-Reference.com, admittedly one of the lamest ways to pass time.
When I visit Baseball Reference, I generally surf individual league leaders from years past and spend time researching old Seattle Mariners teams. I spent some time recently reading about the 2001 Mariners, the greatest sports team I’ve ever rooted for.
Every so often I have a crippling existential crisis over whether my Mariners’ fandom maintains any rational basis. Over the course of my conscious baseball-watching career (2001-12), the Nintendo Nine have reached the playoffs a grand total of one time, leaving me to watch last-place baseball teams slog their way through July and August as long as I can remember.
Most remember the Mariners in their more recent incarnations. The last five years have included three 90-loss seasons and not one September where anyone thought twice about giving playing time to Willie Bloomquist or Luis Ugueto.
After a three-year tenure of success from 2001-03 that produced a combined 302 wins but no trips past the ALCS, legendary Seattle general manager Pat Gillick retired.
The reigns of the proverbial ship (Mariner pun) were given to a man whose first job in baseball was obtained via questionably nepotistic acts. Bill Bavasi, the man entrusted with the keys, took the ship and crashed it into an enormous iceberg while simultaneously lighting matches and throwing large quantities of gasoline all over the deck floor.
The team spent four of the five Bavasi-era seasons mired in last place, with luminaries such as Scott Spiezio and Yuniesky Betancourt assuming responsibility for carrying some of the most anemic offenses in baseball history.
In short, being a Mariners fan hasn’t exactly been a fulfilling existence. In ten years, the closest I’ve come to sniffing the World Series was a couple years where we’d chase the Angels for first place into September, but inevitably fall short.
Well, except for 2001.
The squad started red-hot right off the bat, finishing the month of May with a 40-12 record. The Mariners continued their torrid pace over the course of the season, finishing with a record-tying 116 regular season wins.
I was eight years old when this all went down. As the postseason approached I’d stay up later and later to watch my hometown squad take on history. I idolized Ichiro and Edgar and Boonie. The joy and excitement of a playoff run exhilarated me and demonstrated the beautiful internal rewards of rooting for a pennant contender. The summer of 2001 was the summer I fell in love with baseball.
It’s all been downhill since then. But, luckily, I can always take solace in Baseball Reference.
Through the mediums of on-base percentages and ERA, I recall vivid memories from my youth and the reason why I learned to love this sport so much in the first place.
It’s a tiny, burning flame in the recesses of my pre-pubescent memory, but the fire of the flame burns hotter and hotter with the passing of each last-place finish.
Sometimes rooting for a pathetic sports team feels like a worthless expenditure of energy with no visible end. But thanks to a giant data warehouse, I can access a portal that reminds me rooting for a perennial underdog can surpass the boringly successful experience of rooting for the Yankees or the Angels — when the breaks finally start to fall our way.
Every year sans a championship tests the extent of my passion, and when that commitment pays off, the rewards will be even more fulfilling.
Hopefully, I won’t have to wait another twelve years.
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bery bery well writteen sir, vell dun.
The 2001 MLB season was one of the best that I remember:
- Mariners had a record regular season and represent a large chunk of the AL All-Star team.- Barry Bonds HR chase.
- Rise of Ichiro and Pujols.
- One of the top rated World Series of all time.
- MLB acts as one of the country’s healers following 911.