A good inside baseball piece by Mr. Kepner as is expected.
I don't,know that much about Mariners but they seem to be so far out west as if they might be in Hawaii or beyond. They are never in MLB picture as detailed here.
I have been to all MLB parks and plus some more.
The Mariners field with a retractable roof is nice but it is so big or at least seemed to me to take intimacy out of the game.
I took in a few games but the only part I remember well was the gallery of fans with King Felix boosters.
And oh yes, Ichiro sushi.
But they hardly appear on baseball radar - almost like today's Blue Jay's. They are like long lost cousins or something.
Hard to put a finger on but may be because we never get much news out of that part of the world. Something like that famous Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover
Not sure if Seattle is meant to have a baseball team.
Thanks for covering the Mariners! ESPN had a nice piece similar to this the other day. Their GM has the strategy of locating talented players buried on the depth chart of another organization (Vogelbach playing second fiddle to Rizzo in Chicago was one example).
The bullpen and defense need to be shored up over time yet all the homers have made it fun enough to watch.
And yes, unreal food and drink choices compared to your typical ballpark. Especially if you are a beer drinker.
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Ah for the glory days of Junior, Edgar, A-Rod. Rebuilding should not take 18 years plus.
It's still a lot of fun to go to Mariners games, and their radio announcing team can't be beat. Hoping Kyle Seager's return helps with the defense.
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Marlins were very successful building a team on a budget. Why doesn't MLB adopt their formula? Answer: we have tons of money, we have to sell newspapers??? and, money can buy anyone and everything.
Apparently sometimes it can , otherwise not by a long shot. But then, it does make the news.....
The Mariners are oddly where the Giants were after winning their third Series in five years, needing to rejuvenate without tearing the whole thing down. My Jints, now 16-20 as usual, botched things grandly, though it's not easy to trade away players who've been elected gods. Better luck to the Mariners. We need another good West Coast team for ESPN to ignore. Thanks NYT for taking the time.
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And...we are back to .500 and falling. I'll believe any of this when it happens. At least Safeco, oops I mean T-Mobile, has a great beer and food selection and there are so many other things to do during glorious PNW summers.
I've been a fan of the team for nearly 40 years and like many other fans of sports teams, I just want a bit of success. A trip our of the also-ran column would be nice.
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A welcome new story in MLB, where the same teams and same stories have been winning for too long.
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