Yeah, you’re right.
And in response to David over at Sports and Bremertonians — in case there was any confusion, don’t worry, I wasn’t condoning that awful, right-out-of-Howard-Lincoln’s-mouth piece of drivel. Just so we’re clear.
No you don’t, any more than we really wish that we could be ignorant and thus blissful.
I wish I shared this guy’s optimism.
Unless I’m mistaken, the 2004 Mariners are going to be on par with, if not a slightly better team than the one that won 116 games in 2001, albeit a tad older.
With a couple of days left in the year, I’ve been thinking about writing a couple of things: “Six Pitches” a long piece about single pitches out of the M’s season that turned them from division winners into also-rans (and why, ultimately, such speculation is meaningless), some others, but instead, here’s my favorite moment of 2003.
On April 22nd, the M’s led 3-2 going into the ninth. Kaz came in and put three guys on, one scoring, and left the tied game with back trouble. Second-lefty-in-the-pen Carrara was called in to face Josh Bard, and walked him to load the bases. Selby hit for Blake and singled in two runs and Mike Cameron made a beautiful catch in center to get the team out of the inning.
And then Randy Winn got on with a cheap single, Boone walked, Edgar singled in Winn (5-4 now), Olerud walked, and with the bases loaded Mike Cameron steps to the plate. He takes a strike (“Boooooo” said the anti-Cameron crowd) and on the second pitch pulls a high fly ball — and Jason, and Dave, and I all started to stand, feeling my skin start to crackle with electricity, screaming “Get out! Get out!” at a stupid ball with no ears and then laughing with joy as it went into the stands over the scoreboard and the place went insane. All was forgiven — the bullpen’s ninth-inning collapse, original sin, whatever — Mike Cameron won the game.
That’s what I think of when I want to cheer myself up this off-season. I was at the game cheering Cameron’s home run into the stands, in fine company. That’s why we play the games.
No matter how stupid the team acts, it’s worth remembering we’ll be able to see thirty Jamie Moyer starts, Edgar hit, and hopefully, we’ll see the first full season of Soriano in the rotation as he develops into (I hope) the Cy Young candidate we saw in his future this year.