The season is over now

"Our default is towards profundity." Stupid Matt, always being so right about crap in that special way that leaves no room for counter. I do default towards (attempted) profundity, and often in a way I know can veer towards trite and sentimentality. It is a weakness, and perhaps, at times a crutch.

So for this I'll be brief: The Mariners season is over. Like almost every year it's ended a failure. We're very used to all that by now. I've grown so accustomed to finding joy in my baseball outside of Mariner victories that losing seasons are starting to simply wash over me, like a rock worn smooth by the raging current.

The site will slow down for a few weeks or so. Some will enjoy the playoffs, root for a bandwagon team, soak in every last bit of baseball they can wring out of the year. Others were checked out long ago. A week from today I'll be on an airplane and then far away from my computer, the continental United States, and the Seattle Mariners; body and mind I intend to be fully elsewhere for a bit.

Very soon, perhaps by the time this is published, the Mariners and Jerry Dipoto will decide on the future employment status of Lloyd McClendon. That and other pertinent news will be covered, as always, in a timely and thorough fashion. There will always be a watcher on the wall. But, well, we're gonna breath for a little bit. It's been a long year.

2015 has been, for the Mariners and their fans, been yet another disappointment. But it would be dishonest to say it wasn't probably my favorite baseball season of my life. Getting an opportunity to manage and cultivate this place as lead editor is an honor and a joy, even while also being an immense source of pressure and resource management.

I keep thinking of Guti, rounding the bases with his arms out, ready to fly. I think of Jesus Sucre, just wanting to play to honor his mother. Matt's RANGER BLOOD, Patrick's Seattle Mariner Experience, Meg's Pro-bobblehead manifesto, Jake's Swiss watch-precision and predictability on previews, David agonizing over a script that turned the Mariners in Transformers, Peter photoshopping Fernando Rodney watching Fernando Rodney blow a save, Eric identifying Rodney tipping his pitches, Andrew's amazing ability to use numbers and data to tell interesting stories, every single week, Brendan's salute to Kyle Seager, Colin for always working harder than all of us to find the fun that's out there, and helping us to see it, Anders working late nights on the East Coast to always, always do the grunt work of LLinkage, Scott saying goodbye, and Jose Rivera, who's work cannot be featured here regularly for REASONS but hopefully this one, from SoftbaLL, is ok:

None of this stuff would be worth whatever small damn it is worth without all of you. From myself and the staff, we are so very grateful for every single one of you that read, shared, commented, linked, tweeted, hell even Facebooked along with us this year. The community of LL has, and will always be, what carries the water around here. Your standards, insights, and demands for high quality content are what leads us to push ourselves every day to find ways to make the often miserable experience of rooting for the Mariners insightful, fun, and hopefully a little more worthwhile.

Someday, hopefully next year, the Mariners will make it a bit easier, and the hangouts a lot more focused on baseball. But for 2015, I think we all did a hell of a job making the best of it.

Thank you.