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I don’t care why you did it. Maybe you don’t know why either. Maybe you’re not well and if that’s the case then I’m very sorry for all that’s led you to this decision. But, you can still fuck right off.
I had never even entertained the thought that someone would ever deface a statue of such a beloved and celebrated baseball player. A player with the highest percentage of Hall of Fame votes ever. A player who, along with a very special team of ballplayers, prevented Seattle from losing their second baseball franchise in 1995. A player with a highlight reel that plays on repeat in the subconscious of every baseball fan in the Northwest who lived through his prime playing days in Seattle.
We Mariners fans are a hardy, self-deprecating bunch. We own our suffering and do not put on false airs. Season after season, we get our hearts stomped on. Sometimes it’s in April or June. Other times it’s in September. But we do have our pride, dammit. We have a handful of players whose reputations we hang our hats on as fans. Edgar. Randy. Ichiro. Felix. And George Kenneth Griffey, Jr.
You besmirch the name of any of those players (or god forbid, vandalize a statue), and what you’ve done is flicked a lit match into the vat of gasoline that is the average Mariners fan’s pool of dormant rage and frustration. This is not something you want to do. Have you ever seen a Mariners fan snap? Like, really lose it? I have. It’s ugly and unsettling.
So what you’ve done, unknown person, is kick a fanbase when they’re already down after a particularly rough season. Yes, it’s just a statue of a baseball player, but it’s also a symbol of civic pride. A symbol that the franchise wanted to put on the public sidewalk outside of the stadium for all to see without charge.
Not only have you stepped on the pride of Mariners fans, but you’ve also betrayed the trust the franchise put in our community that a statue of a beloved player could stand in the public right of way unmolested.
The flaming barge of garbage that is 2017 continues to sail on and just shit and piss all over everything that is good and nice in the world. And you’ve contributed to that. So, yeah. You can fuck right off.