FanPost

The first year

My dad knocked on my bedroom door at 2:30 a.m. Daylight was still hours away. He stifles a yawn and tells me to get out of bed. Normally, 10 year old me would’ve moaned and complained, begged for 10 more minutes and shoved my head back under the pillow. But today was different. Most of the time, getting out of bed meant school. But not today.


"Alright," my dad croaked sleepily. "Let’s go."



The calendar says March 6, 2004.


I get out of bed in a rush of excitement. My dad stands there blearily, blinking, clearly regretting getting out of bed himself. Saturday’s are his one day of the week to sleep in. He works in a warehouse, and has to wake up at 4:20 every morning. But this Saturday different, today is the day Mariners tickets go on sale.


We go downstairs, and I eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes as my dad sleepily pours coffee into a travel mug.


The morning air is crisp and chilly. Hints of sunlight are still far away from sight. The old Mazda truck sputters and coughs, as if it can’t believe it true is trying to shake off the vestiges of sleep. The streets were abandoned, all lights snuffed out by people reasonable enough to be in bed.



We drive for about a half an hour, down to Southcenter Mall. Back in those days, Southcenter was nothing fancy. The Mariners store was three stores in from the entrance, and already, a line of people shivered outside, ready for the doors to open and the single game tickets to go on sale.


Once we had a place in line, my dad told me to wait there while he went and got breakfast at Jack in the Box. I nod my head, just happy to be there, trying to get tickets to my first opening day. A man and his wife stand in front of us, both wearing bullpen jackets and drinking hot chocolate out of white Starbucks cups.


The man looks over at me and smiles.


"Did you drag your dad out bed to be here?"


I nod yes, still a little too cold to speak.


"It’s gonna be a good one this year!," the man says. "They got some good players. Should definitely be in the playoffs this year."


I agreed with him wholeheartedly. The season before had ended in heart wrenching disappointment. The 2003 Mariners had won 93 games for the second straight season, and for the second straight season, failed to make the playoffs. Incredibly, in 2002, the Mariners won 93 games and finished in third place, behind the division winning Oakland Athletics, and the wild card winners and eventual World Champion Anaheim Angels. The next season saw the Mariners finish in second place, but lose the wild card by two games to the Boston Red Sox. After watching the Mariners fail to make it to the World Series in 2001 after the Sweet 116 season, I wept bitter tears.


But after two years of coming so close yet again, I was sure that 2004 was the year.


"Freddy is going to be awesome this year!" I squeaked.


Fredy Garcia, the Mariners ace, had had his first down season in 2003. After winning 18 and 16 games, respectively, in 2001 and 2002, his ERA had skyrocketed up to 4.51, with 14 losses. Along with Freddy, there’d rumblings of a new young Venezuelan prospect in the minors, whom they called The King.


The Mariners had hired a new general manager with a baseball royalty name. Bill Bavasi had a name that I loved to repeat out loud over and over, it’s alliteration popping off my lips like bubblegum. Bavasi had signed a pair of exciting new free agents who had made big names for themselves in the 2002 World Series. After the defection of Carlos Guillen to the Detroit Tigers, Rich Aurilia was a fantastic pick up. The season before, Aurilia finished with a .277 average with the Giants, an OPS of .735, and 58 RBI. Another new face was Scott Spiezio, the red-headed man with a passing resemblance to Satan, who had been a big part of the Angels lineup for years. Spiezio had been a middle of the lineup bat , and looked to be a good pickup at third base for the Mariners. After the flameout that was Jeff Cirillo, fresh blood was needed. Those two were going to combine forces with Bret Boone, Edgar Martinez and John Olerud to propel the Mariners to a division title.


The doors finally opened several hours later, and the line snaked through the store. I spent dad’s money on a new Mariners hat, along with the tickets we bought, and started counting down until Opening Day, April 6, 2004. Seattle Mariners vs. Anaheim Angels.


*

The day finally came. It was the first day of spring break. Dad took the day off work, and my sister Brianna and I piled into the truck to make our way 35 miles north, to Safeco Field.


We walked through the center field gates, and I felt the excitement of a new season wash over me. The field never looked greener than that early April day. The players played catch in the outfield under the huge grey roof. It was a cold, blustery day, more concerned with the reality of a northwest spring than the promise of the coming summer. Jamie Moyer, the Ancient Mariner was playing long toss with Dan Wilson in left-center field. We made our way up the third level. Our tickets were on the third base side, up in the nosebleeds. The teams were introduced in turn, the roars erupting for each of our hometown heroes.


As the game began, I settled into my seat. Moyer retired the Angels in the first inning, and the Mariners went down in order in the bottom half. In the second, the 2004 Mariners began to take shape. Jose Molina blasted a home run deep into the left field bullpen, putting the Mariners down 1-0. They tied it up in the bottom half of the second, but Troy Glaus made sure joy was not to had in Mudville that day, blasting two more homers before Moyer was pulled in the sixth. The Mariners lost that day, 10-5. Rich Aurilia was a San Diego Padre by August.


Scott Spiezio was an unqualified disaster, hitting .215 in 2004, and an incredibly feeble .064 the next season before being mercifully released. The Mariners lost the first five games of the 2004 season, and by the All-Star break that season, their record was 32-54. No division title was to be had. 99 losses. 29 games out of first place. The last game of the year, I watched on television as Edgar Martinez popped the ball up to the third baseman, and walked off the field for the final time to a standing ovation for the ages.


The 2004 season was my first real introduction to a disaster of a season, and a disaster of a GM. Bill Bavasi stumbled his way through the next 4 and a half seasons, trading away future All-Stars for the likes of Eduardo Perez, Ben Broussard, and Erik Bedard. Richie Sexson came and went. Adrian Beltre made a pitstop on his way to a Hall of Fame career. Freddy Garcia was with the Chicago White Sox by July.


Every opening day since 2004, I’ve been sitting there eagerly waiting for the game and season to begin, THIS time full of hope and surely filled with joy. And every fall ended the way they all do. Leaves fall to the ground noiselessly, laying there on the ground in front of my parent’s faded, creaky porch swing. The season ends, football returns to tv, and.The Mariners are packed away in a box in the closet, ready to erupt like confetti when the spring returns. The feelings never go away.

Every season since that morning has ended in disappointment. The mall is different, having morphed into an angry monster, like a haunted funhouse where nobody can find the doors.
My dad and I still share a love of the Mariners that flies in the the face of all self-preservation and logic. In recent years, as I buy Opening Day tickets, he rolls his eyes in cynicism and hopeful exasperation, sipping his coffee and looking over my shoulder. But several times throughout the summer, I will drag him to a game, and his eyes will light up and cheer in a moment of glory. Guarding his heart against the pain that we have so often been subject to, occasionally he allows the light to creep in. A smile, a high-five, sitting in the memories we have built up over the decades.


My dad doesn’t get up at 2:30 in the morning to get tickets anymore. It’s a tradition that we laugh at now, 13 years later. The invention of online ticket sales makes that joy an obsolete one. But I still remember the cold bitter air of that morning, that same feeling echoing throughout seasons to come. That morning was full of hope. The darkness long, the recent memory of rain kissing the sky. But when the sun started to peek over the clouds, rewarding those of us who stood in the dark and the cold, we knew that, eventually, the day would be blazing with light.