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The Curse of the Fake World Series

We’ve all heard it, "17 years since they last made the playoffs" and "longest active playoff drought among all 4 major sports." Personally, I have been waiting 29 years and counting for a World Series appearance. Others have been waiting since they first played a game in 1977. I’ve blamed players for underperforming, coaches for bad coaching, front offices for dumb personnel decisions, lack of development in the farm system, and management for not actually caring about winning. But today, when I stumbled upon an article written by Jayson Jenks on The Athletic, I found the reason behind all of this misery. It is simple and it has explained many other droughts in baseball history, the Seattle Mariners are cursed.

The article I'm referencing is "‘Fly, fly away’: The Story behind the Mariners’ unforgettable (and fake) World Series triumph" (subscription required). It tells the history of a broadcast the Mariners put together of an amazing World Series game 7 win over the Atlanta Braves back in 1994. Only problem, there was no World Series in the strike shortened season of ‘94. This broadcast was a fake to fill the void of postseason baseball and ever since, the baseball gods have been angry.

You might tell me that it happened right before the Mariners started getting good. That they went on to have the most incredible, and only, run of success from 1995 to the early 2000’s in franchise history. But I would argue that this is part of the curse, and that the baseball gods are extremely cruel. Not only do we have some of the most talented players of their generation on those teams, but they also broke records. We had Junior, A-Rod, The Big Unit, Gar, and Ichiro throughout that period. At the time, we hit the most homeruns in a season, and later won the most games in a season. Never once did we make a World Series appearance. The baseball gods wanted us to feel invincible right before they destroyed us. And then, they wanted us to feel nothing but hopelessness for years after.

That is why I am done blaming the people in the organization. The real reason behind the miserableness of being a Seattle Mariners fan is easy and has been hidden on a cassette tape from years ago, only recently unearthed. There was the Curse of the Bambino and the Curse of the Billy Goat, now we have the Curse of the Fake World Series. Our only hope would be if the Mariners somehow hired the Curse Breaker himself, Theo Epstein.