Seattle vs. Philly

1 Fan, 2 Teams.  Same sport.  Bill Simmons clearly states as one of the "Cardinal Rules of Fandom" - you cannot under any circumstances be a fan of multiple teams in the same sport.  So why am I writing about 2 baseball teams, one might wonder.  Well, it's a long story.  Short version: I have no excuse.  It's wrong.  It's not "true fandom".  It may arguably be one of the worst things I've done in my life.  Or it may not be the worst thing I've done today.  You be the judge.

I grew up a Phillies fan.  I lived 15 minutes from Veterans Stadium - across the river in southern New Jersey, and I vaguely remember the World Championship in 1980 (the Phillies first and only).  I more fondly remember the "Wheeze Kids" of 1983 when old-timers Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez helped the Phillies to a surprising World Series, which they lost to Baltimore.  And I certainly remember the worst-to-first NL Champion Phillies of 1993, with its colorful cast of down and dirty stars like Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, and Darren Daulton.  Michael Jack Schmidt was my favorite baseball player for as long as I can remember, "Lefty" was my favorite pitcher, and I still think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame.  So me? Yeah, Phillies fan.

The Mariners?  As of 1991, I hardly even knew they existed, but then very few in the majors did.  They had endured 14 seasons since coming into the league with nary a sniff of .500.  The only thing they had going for them was a budding young star named Ken Griffey Jr.   So where do I come in?  2 words:  Fantasy baseball.

1992 marked my first year in what was then called "rotisserie" baseball - I don't know what it was named for - somebody who spent too much time at KFC?  Anyway, this was my first year in any fantasy league whatsoever, when my friends talked me into selecting a bunch of players from American League teams and forming our own teams, tracking the stats, and betting on who would win.  It seemed like such an innocent idea at the time.  Little did I know that it would lead to me staying up until 1 am on  a weeknight to see if Brandon Lyon can convert a save in a Colorado-Arizona game in mid April 2005.  But I digress.

Back to the Mariners.  I didn't know a damn thing about the American League back in 1992, well except that I hated the Yankees.  Growing up before ESPN baseball and interleague baseball  and wild card playoffs, I watched the only games that were ever regularly on television - the Phillies.  And they never played the AL.  Once I got to Rutgers, I got inundated with some Yankees crap, but they sucked at the time and there wasn't a single person around spewing shit about their "history" or "dynasties" or any of that.  In fact, every Yankee fan I could find (they were a lot harder to find than Mets fans back then - what I call the "good old days") wanted to kill George Steinbrenner.

    In the past twenty years you have caused myself, and the city of New York, a good deal of distress, as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego.

So I didn't know the AL, which posed a problem for drafting players in a fantasy league consisting only of AL teams.  But I had some magazine or some chart or something that had a list of the league leaders in all the categories we were using - actually I think all of us shared the same sheet, which is a bit different than today, when me and Rob spend most of August meticulously compiling a projection for the probable 3rd down running back on the Houston Texans.  And on this chart, there were the league's stars - Griffey, Clemens, Cal Ripken Jr, Wade Boggs, etc., who all got drafted early.  By the 6th round, though, I distinctly remember that the only name left was one I didn't know - "E.Martinez, Sea".  He was among the league leaders in batting average in 1991, and so - from some divine intervention - I made the pick.  And the rest is history.

I had drafted Boggs in the 4th round, but for some unknown reason had mislabeled him as a 2nd baseman when I put him down, so when I selected Edgar I didn't realize that I had 2 third baseman, which was unnecessary, so I immediately was cursing my pick of Edgar and fashioning up every trade I could to get "rid" of him - heck, I still didn't know who he was.  But in the second week of the year, my starting shortstop, Ozzie Guillen, went down with a season-ending injury.  I didn't have  a backup.  So I had to trade one of my 3rd basemen.  My trading partners insisted on Boggs, though, and I pulled the trigger, getting back Alan Trammell in return.  Trammell lasted all of one week for my team before also going out for the year with injury.  I never did get a proper shortstop, as Andy Stankiewicz (of the Yankees) got the most at-bats of my shortstops.  It didn't matter though.  While Boggs struggled through the worst season of his career (by far), the third baseman I got "stuck with" became one of the best hitters in the majors.

Edgar Martinez in 1992, as a young (yes he used to be young) third baseman (yes he used to play the field) for the Seattle Mariners, led the American League in hitting, at .343, led the league in doubles (another category of ours), scored 100 runs, hit 18 home runs, and stole 14 bases (yes he used to be able to move without an hourglass to time him).  He led my team in 3 offensive categories and was easily the "most valuable player" on my team, which went on to win the inaugural rotisserie league (portending many years of dominance in future EFFL leagues).  He became my favorite non-Phillies player in baseball.

So I ended up watching a lot of Mariners games that season.  ESPN baseball had begun.  I think back then they had games on just about every night of the week, with doubleheaders on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Seattle was often the back half of the doubleheader, on late at night, and I watched them quite a bit, slowly becoming an M's fan.  And it wasn't just Edgar.  A first year Tino Martinez became my "corner infielder" (ironically replacing Boggs), while future ESPN Baseball analyst Harold Reynolds was my starting 2nd baseman.  Randy Johnson, who was then more wild than super, was one of my starting pitchers for several weeks, and former Yankee Jay Buhner started in my outfield.  This is where it began.

In 1993, I drafted Edgar again, and I think I had Buhner again and maybe a couple others.  But even though Edgar got hurt and missed most of the season, I still had grown to like the team so much that I continued to follow them.  My fantasy team sucked that year, but the Mariners were great - well, great for them, recording their first .500 season in history behind first year manager Lou Piniella.  Of course, the Phillies were on their way to the World Series, so it wasn't like the Mariners were my biggest rooting interest, but I was definitely following them as my favorite American League team.  And since this was way before interleague play, there was no chance of the two teams ever playing (outside of the World Series), so I really saw no harm in it.  But then came the strike and the lost season of 1994 (in which both teams sucked) and then the pivotal year, 1995.

The Phillies were still trying to recapture the glory days of '93 but just about everyone from that team suffered through injuries in '94 and '95 and they began a long descent back to the mediocrity that haunted them during the late '80s.  In fact, they didn't have a winning season again until 2001, and 1993 is still the only year in the past 21 that the Phillies have even made the playoffs.  So it's certainly not a surprise that my eyes may have wandered a bit.  And 1995 was the year that did it.

It was a miracle season.  The Angels had a 13 game lead on the Mariners at the start of August but then faltered.  The M's played amazingly well behind the return from injury of Ken Griffey, using the slogan "Refuse to Lose" and making an incredible surge to tie the Angels on the last weekend of the season.  Edgar led the AL in hitting at .356 and led the Mariners in almost every offensive category.  This was the first year of the wild card, but the Yankees had already clinched it (behind division winning Baltimore), so the AL West division loser would be going home for the season, leading to a 1-game division championship between the Angels and Mariners, which was played on a Monday at around 4:30.  I remember racing home from work to catch the game, which featured a pitching duel between each team's ace - Randy Johnson and Mark Langston.  They were each dealing with the M's holding on to a 1-0 lead until Luis Sojo's slap single down the first base line in the 7th inning cleared the bases and the Mariners went on to win the game.  They made the first playoffs of their history.

Waiting for them in the first round?  The most evil putrid thing on the planet - the Yankees.  Now my Yankee hatred at the time was not as fully developed as it is now.  I mostly hated the Yankees then because I hated all things New York.  I grew up in south Jersey, involved in Philadelphia sports, but moved to north Jersey for college and work, and grew to hate everything about the city - especially the sports teams.  I rooted against the Giants in 1991, against the Rangers in 1994 (I might even still own a Vancouver Canucks T-shirt) and against the Knicks that same year.  But the Yankees had mostly laid low - by sucking - and it wasn't until the later successful years, with the ballooning payroll, the fans' smug "we are the best" attitudes, and Derek Jeter that my hatred really grew strong.  In 1995, I just wanted the Mariners to win.

They lost the first two games, but Randy Johnson came back on 3 days rest after the 1-game playoff win vs. California to win the home game on Friday.  The Mariners were also home on Saturday and Sunday (in the first year of the wild card, baseball made the division winner play the first 2 games away - great idea, Bud).  Anyway, the Saturday night game was a sluggers' classic, with each team taking dramatic leads before the Mariners held on to win, 11-8, behind a grand slam by Edgar.  In the 5th and deciding game, the Yankees had a 4-2 lead in the 8th inning before the M's again "Refuse[d] to Lose" and tied it.  Lou Piniella brought Johnson into the game on 1 day of rest to pitch the 9th.  The Yankees responded with starter Jack McDowell and the game went to extra innings.  When the Yankees took the 5-4 lead in the 11th, things looked bleak.  But then Joey Cora and Griffey each singled, bringing up Edgar Martinez.  As the home crowd roared and I cheered wildly, Edgar smoked a double into the alley and Griffey scored all the way from first.  The Mariners win. THEEEEEEEE Mariners win! 
(Note:  That was the last chance I have had to celebrate a significant postseason win by the M's over the Yankees). 

So I was hooked by then.  Despite a loss to Cleveland in the ALCS and a playoff miss in 1996, I had become a huge Mariners fan.  They were a strong team throughout the late '90s - behind Edgar and future Hall of Famers Griffey, Johnson, and A-Rod.  And after the three of them left for bigger fame and fortune elsewhere, Edgar led a bunch of overachievers to the most wins in the history of baseball in 2001.  Of course, they lost to the Yankees in the ALCS in both 2000 and 2001, but that only somewhat diminished their accomplishments.  Even after their down seasons of 2002 and 2003 and their outright collapse last year, I remain a loyal fan. 

So which is it?  Phillies or Mariners?  Well I have to just continue to say both.  I have been a Phillies fan much longer - for all my life - but for the last 10 years, I've been a much bigger Mariners fan.  If they ever played each other in the World Series?  Well, I don't think it will matter who I root for, what with the world ending and all.

Comments

[Jonathan]

I couldn't make it through the entire article, but let me say two things.

1) Edgar Martinez never played the field and hasn't owned a baseball glove since he was a kid.

2) Rooting for two teams in a single sport is an absoulte disgrace. You cannot be a die-hard fan and claim to have two favorite teams. that's ridiculous. You're allowed one team per sport, and that's it.

[king kong]

Enough of this baseball talk...when the hell are we playing cards again so I can win some more of your money

[rider]

Just more proof that fantasy sports are better than real sports.