(relaxing music) - [Jon] It was A-Rod's team now, and in 2000, he made
sure everyone knew it. It can be safely argued
that despite missing two weeks due to a
concussion, he pieced together the greatest individual season
in Seattle Mariners history, even to this day. He finished with an incredible
wins above replacement figure of 10.4. If you choose to take that
literally, you could say the Mariners, who barely
snuck into the playoffs after narrowly holding off Cleveland in the wild-card race,
had Rodriguez to thank. There should've been hope in Seattle. After all, their 91 wins
were a franchise record, but the city had lost
Randy Johnson one year and Junior the next only
to spend another year wondering how in the world they were gonna keep A-Rod in town. He was set to become a
free agent at season's end, and nearly a dozen teams
were ready to drive truckloads of money to his door. This might happen again. It couldn't happen again. After making short work of the White Sox in the first round of the playoffs, they advanced to the
ALCS to meet the Yankees, the ancient beast they
seemed to have awakened when they beat 'em back in '95. While the Mariners had
spent the rest of the decade watching their massive
potential go to waste, Griffey's old archrival
promptly turned around and won the World Series
in '96, '98, and '99. A-Rod beat the hell out
of them that series, hitting .409 and leading
both teams in total bases. But he confronted the same
immutable truth Junior had year after year: that no
player, no matter how great, can do it himself. The Yankees sent the
Mariners home in six games en route to yet another
World Series title, their fourth in five years. The loss tore A-Rod's heart out. He had a decision to make now. He could take Junior's
road and stick it out, which ultimately ended
with him getting homesick and heading back to
Ohio without ever having caught his whale. Understandably, A-Rod
took the money instead, signing a 10-year deal with the Rangers to complete what was
then the largest contract in the history of sports. In being paid what he was worth, he became the villain everywhere he went. Incredibly, both Rodriguez and the Rangers would later say they regretted the deal. A few years later, Rodriguez himself ended up on the Yankees. In a level of vengeance that
reads like the Old Testament at this point, the former
Seattle fan favorite was bashed relentlessly by New York media and resented by Yankees fans despite putting up incredible numbers. He was just eaten alive out here. It's tempting to wonder how
it might have been different. In 1995 when Edgar Martinez hit the double that saved Seattle
baseball, the batter on deck was a 20-year-old Alex
Rodriguez who hadn't yet done much of anything
in the major leagues. You may have noticed
him off in the margins of that unforgettable shot of Junior. What if Edgar hadn't hit that double and A-Rod had a chance to step in and take one of the most consequential at-bats in the history of baseball? Would he have remained a Mariner for life after that? Would his legacy have
been different somehow? It's impossible to say, but
he was on his own road now. As for the Mariners, their
1990s fever dream passed. They lost Junior one year, Randy the next, A-Rod the year after that. Edgar was still around and hitting well, but he was 38 years old all of a sudden, and he had been battling
issues with his eyesight. He'd had trouble tracking the ball, a terrifying problem for a hitter, and required daily vision exercises just to stay in baseball at all. The aging Jay Buhner
was still on the roster, but his career was all but finished. During that Mariners-Yankees
series in 2000, Seattle fans had camped out in line outside Safeco Field for
World Series tickets. They had sat out there in
the rain for days on end. Among them was a women
there to buy tickets as a gift for her mother,
accompanied by her little pet ferret dressed up in a matching Mariners jersey and ball cap. After days of being
rained on and made fun of by passers-by, they packed up, and went home with nothing. The party was over. (dramatic music) Alex, what the fuck was that? (dramatic music) - [Alex] Coming off that franchise-record 91-win season, the Mariners exploded for an MLB record-tying 116 wins, matching the 1906 Cubs. They were among the best
in MLB at everything, scoring more runs than everyone and allowing fewer runs than everyone. A pretty significant
reason for this domination of the entire MLB landscape stemmed from internal improvement
of guys already on the team. Starting pitchers Freddy
Garcia and Aaron Sele each had what was ultimately the best year of their lengthy careers. The ageless Jamie Moyer
continued his agelessness as he approached his fifth decade of life, painting corners with his
85-mile-an-hour fastball and off-speed craftsmanship,
and joining Garcia in the top four of AL Cy Young voting. Arthur Rhodes, Jeff Nelson,
and closer Kazuhiro Sasaki spearheaded MLB's best bullpen with an unheard-of-for-that-era
ERA of 3.04. Their offense still had
Edgar at the tail end of his peak and they got the best season from the career of Griffey's center field heir apparent Mike Cameron in year two in the Emerald City. But two new bats in particular
were what really catapulted a very good team into
an absolute juggernaut. Second baseman Bret Boone
signed a free-agent deal with the Mariners prior
to that '01 season. The 10-year vet came into
the year a career .255 batter who'd never had a 100-RBI season while homering on about
3.2% of his at-bats. From out of nowhere, a
suddenly jacked Boone batted .331, drove in his
100th run on August 1, and had a home-run rate
that spiked to just a shade under 6% in 2001. Quite serendipitous. And while Buhner missed most of the season with a foot injury, the sun had set on his time in right field regardless, ceded to a new Mariner
was was ready to take everything we thought
we knew about baseball and flip it completely upside down. To take every limit, ceiling, or boundary we might naturally
expect from a ballplayer and blow it to smithereens. The 2001 American League Most Valuable Player, Ichiro Suzuki. (upbeat music) - [Jon] Where to start? Okay, we think of the
balance between science and sentimentalism as
a sliding scale, right? If you're more of one,
you're less of the other. Well, Ichiro was both in extreme measure. Take his bats for example. The scientist in him would travel with a custom-built
dehumidifier to regulate their moisture content and adjust it according to the climate
of the city he was in. The sentimentalist in
him once felt so guilty about throwing his bat in frustration that he took it back to his hotel room and tucked it into bed that night, and later wrote a letter of
apology to its manufacturer. It is incredibly difficult
and almost impossible to innovate as an
offensive baseball player. While sports like football and basketball have evolved dramatically over the years, in baseball the cake is pretty much baked. To me, only four offensive players have really stood out as iconoclasts whose statistical footprint made clear that they were playing a
different variant of the sport, that they found greatness by doing what no one around them was doing. First, Babe Ruth. For the first 50 years or so of baseball, virtually nobody hit more
than 20 home runs in a season. Then Ruth set the all-time record with 29, then nearly doubled his own
record the next year with 54, and the dam broke after that. Then there was Rickey Henderson, who set the modern single-season stolen-base record with 130. No one's come within
miles of it in decades, just like no one else has ever stolen anywhere near 1,400 bases. But it was more than just that,
he was also a great hitter who was masterful at drawing walks, and was far better than most base stealers at getting on base in the first place. There's only ever been
one Rickey Henderson. Of course, we have to
acknowledge Barry Bonds, although not for his home-run hitting. An on-base percentage at least
.500 is almost unheard of. Only 10 guys have ever done it. Bonds did it four times
in four consecutive years. The fourth and final member
of this club is Ichiro, the first-ever Japanese position player to break into Major League Baseball, and one of only 32 players
ever to retire with 3,000 hits. This shouldn't have been possible. Unlike the other 31 who typically began their major league careers around age 20, an agreement between Japanese
and American baseball prevented Ichiro from entering the majors until his age-27 season. It was a shame, since
Ichiro had wanted to play alongside Junior and A-Rod for years, only to finally end up in Seattle right after they both left town. He really had to bust his hump to get into this 3,000-hit club. Junior didn't make it here.
Neither did Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, or Ted Williams. Against all logic, despite showing up nearly a decade late, Ichiro did. - [Alex] In the wake of having spent the first nine professional
seasons of his career in Japan, when he finally arrived in Seattle, his effort to make up for lost time far exceeded anything we'd
ever seen in MLB history. From day one, and for a
decade moving forward, Ichiro piled up over 2,200 hits. Not only is that by far
the most that any player's ever had in any 10-year stretch, but for the most part, Ichiro
didn't even need 10 years. He surpassed 2,000 hits
during his ninth season. After 2009, he could've
actually just been like, nah, I'm good, taken
the ensuing season off and still have been the first player since Pete Rose to have
cleared 2K in any 10-year run. There's no one else you can
even mention in the same breath. Ichiro simply existed in his own universe of batting wizardry. - [Jon] Three main
factors brought him here. The first was his incredible ability to stay healthy and in shape. In 2017, keep in mind Ichiro
had been in the states for more than 15 years by this time, Tom Brady reached out to him to ask about his workout regimen. Ichiro had no idea who he was. Second, his masterful
ability to hit anything and place the ball anywhere. We have hit location data
dating back to the 1988 season. From then until now, Ichiro
has more singles up the middle than anybody and has more singles to the opposite field than anybody. Within this same window,
we can look at every player who managed at least 2,500 hits. In general, their hits
landed to a preferred side of the field or in the middle. They only hit the ball
to the opposite side of the field about half as often. Ichiro, meanwhile, was less
predictable than anybody, hitting toward left field and right field almost equally as often. Now, a lot of these were infield hits, which brings us to his
third superpower, his speed. Again within this same
window, Ichiro laid down more infield hits than anybody. Statheads will rightly point out here that he only has that
many in the first place because his batted balls
stayed in the infield so often, which isn't optimal. Who cares? Just watch him in the 2001 All-Star Game, which naturally is in Seattle. Facing off against our
old friend Randy Johnson, he dinks one over to first. This should be a guaranteed out, but this is what made Ichiro so exciting: virtually any ground ball
was a three-second thriller. Remember this: it's 90
feet from home to first, but just 60 from the
pitcher's mound to first. Ichiro has 50% more ground
to cover than Randy does. Now, let's play it again from the top. - [Announcer] Leads the American
League in hits with 134. - [Announcer Two] Rolls
one over to Helton, Johnson's not there, base hit. - [Jon] Ichiro just made
up a 30-foot disadvantage in three-and-a-half seconds. He ran like this on every
batted ball in every game he played for years and years. Even if they did throw
him out, every ground ball he hit produced a fire drill. I'm not sure there's ever been a more exciting baseball player. Just as compelling as his
statistical footprint, which seems to belong to a
player from a different age, is the man himself. Ichiro, you bat left-handed
despite being a natural righty, why is that? "I don't know." Ichiro, haven't you
been intimidated by all these big, strong American pitchers? "No." Ichiro, who do you ask for
advice when you're in a slump? "Me." Ichiro, in just your eighth
Major League Baseball game, you made one of the throws of the decade to nail Terrence Long from right field. - [Announcer] Terrence
Long, the throw by Ichiro, beautiful peg, he got him! - [Jon] How did you do it? "Why did he run when I
was gonna throw him out?" Ichiro, what's your dog's name? "I don't have my dog's
permission to tell you that." Ichiro, what will you do once you retire? "I don't know, I guess I'll die." There's something I find really inspiring about Ichiro's friendly,
matter-of-fact stubbornness. You can see it in his
words and in his play. None of this was supposed to work. None of it was supposed
to carry over from Japan. But Ichiro knew it would, and he wasn't gonna change a damn thing about the way he played baseball. Analyst and former player Rob Dibble declared at the start of
the season that if Ichiro won the batting title,
he'd get an Ichiro tattoo on his butt and run around
Times Square in a g-string. That season, Ichiro hit .350
and won the batting title, the Rookie of the Year
award, the MVP award, a Silver Slugger, and a Gold Glove. Thanks for playing, Rob. Like Junior, Ichiro was
one of the most thrilling and unique baseball players
the sport has ever seen. (peaceful music) And just like the Mariners in
the '90s belonged to Junior, the Mariners of the
aughts belonged to Ichiro. - [Alex] Ichiro was a
player unlike any other when it came to game-to-game reliability. He was a metronome who
had five different seasons in which he got a hit
in at least 130 games. Not only has no one else ever
had more than two such seasons, but Ichiro alone counts for nearly a third of all the times that's been
done in the integration era. That's just for games
with at least one hit, how about games with multiple hits? Well, he also had five
seasons in which he did that in at least 70 games, when, again, no one else has
more than twice in this time. That's five seasons
where he could have been reasonably considered to
have a near coin-flip chance of multiple hits each and every time out, which, again, accounts for
quite a significant chunk of all such seasons. But one of my favorite
Ichiro things I've discovered is that in 2004, throughout the
60 games the Mariners played between June 30 and September
4, he accumulated 120 hits. Put down your calculators, I gotcha. That is an even two hits per Mariners game for a period stretching
more than two months. I was curious if anyone
else has ever sniffed a similar cluster of hits across such a lengthy amount of time. Turns out, not really. Here is every instance
going back over 70 years of an MLB player reaching even 100 hits across any 60-game stretch
of his team's season. It's extremely rare. Just not for Ichiro. Propelled by those couple
scintillating months, Ichiro put himself in position to wage an assault on George
Sisler's 84-year-old record of 257 hits in a single season. A five-hit outburst on
September 21 in Anaheim meant 2004 Ichiro became
just the second player to surpass 240 hits since
the Hoover administration, joining 2001 Ichiro. (peaceful music) They then wrapped up a lengthy road trip with Ichiro standing at 256 hits, just one shy of Sisler's mark with a three-game homestand
against the Rangers on deck to wrap up the season. In what was supposed to
be a weekend honoring the retiring Edgar Martinez
in the final few games of his career, Ichiro wasted zero time in providing plenty of more
festivities to celebrate. To lead off the series,
he hit this chopper that found its way to left field. - [Announcer] And a ground
ball, one-hopper, there it is! There's the tie, there's number 257. - [Alex] Record tied. But things could have soon gone very awry when Ichiro lost his
footing while attempting to make a play on this
third-inning foul ball. It's cool though -- since he's a cyborg, Ichiro was totally fine
to lead off the next frame for his second at-bat of the game, where he officially relegated Sisler to a silver medalist with
this bouncer up the middle. - [Announcer] And a ground
ball back up the middle and there it is, he's
the new all-time hit king in major league history, number
two-five-eight. My oh my! - [Alex] Seattle was
overflowing with pride. Japan was overflowing with pride. Ichiro had reached immortality. He tacked on another four hits
across his final 12 at-bats for good measure to finish up at 262. Records are meant to be broken, but it would be stunning
if this one doesn't last until the sun burns out. On a more macro level, that was the second of five career seasons in
which he topped 220 hits. No one else has ever done that five times, and in the integration
era, no one's even close, with Ichiro once again
single-handedly accounting for an outsize portion
of all such seasons. (relaxing music) In the 2001 postseason,
despite being on the wrong end of the second-most lopsided
playoff contest ever in Game 3 of the ALDS in Cleveland that had 'em on the brink of elimination, they did rally to reach the ALCS and a date with those Yankees. (suspenseful music) Again they dug themselves
into a mess of a hole, dropping each of the
first two games at home. (suspenseful music) Again they tried to rally with a blowout Game 3 win in the Bronx followed by this Bret
Boone homer that broke a scoreless tie and gave 'em an 8th-inning lead in Game 4. (suspenseful music) They were on the verge
of tying up the series if their bullpen, unflappable all season, could cleanly record just six more outs. This is the Mariners we're talking about, so Arthur Rhodes, awesome
all year, gave that run back to Bernie Williams in the
bottom half of the eighth, - [Announcer] It'll be a 3-2 [pitch], swung on and hit high in
the air to deep right. That ball is high, it is far, it is gone! (suspenseful music) - [Alex] before Kaz
Sasaki, awesome all year, allowed Alfonso Soriano
to walk the thing off in the 9th in what proved to be the dagger to Seattle's heart. - [Announcer] And deals,
swung on, hit high in the air to deep right-center field. Back goes Ichiro, on the
track, at the wall, she's gone! (suspenseful music) - [Alex] Seattle had this inconceivable baseball force fall right into their lap, and after falling short that
first year together in '01, not even Ichiro could drag the
M's back to October baseball. Not in 2002, when an impressive 93 wins were only good enough for third place in the suddenly hyper-competitive AL West. Not in 2003, when they seemed
destined for the playoffs only to suffer a four-game
sweep in late August in Boston. The Red Sox, led by Seattle's
old friend David Ortiz, used the series to pull even
in the wild-card standings and launch into the postseason
over the 93-win Mariners. (melancholic music) Since the 1995 advent of the LDS, no other team has ever won 90+ games in back-to-back seasons
while seeing their invitation to the postseason dance get
lost in the mail both years, let alone to have won 93 in each year while residing in a tiny division. So the post-'01 dropoff was shocking. In fact, following that
season of pure magic, the Mariners' playoff drought
that immediately commenced extended far past just
those next couple seasons. It spanned the final
eight years of the aughts then the entirety of the 2010s and indefinitely into the great beyond. (melancholic music) When the NFL's Buffalo Bills snagged a wild-card spot in the last
week of the 2017 season, it bequeathed to the
Mariners the longest active playoff drought in the big four North American sports leagues. They're the only team
that could possibly go from teasing a fan base with a season of record-breaking success
directly into a historically long run of ineptitude. (melancholic music) - [Jon] If you're only
interested in winning and losing, this is the end of the story. 43 seasons, the vast majority
of them losing seasons. 3,219 wins, 3,622 losses, zero championships, zero
World Series appearances. At least some of you will stop watching and at this point, we don't mind. I mean it, it's really okay. But as far as Alex and I are concerned, it's only now that we've gotten to the entire point of all this. The Seattle Mariners challenge
us like no other team. By this I don't mean that
they test our patience, although that's certainly true. I mean that they offer us
an opportunity to appreciate sports as something more
than endless conquest. They've never won a World Series, but ask yourself honestly: does
this look incomplete to you? Far be it from me to tell
any lifelong Mariners fan how to feel about any of
this, but for the rest of us, what is it truly missing? (melancholic music) Is it this? Is this what you want, is it really? Okay, here, take it all in. There's Randy Johnson, who threw a
shutout against the Marlins in Game 1 of the World Series. There's Edgar, whose 11th-inning single drove in the winning run of Game 4. And A-Rod, who dove around the tag to take a 3-1 series lead. There's Buhner, who came
off the bench in Game 5 to crush a pivotal pinch-hit double. And there's Junior, who
stepped into the box in the bottom of the 9th and delivered a three-run,
championship-clinching walkoff. The Kingdome went crazy. What a moment that was. If that's what you wanted,
you got what you wanted. Now, of all these stories,
what's your favorite? What's the story you're telling first? If that was the one, you
aren't ready for this team yet. The Mariners aren't special on account of their lack of success,
it's just that success is entirely irrelevant. We've entered another realm here, one that's far larger and doesn't operate on the dead currency
of winning and losing. Unless you let those limits go, you're an astronaut who
brought your wallet. The Seattle Mariners are not competitors, they're protagonists. (dramatic music) Still, there's no denying the heartache. They had already seen
the moment pass once. When a second four-year
window opened out of nowhere, they won 393 games,
more than any other team in Major League Baseball. They didn't win a World
Series, or even get to one. That was their shot and they missed it. If you're having a hard time
with this, that's okay. So were the Mariners, starting
with manager Lou Piniella. (melancholic music) A very real consequence
of putting a baseball team in Seattle is that it's just
so far away from everything. It's baseball's moon colony, far-flung from even its closest neighbors. It's what Junior found
so difficult as a rookie all those years ago.
It's one of the reasons he left for Cincinnati in 2000. It's part of being a Mariner. Piniella was from Florida,
which as the crow flies is closer to Brazil than it is to Seattle. After the 2002 season, the man who took the Mariners to the playoffs four times and the only manager ever to do it at all left town to manage the
Tampa Bay Devil Rays. For a manager of a
perennially winning team to up and leave for any other team is virtually unheard of,
especially if he's on good terms with the front office, which
it seems that Piniella was. But this is the team he left for. The Devil Rays lost 106 games in '02. They were a horrifyingly
bad baseball team. Lou Piniella had traded this ... for this. But that didn't matter to him. It's testament to just how
badly he needed to go home. (melancholic music) - [Alex] We already know
all about the Mariners' Randy Johnson trade and how he reached supernova levels immediately
upon leaving town. Well, eventually history
would repeat itself with another Randy. (relaxing music) Randy Winn originally broke
into the Majors in Tampa during the late '90s, blossoming into an All-Star outfielder there by 2002. Upon the conclusion of
that season over in Seattle was when Piniella wanted
out of his contract so he could manage a club
closer to his Tampa home. A club like, say, Tampa. The Mariners obliged but only if they got significant compensation in return. The Devil Rays thus dangled
Winn and a deal was consummated. Winn provided a couple
years of above average play for the M's, all the way
up through July 29, 2005, when he went 4-for-5 with a homer. Then immediately following that game, GM Bill Bavasi flipped
him to San Francisco ahead of the trade deadline
for a box of Cracker Jacks and a half-eaten ham sandwich. All Winn did down the stretch as a Giant was hit better than just about
anyone else in the league outside perhaps Todd
Helton of Mile High Colorado. In fact, in September of that '05 season, he became just the eighth
player in the integration era to amass 100 total bases
within a single calendar month. It's an accomplishment that, as of 2020, no one had done in the
generation since Winn did. So if you're a baseball team in need of a historically strong half-season jolt, just call the Mariners and see
if you can pry a Randy loose. - [Jon] Oh, and you wanna guess where Randy Winn was from? The Bay Area. He played college ball in Santa Clara. Clearly, he just needed to go home. - [Alex] Let's fast
forward just a bit to 2007. I went to school in Seattle (Go Dawgs), so I've always sorta just
kept a corner of my eye out on the M's, since you never know what kind of weirdness
they might be up to next. And one thing I noticed as
the 2007 season moved along was that, while maintaining
a good overall record, they frequently came up
on the short end of games that weren't particularly competitive. Here's the run differential of every team to win exactly 88 games within
the modern 162-game schedule. Most have a very strong differential. All have a positive differential.
Except for the Mariners, the worst in this sample by miles. They existed in isolation, quarantined off from the rest of the pack who behaved like normal 88-win teams. (relaxing music) - [Jon] Ichiro aside,
the Mariners' best player in the back half of the decade was third baseman Adrian Beltre, who they landed in 2005. By the time he finally
retired in Texas in 2018, he did so as a no-doubt
future Hall of Famer. The season before he
headed to Seattle, in fact, he enjoyed the best year of
his career with the Dodgers, hitting .334 with 48 home runs and very nearly winning the
MVP award over Barry Bonds. So, what's this about? Well, you see that M-shape right in the middle of this chart? It corresponds perfectly
with the five years Beltre spent in Seattle. It's like the Mariners
dug up their old logo and used it as a pastry
cutter to squeeze down the prime years of his career. As soon as he showed up in
town, his wins above replacement fell from 9.6 to 3.2. He wasn't injured either,
he was just not the same. After 2009, he left for Boston and his WAR immediately more than doubled
and remained pretty steady until he started to battle
injuries nearing age 40. I have never seen a
player turn his statistics into visual art like this. Fascinating, fascinating man. (relaxing music) After spending three years in the cellar, manager Mike Hargrove was
finally turning the team around. He'd been hired after the 2004 train wreck then steadily improved
the team from 63 wins to 69 to 78, and in 2007, his Mariners were 11 games over .500
by the end of June. They'd won seven games in a row, something they hadn't done in four years, and were setting themselves
up for a strong playoff run. And then the next morning, Hargrove quit. (dramatic music) There were no health issues. There was no disagreement
with the front office. His heart just wasn't in it, he said. Maybe he was just tired of baseball. He was 57 years old, that happens, except only two months
later he accepted an offer to manage the Bee Jays, a
semi-pro team in Liberal, Kansas. And by this point you
can probably guess why. Hargrove grew up nearby
and played for the Bee Jays in the early '70s. He gave up a big salary,
a shiny new stadium, and a winning major league team for this. He just had to go home. Managers don't leave
winning teams that they're on good terms with just so
they can manage somewhere else. This never happens. It happened to the Mariners
twice in five years. (dramatic music) Power hitter Richie Sexson
was home, more or less, having grown up in Washington state. When the Mariners signed him
to a long-term deal in 2005, it should have been a great fit. At 6'8", he satisfied
the team's historic interest in tall guys, and his legendary pranks made him a natural fit in Seattle. It's reported that years
prior, he would acquire alligators with their
mouths duct-taped shut and hide them in teammates' lockers. Okay, let's hit pause on
this, do you have any idea how hard it is to tell a
story about powerful, rich men that lasts 32 years without an instance of someone doing something morally wrong? These guys never hurt anybody, they just had foibles and misadventures. Stick to taking cows on weird
field trips, they don't care. We almost made it all the way to the end of this thing, you blew it, Richie. Anyway, the guy could mash, and we have the cherry
picking to prove it. By his age-28 season, he
had two 45-homer years under his belt putting
himself in the company of some of the all-time
greatest power hitters. But injuries had thrown
a wrench into his career. His home-run ability was diminishing and his batting average, which was never very high, was plummeting. 2008 would turn out to be
his final season at age 33. By the eighth of May, the Mariners were already getting cooked, well on their way to one of the worst seasons
in franchise history. 2007 was an aberration,
this was the new norm. In the fourth inning of that night's game against the Rangers, Richie
steps in and does something I have never seen before or since. He takes a pitch from
Kason Gabbard that appears to be right over the plate,
acts like he's been shot, charges the mound, and
chucks his helmet at him. This has to be the only
instance in baseball history of a batter throwing at a pitcher without the pitcher
throwing at the batter. Richie Sexson was suspended and
later traded away midseason. The Mariners finished
with 101 losses that year. They paid a lot of
money for the privilege, becoming the first team ever
to lose at least 100 games with a payroll of at least $100 million. Ichiro was now the only man left from that magical 2001 season. He'd seen it all fall apart. At the end of the season,
a reporter asked him what the team needed to fix. He sat there fanning himself and said through his translator, "We
don't have time to explain." Days prior, an anonymous
player went to the press claiming that Ichiro's
teammates disliked him for his "selfish style
of play," whatever that meant, and that one player
threatened to knock him out. (dramatic music) These largely disappointing
years were overseen by General Manager Bill Bavasi,
who took the job in 2004. Being a GM of a baseball
team is an exasperating job. Players either get better or
worse for no apparent reason, they suffer freak injuries,
and you often have no control over whether or not they get along. Throw in the ridiculous
and arbitrary nature of baseball itself and it's
enough to make you lose it. Apparently sensing his days
in Seattle were numbered, he made a last-ditch
effort to unify his team by ... attempting a mass
citizen's arrest of some kind. Oh no. You can't do that, Bill. People have been thrown
in jail for less, Bill. He was fired shortly thereafter. This team wasn't rebuilding.
It wasn't a lovable loser. It was just busted. The Seattle Mariners were
certainly no strangers to being bad, but after
more than 30 years, it seemed like for the first
time they were truly unhappy. And I don't know about
you, but at this point, I don't care much about winning. In a perfect world, happiness is all I would want for these people. I want Ichiro to have a good time. I want his old hero Junior to come back so they can play together like
Ichiro always dreamed about. I want him to, I don't know,
run around the clubhouse and get in tickle fights. I think we've wanted a lot of things. (mournful music) - [Alex] Mike Blowers was a
local college baseball star and spent three different stints playing for the Mariners in
the '90s before landing a broadcasting gig with the
club following his playing days. And it's perhaps in that latter role where his true legacy
lies. Because that platform allowed the whole world to realize just who Mike Blowers really
is: a spiritual medium. Don't believe me? Well, allow me to introduce
you to their ballgame in Toronto on September 27, 2009 and Blowers's pregame prediction
for player of the game. - [Announcer] Pitch to click,
final game of the series, Mike, who's yours? - [Mike] I think clearly it's
going to be Tuiasosopo today, he's swung the bat well the last few times that he's got an opportunity to play. I expect him to hit his first
big-league home run today. - [Alex] Second basemen
like Tuiasosopo accounted for 189,487 of MLB's
at-bats in the aughts, 4,222 of which resulted in home runs. That's about 2.23% of
'em, meaning a roughly 1-in-45 shot of correctly pinpointing a particular at-bat in which
a second baseman will homer. - [Mike] Second at-bat. - [Alex] As Blowers did in
specifically identifying Tuiasosopo's second at-bat of the game. - [Mike] He's going to get
a fastball from Tallet. - [Alex] Tallet was a relief pitcher throughout most of his
10-year career, but he was a starter in '09. It was
by far his busiest season, notching over twice as
many innings as any other and thus reaching a 3-1 count on 70 different occasions;
of which he threw a fastball 80% of the time. - [Mike] He's gonna hit it
out of left-center field, probably, oh, maybe in the second deck. - [Alex] Of the 30,260 homers
hit by right-handed batters in the 2000s, 17,296 of them
were pulled toward left, which amounts to about 57.2%. - On a 3-1 count.
- On a 3-1 count. - [Alex] About 2.61% of the
decade's 1.66 million at-bats ended on a 3-1 count,
or roughly one in 38. - [Niehaus] And that's inside, ball three. Three balls, I've never been so excited on a 3-1 count in my life. - [Alex] That's the absolutely incredulous Dave Niehaus on the call. - [Niehaus] 3-1 pitch on the way, swung on and belted, deep to left field! He just missed the second deck. Fly, fly, fly away -- I don't believe it! I see the light! I believe you, Mike! - [Alex] At the time he
was in season number 33 calling Mariner games. He had seen it all, or so he thought. Babe Ruth in the 1932 World
Series gets the most love for a called home run shot despite being, you know, Babe Ruth. Blowers confidently called his shot for a 23-year-old fringe big leaguer batting eighth in the lineup who'd yet to ever hit even a single homer, while also including
every detail imaginable. And he nailed it all. If there has ever been a
more eerie sports prophecy, I have not seen it,
because it does not exist. (spooky music) - [Jon] The same season,
another Mariner's luck turned in a different direction. You see, Adrian Beltre
famously didn't wear a cup at third base. When he was a rookie, the
Dodgers tried to get him to wear one, even fining
him every time he didn't. He refused, and they eventually gave up. All was well. Until August 12, 2009. (dramatic music) The bad energy of the
moment seemed to emanate throughout the stadium,
spreading bad vibes and disrupting electronics. The home-plate camera
pulled all the way out, which it never, ever
does on an infield play. The third-base-side camera
didn't really catch it. We don't really get a good look at it. Maybe it's for the best. Incredibly, Beltre stayed in
the game and he even scored the winning run in the 14th inning, but it would be a few weeks
before he played again. Even then, he refused to wear a cup throughout the rest of his career, reasoning, "I already had three
kids, I don't want anymore." Fair enough. September 1st. It's his first
at-bat since the injury. His walk-up music plays. (dramatic orchestral music) - [Announcer] Word or so at the mound, and here comes Beltre
who's missed 18 games. - [Jon] You hear that? You recognize it? Prior to the game, one
of Beltre's teammates secretly arranged to have his walk-up music changed to "The Nutcracker Suite." Who would be so juvenile? Who on Earth would do such a thing? (dramatic music) Some would point out that the Mariners' re-signing of Ken Griffey,
Jr., was little more than a crowd-pleasing concession. Who cares, he was 39 now, about the same age his father
was when they signed him as a publicity stunt decades ago. Junior certainly wasn't
anything close to the player he used to be, but he still
had a little power in his bat. More importantly, he immediately turned the clubhouse culture around. While 2008 was rife with finger-pointing and temper tantrums,
an older, wiser Junior sorta loosened everyone up
and pulled the team together. In particular, he made a point to bring Ichiro into the fold. What largely went unsaid
during Ichiro's career is that it was often a
lonely experience for him. Like Junior, who mostly
wanted to spend time with his family and play Nintendo, Ichiro mostly just wanted to go home to his wife, dog, and comic books. And although he picked up
some English over the years, the language barrier was still very real. Those around Ichiro said
they'd never seen him so happy in the clubhouse. Ichiro and Junior were inseparable, and Ichiro would later
say that his friendship with Junior was, quote,
"close to a miracle." Their lockers were
right next to each other, and the two late-thirtysomethings
were constantly seen shoving each other around and giggling. The only way they could've
been more adorable is if they routinely
got into tickle fights in the clubhouse. Which they did, constantly. It was a perfect world. Ken Griffey, Jr. probably
knew by this point that he was never going
to play in a World Series. He had never had any say in that, no matter what he did
with his bat or his glove. But this he could change, and he did. He fixed this team. With the benefit of
hindsight, we know that on-field contention wasn't in the cards for the Seattle Mariners, and
has never been to this day. That was never happening. The only fight left was for happiness. For a year, at least,
it was a fight they won. (dramatic music) Junior's years in Cincinnati didn't go the way anyone wanted. In his eight-and-a-half seasons there, the Reds were never a serious contender, leaving him once again
to his individual pursuits. The big one, the one
everyone wanted to see, was Griffey's challenge of
the all-time home run record. Nobody expected him to
keep up this breakneck pace throughout his career,
but soon after he landed in Cincinnati, his
numbers fell off a cliff. He just kept getting hurt. (melancholic music) It's one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen as a sports fan. Over a six-year span, he'd
miss more than 400 games, about two-and-a-half seasons worth. His bid to become the
greatest home-run hitter of all time was over. Junior was never reaching the mountaintop. Not as a member of a team, and not individually in the short term, or the long term. By the time he finally
returned to Safeco Field as a visiting player in 2007, the future we'd all imagined for him had disappeared. But Mariners fans didn't
care about any of that. They went nuts for him. And when Junior's bat came back to life at the end of the 2009 season, everyone went nuts for him again. He hit three home runs
in the final homestand and smacked a single in his last at-bat. After the game, teammates
threw Junior and Ichiro up on their shoulders and
paraded them back to the dugout. Alex and I have spent months
dwelling on the Mariners. What they mean, what they're for, how to appreciate them.
The ultimate irrelevance of on-field success. The
importance of celebrating a team for what it is, and
not for what it could be. And then I watched this. It's as though this team and these fans understood it all along. I was late to the party. You're looking right now
at a team that isn't going to the playoffs. They didn't
even really come close. But they're getting a
standing ovation and waving their caps in gratitude. This is Whoville. I have never, ever seen
another team do this. This team and these
fans aren't celebrating any kind of on-field accomplishment. They're celebrating one another. They're celebrating themselves. In this moment, the
baseball gods offered Junior the perfect ending to his career. Something like a World
Series title would have compromised the lesson here. His career should have ended at this
moment -- one in which he was the subject of unconditional love. (peaceful music) But Junior didn't take the
baseball gods up on this offer. He would return for one more year. Things can never be simple. Things will never end the
way they're supposed to. Not for Ken Griffey Jr. Not for the Seattle Mariners. (peaceful music)
"Alex, what the fuck was that?"
For the younger and newer fans here — Ichiro was absolutely electric early in his MLB career. No one could really field, run, throw, or hit like Ichiro. He was one of those players you’d always force a trade for in your video games. You could make a strong argument that the Mariners were the coolest team in baseball in 2001. Heck, I wanted to buy a Mariners cap at one point. The teal-billed, navy crown cap was and still is sleek af.
I’d bet everyone here who was a young baseball fan at the time imitated Ichiro’s batting stance at some point. I’m happy I got to see him play with the Yankees, even if it was at the twilight of his career.
"The Seattle Mariners are not competitors, they are protagonists."
"Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?"
Jesus Christ, Ichiro. Calm down.
Imagine watching this as a Yankees fan. Is this how the Nazis feel watching documentaries?
I love this series just like anything Jon Bois and SBNation do, and man do I love Ichiro.
Also love the Mike Blowers/Matt Tuiasosopo story, such a ridiculous prediction, I mean how often do people even make these predictions?
This video made me question why I tell my dog’s name to other people
Ichiro's favorite American expression
These videos about the Mariners are making me strangely appreciative of them
Lowkey Mariners are my second team