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As everyone in Seattle and anyone who cares about an underdog story knows, the Mariners are tied 3-3 in the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. After a dominant start to the series in Toronto, the Mariners have looked, well, terrible with two blowout losses at home in Seattle and one narrow win. The teams face off in a winner-take-all Game 7 tonight. The Mariners’ first ALCS pennant and first World Series appearance hangs in the balance. They’re the only team that’s never graced baseball’s biggest stage.
I have some thoughts on what’s been going wrong with the team and what they could do to change the tides here and ensure a victorious Game 7.
Bruce Harrell
The thought came to me last night. Seated sideways to see the TV at the packed Last Drop on Capitol Hill, one of the only places in the neighborhood with the screens and subscriptions to call itself a sports bar, I couldn’t help but feel a shred of hope. And then the bottom of the second inning happened.
First, a ball glanced off the usually-reliable glove of center fielder Julio Rodríguez. Soon, the Blue Jays had a run on the board. Then, Eugenio Suárez, the third baseman who’d ended the Seattle games of the ALCS with a grand slam mic drop, grabbed the air instead of a bouncing ball. It was a comedy of errors. Were we being Angels in the Outfield-ed?
The Blue Jays left the second inning up 2-0. Throughout the series, the Jays frequently rained hell on the Mariners in the second or third innings. I wondered what this could be. Then, I remembered.
Just before the Blue Jays went up to bat, the FOX broadcast played a Bruce Harrell campaign ad. More accurately, it was an anti-Katie Wilson ad. I remembered this because a few people in the bar started chanting “Fuck Bruce Harrell.” In the ad, Harrell said Wilson didn’t have the experience to be mayor. She’s never been mayor, therefore she can never be mayor. Big bold letters on the screen declared Wilson’s lack of experience. I think this ad cursed the Mariners.
If you think about it, it’s not a very Mariners-friendly ad. The notion that the only people qualified for a job—or, say, a World Series—are the ones who’ve already been there flies in the face of our underdog of underdogs team. By Harrell’s notion, the Mariners aren’t equipped to be in the World Series because they’ve never been there before.
Like a prophecy, right after the ad played, the Mariners started blowing it. They ultimately lost 6-2.
This wasn’t the first time Harrell aired this ad during the ALCS.
During game two, Harrell aired his first ad. It cost his PAC $34,000 according to financial records. Since I can’t go back in time, it’s hard to say exactly when this ad aired.
Could it have aired in the second inning again, around the time the Blue Jays tied up the game? None of the campaign assets and election nerds I asked knew. But local political consultant Stephen Paolini thinks it’s possible.
“Political ads get worse placement because no one likes them,” Paolini says.
The Harrell PAC has spent around $800,000 on television ads. According to Paolini, the ALCS is its own ad buy, so national advertisers and regional advertisers pay big bucks to get slots. Each game costs more money. And, Harrell’s PAC doesn’t have any say on when the ad airs during the game. The broadcast company decides that.
“So [broadcasters] try to get done with them when there are fewer eyeballs, hence the second or third inning.”
This isn’t a perfect example since the Mariners did spank the Blue Jays that day, winning 10-3. Expenditure reports for Harrell’s PAC are only reporting up until Oct. 11, so it’s unclear whether the PAC aired more anti-Wilson ads during the Seattle home games.
Paolini is fairly sure Harrell’s PAC didn’t run ads during those games when the Mariners lost so terribly since away games get more Seattle-based eyeballs. If the team plays a playoff game at home, people may be at the game and immune to TV ads.
But, what if? Did the Harrell ad set something terrible in motion for the homestand? Did the one during Game 6 do it again?
This is a Mariners playoff season rife with superstition. An Etsy witch spell may have propelled the Ms on the winning streak that secured them a playoff position and a first-round bye. A supposed time-traveller wearing homemade “Big Dumper” homerun shirts is appearing in the stands and catching home runs or grand slam balls. Perhaps the Harrell play-off ad is allowing millions of people to believe that experience is the only qualifier for success, creating a sort of tulpa, or a manifestation that comes true if enough people believe it. We can’t be sure. But if he cares about this team, he’ll pull the ad.
There may be another culprit. That fucking salmon.
Humpy
Back in early October, the Mariners, who can never do anything easily, played a winner take all Game 5 against the Detroit Tigers. The game spanned 15 brutal innings and nearly five hours. I was there. My feet hurt for days.
Hope see-sawed into dread in those extra hitless innings. Stadium morale palpably dipped. Then, the stadium’s department of experimental marketing and game entertainment staged a second salmon run. The silly mid-game mascot race pits four salmon against one another: King, Silver, Sockeye, and Humpy. Since the race started in 2024, Humpy had never won.
During that second race, Humpy did the unthinkable. He won. The crowd went wild. Then, Jorge Polanco hit a walk-off and the Mariners won. Symbolism!
The win went to Humpy’s big, soft head. He appeared at the Kraken game. The Mariners paraded him around to watch parties when the Ms played in Toronto. Humpy raised the Mariners flag atop the Space Needle. When they returned home for the first home game in the ALCS, the stadium did the unthinkable. They let Humpy win again (surely, these races are scripted). The Mariners lost that game 13-4.
Hubris. Pure hubris. The next day, he did a photo-op at City Hall where Sara Nelson and Bruce Harrell took pictures with him. Harrell declared that Thursday “Humpy Day.”
The Mariners lost the game that day, too. The Blue Jays beat them 8-2.
Since he has been tainted by pride (a sin) and by Sara Nelson (a likely loser), Humpy can never win again, but that’s not enough. He must exit the Salmon Race and this mortal plane for good. We must offer him up to the baseball gods. The only solution here is Humpy’s ritual sacrifice.
T-Mobile pink will be turned to T-Mobile red, the same color as his mascot stuffing blood. Only then can the Mariners win.
Another Idea if Those Don’t Work
The Mariners must commit to bringing back “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore as the seventh inning stretch. The team blames it on an expired contract, but the truth is that Macklemore said, “Fuck America” at the Palestine Will Live Forever benefit concert and that was too much for the Mariners franchise to deal with. They pulled the energetic “Can’t Hold Us” and replaced it with a fucked up disco remix of the old seventh inning stretch song, “Louie Louie” by Richard Berry. It’s not fun. Seventh inning stretches are supposed to be fun.
One person soon to be out of my life texted me to disagree, saying the song “has like this 12 year old energy… every time I hear the song I think of a group of five boys all named Braxton or Oakley wearing flat bill hats, dancing with pop rocks all over their faces. It’s weirdly manic to me.”
Is “Can’t Hold Us” a good song? Irrelevant. It’s about energy, and “Can’t Hold Us” has that. The Mariners must bring it back. Tonight. Even though it’s an away game in Toronto. Borrow the preachers’ loudspeakers if you have to. Hijack the Emergency Alert System and text us the lyrics. Yes, every “Na, Na, Na-Na.” This will ensure victory.