it takes courage

not enough courage to show this is a Sexson shirt.

Baseball season is upon us, we are now two full weeks in.  Last Friday I attended opening day at Safeco Field for the first time in years.  My family has had season tickets since the teams maiden voyage in 1977 and for the twenty eight seasons that I have been alive, most have been... pretty ugly.

It’s rarely easy to root for the Mariners, they’ve been to the playoffs only four times, they’ve never won the American league championship and or even played in a world series game.  Most of our star players leave us right as they reach their peak.  We have no curse to lean on, no rich history of baseball legends, or almost mythic figures and historical feats.  One thing that Mariner fans have an abundance of is courage.  

At the beginning of every season we have high hopes, even when we know we shouldn’t.  Each new year is a clean slate and as fans we press on like anything can happen.  We cheer on opening day like it is game seven of the world series, a euphoric rush will take over us and last between a week and a month.  By the time that rush fades it will be replaced by disappointment and heartbreak as once again our team tries feebly to scrape together wins.  Yet we still root, we wear our Mariner blue, and we cheer every Mariner run no matter how insignificant.  We have courage.

This season Opening day was bittersweet, with the passing of the most famous Mariner Dave Niehaus.  The voice was gone but it was another new season and we were eager to erase the embarrassment of 2010’s 101 losses.  Coming home for opening day they had lost four games in a row and were carrying a record of 2-4.  As I expected however we got geared up through the opening day ceremonies and cheered with great anticipation as Jason Vargas delivered the first pitch.

That excitement lasted all of one out when the Mariners fell behind one to nothing on a home run.  Three innings later the wind was completely taken out of our sails when the Cleveland Indians demolished us for a ten run fourth inning.  It might have been record timing for the Mariners to break my heart but when they made a mild comeback for two runs in the bottom of the ninth, I was right there on the edge of my seat screaming at the top of my lungs.

Unlike being a Mariner fan it takes no courage to root for the Yankees.  Rooting for the Yankees is easy, they will always compete for the World Series.  As Chris Rock put it two weeks ago on Letterman “rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Steve Jobs to win the Lotto.”  I couldn’t have said it better.  I acknowledge that there are genuine fans of the Yankees, those who grew up in New York and root for their home town team just like me.  There are also these other fans out there, those who don’t have a hometown team or even worse those who do but choose to root for the Bronx Bombers regardless.  This is simple cowardice.

I will never consider the fans without a team who root for the Yankees true baseball fans, they wanted only to find the best and the easiest team to cheer for.  The Benedict Arnold’s who abandon their home town team by selling their souls to the heartless New York Yankees have absolutely no courage.  These people wanted a winner and weren’t willing to put in the sweat, blood, and tears necessary to understand what it means to truly love a team.

These Yankee fans are like that couple you meet who claims to have never had a fight.  They think their a special and extra connected couple but everyone else around them knows the truth.  That isn’t a real relationship, real relationships require emotions good and bad, frustration, anger, joy, and heartbreak.

On opening day despite all the “experts” low expectations, I walked into Safeco field with high hopes, it was early and anything could happen.  Maybe just maybe this could be the year that the Mariners went to the World Series.  I rooted my ass off despite the unholy beating they suffered, and regardless of the fact that I knew that this will be a season full of heart break and tears.  They will test my dedication over and over, but in the end my courage will help me endure.

Eventually when the Mariners achieve that elusive World Series victory it will be much sweeter and for more hard earned and deserved than any Yankees win in the long and storied history of their franchise.