There are fundamental elements of baseball as a spectator and fan experience that baseball fans know set it apart from other sports. Part of that is the length and quantity of the season – 162 games, plus a few more if you’re lucky. Part of it is the way this sport, more than any other, highlights, divides, elevates and exposes the individual. Part of it is the inherent silliness, silliness and humanity of the sport, brought to the fore by the sheer amount of time that baseball takes up and is not an active sport – we can just experience it like that People more than in other sports – hanging out with their friends in the dugout, in the bullpen, even on the basepaths. Part of it is the familiar rhythm of a baseball year, February through October, spring training games with 20 different batters on one side and the World Series on the other.

This creates a deep, unique emotional connection between fans and their team. It is this special sauce that baseball fans feel and know in their hearts that it is what makes baseball and being a baseball fan so unique.

The cynic in me also says it’s something the organization is intentionally exploiting to build brand loyalty and ultimately increase sales – think of the between-innings videos of Taylor Saucedo and Andrés Muñoz discussing their favorite Yu-Gi-Oh cards or whatever we’re talking about. or JP and Bryan Woo serving donuts at the local Krispy Kreme. A lot of media is produced to deepen this emotional connection, to create a desire to buy tickets, buy jerseys and get involved.

Maybe that’s too cynical. But that’s where I’m at right now, and I suspect I’m not alone.

The nature of this emotional connection is why I’ve had by far the least engaged season in Mariners fandom since I was ten years old. I bet several of my classmates thought I had disappeared into the ether or that I had run into a grand piano in the big city or something like that.

It’s not that I just couldn’t handle the disappointment of another soul-destroying Mariners season – I probably watched or listened to about 130 games in 2013.

Instead, I found that my emotional capacity was overloaded by life, good or bad. I married my best friend and planned most of it myself. We had to have my beautiful dog Edmund’s right hind leg amputated to prevent cancer and nursed him back to health for two weeks during which he cried 24/7, was in pain and confused and continued to be his precocious, mischievous self. Eventually, I was officially diagnosed with (“severe”) ADHD and put on medication, but in a way that left me visibly and palpably dead inside, to the point that colleagues I couldn’t see in person or even over Zoom see, noticed it.

This year, for the first time, I didn’t have the emotional energy to give to something that never seemed to have any intention of giving me anything in return. For a religious Mariners fan, this year has been apostatic.

It’s fitting that my first recap in far too long comes the day after a lame duck’s elimination. I will consider the coverage of the first truly meaningless game of the season as the beginning of my atonement. A meaningless, painless, clean 2-0 victory over the even more pathetic Oakland Athletics.

In the post-game TV spot, Mitch Garver’s cadence of his response revealed the change we’ve all become accustomed to, where games have been stripped of their potential and no longer mean anything.

“The way our boys are…Despite it go out to compete…”

It’s not that the game wasn’t a good baseball game in a vacuum.

Mitch Garver and Cal Raleigh each provided highlights with home runs blasted into left field and two solo throws from two catchers gave us a 2-0 score.

Garver’s recent surge in power gives you a little hope that he could earn his contract as a solid backup catcher for Cal next year.

Speaking of which…

That home run gave Cal his 91st career home run, just one point behind Mike Piazza (92) for most home runs by a catcher in his first four seasons. That feels good.

It was also good to see Bryan Woo dominate his hometown team again. He pitched an electrifying five innings, striking out eight and allowing no runs. His two-seater was sharp, both his pusher and sweeper worked, and he ran everything for ten moves that night without giving the impression of being in any real danger.

It was also exciting to watch the continued rise of April Frog and September Mariner Troy Taylor. The 23-year-old with the name of a former boy band artist turned solo artist earned his first career save after moving a runner to third with a double and a wild pitch. The Mariners apparently have an IVB university in their farm system, and Taylor is an honors graduate who flaunts a soaring fastball and a gnarly sweeper that froze several batters in the ninth.

Manager Dan Wilson (still not used to it!) said, “(Taylor’s) journey is pretty epic, coming from Everett at the start of the year and then getting his first big league save at the end in a 2-0 game. “

“He was given some situations of greater impact and he was able to handle them, and you loved that even as a little kid. When he’s afraid, he doesn’t show it. He loves to attack the strike zone.”

So it’s not like this game lacked tension or suspense… in a vacuum. In fact, this would have been quite an excellent game to watch and cover if it weren’t for the fact that what could have been a monumental win late in the season ended up being nothing more than another footnote in another losing season. The anticipation and nervousness of a possible thrilling playoff hunt with the score in mind is instead sucked up into the vacuum of mismanagement and apathy from the same people who skillfully help build and nurture your emotional connection to this team without caring care how it turns out.

Maybe I talked a lot and only talked a little about baseball, but let’s be honest, we didn’t even need to start a second game thread tonight. I don’t think you’re all here looking for the play-by-play – I think we’re all here to revel. But at least we’re here wallowing! I haven’t even been there to wallow for most of this year.

So here we will wallow and revel until next spring, despite all our collective promises to ourselves, we find a way to care about this team again. And the way we will do it is the same as always: the love of this group of over 26 strange, entertaining, exciting talented people uniting to give us something special: baseball.