Dorktown

We mean it. “Arson will get you a baseball team” is not the lesson here. In fact, there is no lesson at all. There is only the Seattle Mariners, who in their early years did nothing but screw around and play out some of the weirdest stories in the history of baseball. Welcome to episode one of our six-part series, “The History of the Seattle Mariners.”

After years of abject irrelevance, the Seattle Mariners suddenly became the team of Ken Griffey Jr., one of the most beloved athletes in American history. The Toilet Years were over. The era of anonymous cellar-dwelling had ended. Now, they found themselves in the fight of their lives, battling the California Angels in one of the most dramatic playoff races in baseball history. (Originally titled, "The ascent of Ken Griffey, Jr.")

After nearly 20 years of losing baseball, the Seattle Mariners were likely to be sold and moved out of town. But on the field, they and the Yankees were playing out one of the most dramatic playoff series baseball has ever seen.

The late-‘90s Seattle Mariners were like nothing we’ve seen before or since. This was a team that had featured four Hall of Fame-caliber players – Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez – in their primes. What could go wrong? Absolutely nothing. Everything went fine. In fact, uh, don’t watch this episode.

Ichiro Suzuki was the most unconventional and electrifying baseball player of the 21st century. During the 2000s, he and the Mariners pieced together a beautiful, infuriating story.

Felix Hernandez, the hero of the modern-day Mariners, did everything he could to drag them into the playoffs. Lord, how he tried. He never made it happen, because no one man ever can. But to call them cursed, we’d argue, would be to miss the point of the Seattle Mariners entirely.