The Mariners have never reached a World Series. Fans hope for a drought’s end

Billy Mac remembers sitting in the broadcast booth in 2019 when Félix Hernández pitched his final game for the Seattle Mariners. Hernández, a Cy Young Award winner and six-time All-Star who also threw a perfect gameentered the majors with the team in 2005. But over the course of his 15-year career in the Pacific Northwest, he was often the lone bright spot for a franchise that at one point endured a 21-year playoff drought (a streak that ultimately ended in 2022). From his first All-Star season in 2009 to his last in 2015, Hernández posted a stunning 2.83 ERA, won 104 games, and lost just 65. Yet he never made a postseason pitch. But for Mac, that’s an all-too-familiar experience for the team he’s led for decades now—a team that was founded in 1977 and remains the only active MLB franchise never to reach a World Series.

“There are few careers less exploited than that of Félix Hernández,” Mac tells the Guardian, avoiding the word “simple.” shitfaced. In the booth that night, Mac says he took a picture of the team’s broadcast crew as Hernández left the mound. “They were all standing up,” he says. “You don’t see a standing ovation in a radio booth — that was a really special moment.”

For the New Orleans-born Mac, who moved to the Seattle area with his wife in the 1970s, the Grammy-nominated 1960s pop star Merrilee RushHe always dreamed of living in a city with professional baseball. As soon as the M’s arrived in the area, he would buy season tickets in the stands. Mac, a musician himself, says he has sung the national anthem before Mariners games more than 60 times and has since written a book about the team’s Hall of Fame announcer, the late Dave Niehauswhich was also the subject of this Macklemore song. Over the years, Mac and Niehaus became friends, bonding over their love of the game. Mac still follows the team, and often listens to the latest notable announcer, Rick Rizzson the radio. But he can’t shake the fact that the Mariners continue to disappoint their fans.

“We’ve had a succession of ownership groups for a long time whose understanding of the game wasn’t sufficient to create a winning organization,” he says diplomatically. In 2016, John W Stanton led a group that bought the team from Nintendo of America.

Mac, like many in town, romanticizes the good years the team had, from the 1995 playoffs when Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martínez, Randy Johnson and co. defeated the rival Yankees in dramatic fashionuntil 2001 when the team set an MLB record with 116 wins with MVP Ichiro Suzuki. As for this year’s roster, there is renewed hope. And while the roster is first in the AL West, with the rival Houston Astros quickly rising, Mac can’t shake the idea that the owners aren’t out to win

“I sometimes fear that our owner is more interested in a $9 box of chocolate grasshoppers than if they put a winning team on the field,” Mac said. “Am I happy that they’re above .500 right now? Absolutely. Do I want to see them play their best? Yes. But if you look at the lineup, I think there are three guys that are hitting above .235. You’re not going to win with that.”

If you ask other Mariners fans what they think of the team, you’ll quickly discover that Mac isn’t alone in his feelings. In Seattle, those who follow the M’s are almost always passionate and hopeful. And yet they also share Mac’s hesitation about ownership. Seattle’s Robb Benson, a long time rock musician in the city that also sang the national anthem before a game in 2022, has been a fan since his father took him to the ballpark when he was 5 during the Mariners’ inaugural season. “It’s like there was a curse for the Red Sox and then the Cubs and now it’s our turn,” Benson says. “I can only hope that in my lifetime I see us make the World Series.” He adds: “I’m torn between optimism and pessimism — ownership has been very frustrating.”

Janine Chiorazzi, an elementary school art teacher in Seattle, says she became a fan of the team eight years ago after her son’s grandfather passed away. “He was the ‘sportsball’ person for my son,” she says. “When he passed away, I took over the role. At least for baseball.” Still, her enthusiasm is tempered. “I think management is motivated by profit [not winning],” she says.

Cedric Walker, who works as an engineer for Amazon during the day and a musician at night, says going to Mariners games in the 1990s with his mother is “one of my fondest memories as a kid.” But, he adds, “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect me.” [that the Mariners haven’t made the World Series].” He says that when he wears his Mariners team gear, he feels like other baseball fans “feel sorry for me.” Still, he’s hooked on this year’s team, which he calls “exciting and fun to watch. These guys really believe in themselves and it’s fun to see how they’ve come together over the years.” But, he tells the Guardian, “As far as the management, it’s a bit of a love-hate relationship.”

When a team loses, it can be easy to blame the owners. They seem like an obvious, if unreachable, target. But when it comes to the Mariners, decades of losing with few silver linings point to an inescapable truth. Owners have not generally been good stewards — a recent one notwithstanding sense of urgency. Entering this season’s opening day, the team had finished 30 of its 47 losing seasons, and the franchise had a 3,514-3,873 record during that span. Despite that, fans remain hopeful. One of the overall bright spots, along with (now struggling) center fielder Julio Rodriguez and others like Raleigh or shortstop JP Crawford, the team’s manager is Scott Servais, a former catcher who was hired to manage the M’s in 2016.

“If there’s an All-Star in this entire organization, it’s Scott Servais,” Mac said. “I think he’s a great manager who’s really made the most of what he’s been given to work with. And I really hope they keep it going with him. [But] this is an organization that [three-time Manager of the Year] Lou Piniella left because they refused his requests for a left-handed hitter the season after the incredible 2001 campaign.”

Servais, who finished second in Manager of the Year voting in 2021, has led the team to success of late, even earning that playoff appearance in 2022, the first in more than two decades. The M’s missed the postseason by just one game last year, but if things continue as they have this season, it seems likely the Mariners will make the playoffs again. Ultimately, though, it’s clear Seattle loves its baseball team: The Mariners are in the top half of this year’s turnout. But what seems less clear is whether the Mariners love Seattle. Many in and around the organization certainly do. But does ownership, perhaps the most important aspect of any sports franchise, also do? Until the team can break its streak of World Series absences, that will remain a topic of debate.

“Was it Bobby Knight who said the will to win is a load of nonsense? It is the will to to prepare to win, that’s what separates you. Until this franchise shows that it’s willing to do what it takes…” Mac pauses to collect himself, “To get back to Scott Servais – if the passion for excellence that Scott Servais embodies, if that were to be replicated throughout the organization, then this could be a great franchise.”