June 27, 2011: Mariners 1, Braves 3 (39-40)

On June 27, 2011, the 25 human beings who comprise the Seattle Mariners celebrated another day of their long, ceaseless slog towards oblivion by playing in a baseball game. The game proved an apt metaphor for their lives, as profound feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness quickly led the ballplayers towards a calm resignation to their fate, à la Bruce Willis in Armageddon or Tim Robbins in Mission to Mars. Sadly, the game turned out to be slightly less spectacularly exciting than either of those cinematic touchstones. Tonight's Mariners game didn’t explode into big honkin’ fireballs, and it didn’t compleat into psychedelic transcendence. No, it just kind of sputtered to its obvious, banal conclusion.

Tonight's game serves as a reminder that sometimes the most likely outcome does indeed happen. Sometimes, luck just sort of balances out. Sometimes, miniscule differences in talent really are all that matters. The Mariners offense is bad, and tonight it performed badly against quality pitching. The Mariners pitching is good, and tonight it performed well against low-quality hitting. Unfortunately, the Mariners hitting was slightly more bad than the Mariners pitching was good, and Atlanta's pitching was slightly more good than Atlanta's hitting was bad. Nothing new here. Same ol’, same ol’.

The defeat stands as one among many, indistinguishable from the many thousands of losses that all involved have already suffered through in their long, colossally successful careers as professional athletes. Today, they may have succumbed meekly to defeat, but that doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, the Mariners will get up and try again. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll decide to make a change. Maybe they’ll decide to seize control, carpe diem, take full responsibility for their lives. They’ll refuse to lose. They’ll play to win. They’ll believe in themselves and give it their all, and at the end of the day they WILL win that ballgame. Unless, of course, they don’t.