August 1, 2011: Mariners 8, A's 4 (46-62)

The Mariners played YET ANOTHER baseball game. Man, they just don’t stop with these things. Anyway, it was a pretty good game I guess. I mean, like, the Mariners won, so yippee or whatever, at least they didn’t lose, but really it feels about the same. I guess nobody died, nobody got seriously injured (Chone Figgins got hurt, but, like, whatever), nobody came down with any serious illnesses (Ok, Cliff Pennington got Bell’s Palsy, but apparently that’s one of the friendlier palsies, and Cliff Pennington is a boring player on a boring team that is not the Mariners, so, like, whatever). So it was a pretty good game in the sense that nothing horrible happened to anyone. Also, a bunch of people went to see the game, so the players didn’t have to go through the humiliation of throwing a party where no one shows up, and all those people mostly paid to go to the game, so the players probably get to keep their paychecks and their jobs and avoid having their families starve. Also, it was sunny and warm out, so most of the people probably felt pretty good while they were there, unless they got sunburned, but being sunburned really isn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things (unless it gives you cancer, but everything gives you cancer, so, like, whatever). So, all in all, it was probably a decent night to be taken out to the ballgame.

The only problem with the game was that the outcome was basically decided in the second inning, but the teams kept on playing for over three hours. That’s a long time to be at a baseball game without any sense of uncertainty or interest in the game’s outcome. Nothing truly exciting could have happened after that second inning, but what were the fans going to do? Leave? That would be the rational utility-maximizing decision, but making that decision would expose the initial choice to attend the game as irrational and foolish. So they had to stay, if only to justify a previous decision to themselves. Kind of silly. It’s like falling into a mineshaft and deciding that while you’re there, hey, might as well keep digging deeper. Anyways. If there’s one concrete, verbally expressible conclusion to be taken out of this, it’s that baseball attendance is deeply irrational.

This analysis of the baseball attendance decision-making process has some unsettling implications for the Mariners. What are the people who attended this game going to do afterwards? They’re going to go home and think to themselves, “That was reasonably pleasant. I’ll be sure to go to another one next year.” That’s not good. Repeat attendance is the key to long-term financial success. So, how do you get people to come back more often? The answer is a little bit counterintuitive: you have to lose, preferably in a painful, dramatic fashion. That way, everyone at the game will go home hungry. They’ll feel that all-consuming hunger to witness a Mariners win, to just once feel the pleasure of success, to feel like it was all worth it, to somehow validate their fandom. They’ll think, “Just one more game. I’m sure they’ll win this game. It’ll feel great. GOD I CAN’T WAIT I CAN’T WAIT.” And the Mariners will lose again and the fans will keep on jonesing, keep trying to satisfy that insatiable urge, keep going to games. The fans will say they won’t like it, but they’ll keep going. The joke will be on them. The Mariners will never win again. But that won’t matter. They’ll be filthy rich. When you boil it down to what really matters, the Mariners will be the most successful team of all time.

But noooooo, they insist on winning games sixty-plus times a year. God, what a bunch of chumps. But, like, whatever. It’s not my problem.