8/3/2013 -- HIGH STAKES MARINERS ACTION

Friday night, the alpha-bulls that are the Seattle Mariners and the Baltimore Orioles locked horns in a VERY IMPORTANT BASEBALL GAME. This was a big one. The date was August 2, 2013, and there would be only one chance. If the Mariners won, the August 2, 2013 championship belt would be theirs for all eternity. If they lost, the Mariners would have to forever cope with the fact that they had lost on August 2, 2013. No success, no matter how great, could ever erase the fact of that defeat. The blemish would stand forever, laughing from the pages of the record books, cruelly taunting the Mariners with the harsh right angle of its capital “L”. Needless to say, the Mariners really wanted to win.

Unfortunately for the Mariners, the Orioles also wanted to win, and in the sport of baseball each game can have only one winner. The two teams would have to fight it out, dueling with the weapons that they had all worked so hard to master: wooden sticks, leather balls, and leather gloves. The terms of combat would be as they always were: the teams would take turns, alternately throwing balls and swinging sticks. Each team would need to advance its runners along the basepaths by hitting the ball between the white lines and getting to the first base before the other team got the ball to the first base, unless the other team caught the ball before it touched the ground, in which case it wouldn’t matter who got to the first base first, and also there were other bases and the first base didn’t really matter to the actual scoring, and also sometimes things would happen without the ball being hit at all. This was the most sensible way of settling matters.

Sadly, the Mariners lost, thanks to an obscure baseball rule that states that the team with the most runs is the winner. It was a bitter pill to swallow, as the Mariners had really scored quite a good number of runs in their innings, and usually teams that score that many runs win. After the game, the Mariners eagerly pointed at the number of runs that they had scored (8), and also raved about the number of times that they had hit the ball over the fence between the white lines (4). This was success, they insisted. This was what the people wanted. But the rules were the rules, and the Mariners were forced to concede defeat. Tragic.

They’ll play again tonight, and that game will be equally unique and once-in-a-lifetime, just like all the rest of them. I know I’m excited. How excited? I JUST TURNED ON CAPS LOCK. THAT’S HOW EXCITED. GO MARINERS!