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I’m not sure if discussing sports on the Mendax site is against some unspoken rule, but I’m going to stick my neck out there and see what happens. I haven’t really cared about sports in a long time. In fact, the last time I really cared about what happened in sports was when the Seattle Supersonics (whiny self-involved bastard of a team that they now are) had a real chance at the championship. If you follow the sport at all, you’ll know that I’m talking about a VERY long time ago.

I’m rather the odd duck out in my family where sports is concerned. I no longer care about football (we’re talking about grammar school being the last time I was into football), and I’ve never really cared about baseball. The only thing good about baseball was going to the park on free bat night and getting a suggestive bag of nuts and a foot-long. My family, however, seems to have taken great interest in baseball in recent years. Even my mom. I personally think it’s because my mom has the attention span of a gnat, yet can still keep up with baseball’s inactivity. She’s one of those people that has yet to make it through a DVD without getting up for some reason at least five times.

Every year my brother insists that the Mariners are going to go all the way. (Born and raised in Seattle pretty much dictates that you’re going to stick with Seattle teams.) Every year I watch the same pathetic pattern. Either the Mariners suck it up in the first half of the season and then pour it on in the latter half when they have no chance of making it to the play-offs, or they do really well in the first half, get your hopes up, and then cruelly dash them when they go on some horrible losing streak at the end, just in time to NOT make the play-offs.

So when my work colleague came into my office a couple of months ago and told me how well the Mariners were doing (also a transplanted Seattlite), I assured him that there was still plently of time for them to fuck it up. Indeed, I repeated the prophecy when my brother called me to tell me the Mariners were in excellent position for a wild card spot. No way were they going to make it. It was practically guaranteed.

And so it was with smug satisfaction that I got to say, “I told you so” to my colleague when he finally came back to my office today, head hung low, and finally admitted that the Mariners had no chance of a wild card spot. Only one game back a mere few weeks ago, the Mariners have managed to lose 13 of their last 15 games, thus knocking themselves out of any hope of ever seeing the finals, and setting themselves up for the worst spiral in MLB history.

I wish I could say I take no pride in being able to mockingly chant “I told you so” over and over again, but I can’t. I enjoy hearing the mumbles of anger, disappointment, and defeat uttered by my family and colleague. Isn’t it better to expect defeat, then be pleasantly surprised if what you wanted actually happens? It’s what people refer to as a miracle…which is what it’s going to take for the Mariners to EVER make the play-offs.

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