SEATTLE. As Vladimir Guerrero touched home plate after hitting a two-run homer to cap a 6-4 win over the Seattle Mariners last night, fans at Safeco Field erupted in a explosion of cheers that was heard two and a half miles away at Swedish/Cherry Hill Medical Center. "The emergency room will be a mess tonight," said second shift nurse Cheryl Marchant over the audible roar as she stood on the ambulance ramp. "This is really historic."
"Great job, you jerk."
The milestone Marchant is referring to is the Mariners' worst-in-baseball record of 58-101. The team was mathematically eliminated for the 2008 season some time ago, but the loss to the Angels means they are mathematically eliminated from contention for 2009 as well. "Dodgers fans used to say 'Wait until next year'," notes east coast transplant Verrill Hodges. "Mariners fans can now say 'Wait until the year after next'--that's something to brag about."
"Now I can work on my macrame next season!"
That means the pressure is off for a team that suffered from clubhouse conflict all year long, with some teammates reporting Ichiro Suzuki, the franchise's highest profile player, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to check his green card. "I do not object to other players ensuring that I have my papers in proper order," said Suzuki through an interpreter. "My superior math skills learned in Japanese schools have helped to give them the year off to improve brains that have been weakened by watching too much SportsCenter."
"What's a three-letter word for a flightless, Australian bird?"
Pitcher Cesar Jimenez said he hoped that a more relaxed approach to the game next year would enable him to experience the many attractions Seattle has to offer.
Cobain: "Hmm--should I go with the sweater/skirt ensemble, or the little black dress?"
"I want to take the Kurt Cobain Drag Shopping Experience," said Jimenez, a six-block walking tour of the women's wear shops frequented by the transvestite Nirvana singer credited with the creation of the "grunge" sound.
"I'm having trouble locating my salmon splitter today."
Ryan Feierabend, a left-handed pitcher, said he was looking forward to throwing "long toss" in the Pike Place Fish Market. "Every day at Safeco we throw the same little white ball," he said. "Down in the Fish Market, one day you're throwing a salmon, the next day it could be tuna or marlin or swordfish."
SEATTLE, Washington. Bowing to pressure from its Left Coast, slacker dude fan base, the Seattle Mariners today announced that the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the anthem played before the team's home games at Safeco Field.
"We're in the entertainment business, and Francis Scott Key peaked on the Billboard Jingoistic Singles Chart around 1950," said M's general manager Bill Bavasi. "Frankly, the Star-Spangled Banner is not depressing enough for Seattlians, or Seattlites, or whatever you call them."
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first track and first single from Nirvana's 1991 debut album "Nevermind", and is generally credited with bringing the musical genre known as "grunge" to the attention of the world beyond Seattle. Rolling Stone Magazine ranks "Teen Spirit" ninth on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences places it ahead of Herman Melville's "Moby ####", Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and "The New Hollywood Squares" as a cultural achievement.
Conservative groups were quick to criticize the shift as indicative of the decline of patriotism in liberal "blue" states such as Washington. "This is just more evidence, in case anybody needed it, that espresso drinks are poisoning the minds of America's youth," said Wendy Davis, President of Concerned Women for America. Seattle is the headquarters of Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee, and leads the nation in the consumption of lattes and cappucinos.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he would take no action against the team for the time being. "Most of the day-to-day problems I face running major league baseball are like teenage acne," he said in response to a reporter's question. "Ignore them and eventually they go away."
Selig said if the Mariners' experiment is a success, he would consider using the 1953 Patti Page hit "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" as part of opening ceremonies at Miller Park before Brewers' games. "That's my all-time favorite," he said with a wistful smile.
Mariners fans, historically a free-thinking, non-conformist group, were generally in favor of the change. "Ten years ago all cell phones sounded the same," said Evan Martin, a graduate student at the University of Washington. "Now everybody's got their own ring tone, so why shouldn't we all have different anthems?"
When it was pointed out that an anthem is intended to bind Americans together as a nation of states under a federal government headquartered in Washington, D.C., Martin was unfazed. "Dude, you're wrong. That is like a totally different Washington."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
