The Seattle Mariners will take you on a wild ride, and I’m here for it

Game one of the World Series kicks off Friday evening, and as a Seattle-area native I can’t say I’m too excited for it. Even as a lifelong hip-hop fan, I can only barely appreciate how a Los Angeles Dodgers versus the Toronto Blue Jays Series has the potential to revive the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

And that is because being from the aforementioned Seattle area, I—along with pretty much the rest of the Pacific Northwest—am still thinking, “That could’ve (should’ve) been us!” The “us” I’m referring to here is of course, the Seattle Mariners, whose World Series run ended on Monday with a 3-2 loss against the aforementioned Blue Jays.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a big “ball sports” person. Growing up, I was a gymnast and my sister was a swimmer. So my love and knowledge of sports leans more toward the Olympic side of the arena.

Writer Samantha Pak's collection of Seattle Mariners bobbleheads and one Funko doll.

Courtesy of Samantha Pak

But baseball holds a special place in my heart. My family went to many Mariners games growing up. From the Kingdome days of old, to the stands of Safeco Field, to the now renamed T-Mobile Park of today, baseball games were one of the few quintessential American activities we partook in as a Cambodian American family. Per tradition, we would park in the Chinatown-International District (now, we take the light rail), walk to the park, grab a Seattle dog on our way in—spicy polish dog with cream cheese (the key ingredient, so don’t knock it till you try it) and grilled onions, with a little bit of ketchup, mustard, and relish for me—pick up whatever bobblehead they were giving away (at one point, I had more Ken Griffey Jrs. than I knew what to do with), find our seats and enjoy the next nine innings.

As I got older, the games became more of an activity specifically for me and my dad. My sister had moved away for about a decade, and my mom often opted out unless the tickets were cheap (or better yet, free) since she doesn’t understand the game. Every season, my dad and I (and my sister again, since she’s back home) try to catch at least one in-person game, and it’s one of my favorite summer traditions.

Writer Samantha Pak (right) with her father and sister.

Courtesy of Samantha Pak

Now when it comes to the sport, I know next to nothing about statistics and, before these playoffs, I couldn’t tell you who most of our current players were (but I can still recognize the likes of Griffey, Ichiro Suzuki, Edgar Martinez, and Jay Buhner to this day). I’m in it strictly for the vibes. And girl, the vibes were vibing. It felt like the whole of the Puget Sound area, and beyond, was getting behind the Mariners—from the Kraken sporting M’s jerseys or the Seahawks doing their signature victory dance in the end zone, to local journalists letting their bias show. It was amazing to see the region come together for a common cause and be part of something bigger than myself.

When the Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers on Oct. 10, in a 15-inning game (the longest winner-take-all game in postseason history and personally, the most agonizing to watch) to win the American League West division, it was the first time they had done so in 24 years. In fall 2001, I was a sophomore in high school. Now, I’m just a few months shy of turning 40. Needless to say, Seattle fans had been waiting for this for a long time. And when we went on to beat the Blue Jays on their home field in the first two games of the American League Championship Series, we started to believe the World Series was in our sights and that we, as catcher Cal Raleigh said, “might as well win the whole f*cking thing.”