SEATTLE — The revelers, those starved, curious and resilient creatures known as longtime Mariners baseball fans, packed Occidental Avenue on Saturday morning, two hours before first pitch. They carried exceedingly optimistic “World Series” signs, shouted “God hates the Astros,” and jammed into every inch of every store for blocks, all while balancing rally shoes atop their heads. They wore Ken Griffey Jr. jerseys, Big Dumper T-shirts and rare expressions—? ?—across their faces.
They didn’t care about things like logic, reason, elite opposition or tortured franchise history. Didn’t care that the Astros, their hated rivals, held a 2–0 lead in their division series. Didn’t care that Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez had rendered 18 taut, tactical, fairly even playoff innings little more than a painful learning experience. His moonshots in Games 1 and 2 reminded Seattle of the gap that remained—between the Mariners and the Astros, yes, but also between the M’s immense promise and the future World Series title they envision.
Still, this marked a fall weekend when local sports fans clogged the traffic-less street that runs the length of Lumen Field, home of the NFL’s Seahawks and their roaring crowds. Except that, on this particular fall weekend, those fans weren’t heading into Lumen. They were streaming it—and right toward the first postseason baseball game held in these parts in 21 long, fraught, wait-until-next .
Nothing could dim their sanguinity, an optimism borne from two decades of enduring bad luck, bad seasons and, worse yet, the occasional year that sprinkled promise on their cornflakes only to knock cereal bowls right out of their hands. These revelers seemed to grasp the significance, the possibility, however slim, that the Mariners could right this season once more, at home, against the team they disdain but wouldn’t mind becoming, if that meant five American League West titles and three World Series appearances in the last six seasons. Not to mention their larger aim—closer than ever, nowhere near certain—that, after ending the longest playoff drought in professional sports, they can, they will, not simply advance to but win their first championship.
Even then, for fans who had waited longer than any fans in professional sports for this precise moment, no one packed onto that street, eating hot dogs and marching toward T-Mobile Park, knew just how long the afternoon would extend.
Félix Hernández would throw out the first pitch.
The Mariners and Astros would play 17 innings of scoreless baseball that somehow managed to entrance a sellout crowd. They would tie three other games for the longest-ever in an MLB postseason, based on innings, a full 18.
Afternoon would give way to evening.
Light would become dark.
A few hours would become six hours and 22 minutes.
Only two things didn’t change. The Mariners played the Astros to a near standstill. It wouldn’t be enough. But those stands, the ones packed with the revelers, remained full to the bitter-and-hopeful end.