This morning it has been a waiting game for the Seattle Mariners to chime in with one word regarding the future of human poop stain and team president Kevin Mather.
As expected today, he is now ex-team president Kevin Mather. However, instead of firing his ass into the sun, as a majority of the fans were clamoring for, after hours upon hours of silence, Kevin Mather was allowed to meekly resign. John Stanton promptly followed it up with a statement in which he thanked Mather for 25 years of service.
Sure, that might be the professional thing to do, but there isn’t an ounce of professionalism that is owed to Kevin Mather. A man who, by documented accounts, enjoys the pastimes of sexual harassment, toxic workplace culture, and casual racism. As a reminder of what he has actually brought to the Seattle Mariners outside of a mountain of losses, Geoff Baker reported today that the Mariners settled quietly with Dr. Lorena Martin.
In his press conference today, John Stanton said with regards to firing Kevin Mather, “I didn’t have to make that decision. Kevin resigned. I believe that’s the right answer for the organization.” This is not the right answer. Allowing Kevin Mather to resign is the cowards way out, especially because as of last night, he clearly did not think he *needed* to resign.
This is the issue with people in positions of power. It is virtually guaranteed that if anyone underneath Kevin Mather had gone to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club and engaged in that 45-minute long diatribe of verbal filth, they would’ve been fired before they even logged off the Zoom call. For Mather, his ass getting canned was never in the cards. If it would have been, the Mariners would have done the sensible thing, which is not wait over 24 hours to even acknowledge the situation and instead just make the clean, and obvious, cut.
With Mather’s departure, the Seattle Mariners are hardly absolved of any responsibility here. For the past 25 years, as an organization, they have enabled Kevin Mather and his actions. Hell, they even promoted him despite his sleaze. Kevin Mather is not the root of the problem. The rot that is the Seattle Mariners’ organization is endemic. In a history of low points, this quite possibly is the lowest.
Nobody deserves any congratulations here. There are no winners in this scenario. For the past 20-plus years, the Mariners have actively tried to destroy any and all goodwill this beleaguered fanbase can muster, and this isn’t even factoring in the famous “rue the day” comments.
Going forward, as fans, we deserve something. We don’t deserve to be treated with an open display of contempt and disdain. If the Seattle Mariners want to have a spot in the heart of this city that has plenty of other options, the Seattle Seahawks, UW sports, Storm, Sounders, the upcoming Kraken, the memories of the Supersonics, hell, even an upcoming expansion team in Portland, they need to do the work. And they need to do it transparently. And they need to do it without a single pat on the back, because they don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve our respect. They don’t deserve anything from us.
