Over the past year we have, as Americans and human beings, seen the full, rancid, awe-inspiring indifference of the upper class for the rest of humanity. Kill tens of thousands of elderly through cruel and inhumane policies? Write a book. Stuck being a Senator when climate change cripples the power grid for your state, leaving millions to struggle through unprecedented hardship, disease, and death? Scoot off to Cancun with the fam. Get elected on a promise of providing financial relief to an entire nation on its knees? Well we already gave you some money but we’ll talk about it. Maybe. Later. I guess.

Climate change, COVID, and American politics are things we have very little choice but to endure together. When our neighbors, fellow townspeople, and Americans are hit by catastrophe that a functional society and government cshould assist with – a fundamental role our modern politicians have essentially wholly abandoned – we step up. We fund raise, we offer shelter, we rush to help those unable to help themselves, because that’s what we do. To do any less is to abandon our humanity. 

We have no choice in these things, or at least we’ve seen what kind of monstrous abominations abandoning these ideals turns people into, and so we choose to care. Because hurting through it all to try and make things even a little bit better for someone less fortunate than ourselves beats the alternative of callous, cynical, exploitative indifference.

*****

The Seattle Mariners, whose steadfast, eternal failure and bold, borderline-proud indifference towards that failure are their most forward-facing traits, are the perfect encapsulation of all these modern ills. Unlike things like schools, electricity, pandemic aid, and healthcare for all, they are not even the slightest bit essential to a functioning, happy life. Today, by choosing not to fire their president for being the absolutely dumbest asshole imaginable and lighting every aspect of the organization on fire for 45 minutes on camera, and instead allowing him to resign, they have found their final, crowning achievement. 

There is no need to pretend any further that this organization as currently structured will ever do anything to make our region proud. They will never be a group that strives to meet the fanbase in the middle; to treat us, their staff, and their players with dignity and thoughtfulness. Majority owner John Stanton’s comically bumble-filled press conference this afternoon makes it abundantly clear that the Seattle Mariners are simply another window through which common people can view the towering contempt the rich hold for every other part of the world. 

They are useless, and pathetic, and thanks to their incredible body of work that makes it clear they simply do not care, I don’t need them anymore. Had the Mariners held onto Mather I was prepared to finally walk away from the team I’ve loved my whole life; one I’ve spent the last ten years covering. Instead, for now, I will stick around. But the masks and gloves are off. The Mariners have feasted on our better natures for far too long. Let’s see them work for it, for once.