A New Campaign

Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging...

Join with me. Band together. Let everyone you know in on it. Now that George Sherrill has been freed (at least for now), we need another campaign to embark upon.

Introducing:

Take Out Texas!!!!
As of right now, the Mariners are only 5 games behind Texas for 3rd place in the AL West. As I mentioned before, it's over. We're not going to the playoffs. We're probably not going to make it back to .500, either. That doesn't mean it's time to completely throw in the towel.

In Art Thiel's telling of the story of how the M's climbed out of obscurity (nevermind complete sucktitude), he shares with us Jay Buhner's total bewilderment for having a "Hey, we just won the World Series!" type party, after the 81st victory in 1991. The whole thing centers around how Buhner just didn't quite understand how big of a moment that was in M's history. It meant, for the first time ever, the M's would shed their monkey of "Loser!"

Imagine the momentum it would build for the fans, long term, if the M's pull out of the cellar this season. That would be huge! Sure the season was lost, in that we didn't make the playoffs, and we were'nt even a winning team. But not completely. Were they to reach that goal, it would be one step in the right direction -- it, by default, would make this team competitive.

In order to be a playoff team, they have to be comptetitive. "Put one foot in front of the other..." is how the song goes when Winter Warlock turns into just "Winter" in the claymation Christmas classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The mean ol' Warlock (who my 3-year-old still has nightmares about and fears to this day -- to the point of not even being able to watch the movie) turns into a good guy. If he can do it, then so can the M's.

This is a very reasonable goal. This team has the talent to do it. Sure, it would be at the expense, perhaps, of a top-10 draft pick (maybe not). It also depends upon Franklin, Meche and even Moyer to keep the ball in the park in Arlington -- with Meche's ERA hanging at 14.29 over the last three years in Arlington. Yikes. Even with the weaknesses and complete holes, the M's have the leadership to get things going, my only concern being with Hargrove.

Should the team set that as a goal, I don't see how they couldn't acheive it. Say it with me, though:

TAKE OUT TEXAS!!!!!!