How pathetic was the 2010 Seattle Mariners 62-100 season?Dismal enough that less than 20K people showed up for the Fan Appreciation game Friday night. After Thursday's double whammy -- the team's decision to keep ace Felix Hernandez out for the rest of the season followed by a sorry 8-1 defeat -- Seattle baseball fans couldn't be persuaded to attend a game with random drawings for autographed memorabilia, Opening Day 2011 passes, plane tickets, gas cards, "and much, much more."
Back in the day, losing Mariners teams could draw 40,000 people who were willing to sit through a miserable ballgame for the chance to go home with a Rich Amaral jersey or a $50 Bon Marché card. But 2010 fans couldn't be lured with the prospect of winning an Ichiro bat or a 42-inch, flat-screen television.
Can you blame the disheartened? We embraced the Major League Baseball (MLB) season this spring with foolish optimism. A few cockeyed optimists envisioned the home team winning the American League (AL) West pennant. Aside from the standout performances of pitcher Felix Hernandez (232 strikeouts, 2.27 ERA, 1.057) and right fielder Ichiro Suzuki (214 hits, .315 average, 41 stolen bases), the ball club played more like Major Barbara than Major League. General Manager "Trader" Jack Zduriencik committed a public relations gaffe -- unnoticed by the mainstream media -- when he fired former manager Don Wakamatsu, the first Asian-American to skipper a MLB club, prior to Japanese Heritage Night.
Now that the blame game begins, we point our fingers at any number of suspects: Zduriencik, who couldn't make one correct personnel move this season; Wakamatsu and his cerebral soft-sell style (42-70); not-ready-for-primetime replacement manager Darren Brown (19-32); (future Hall of Famer (HOFer) Ken Griffey Jr. (.184, 9 RBIs in 98 at-bats); likable but losing-prone Ryan Rowland-Smith (1-10, 6.75 ERA in 19 starts); misunderstood misanthrope Milton Bradley (.205, 8 home runs, 8 stolen bases); weak-hitting first baseman Casey Kotchman (.217, 9 HRs, 51 RBIs); and a catching platoon of Rob Johnson and Adam Moore that batted below .200.
The Dog Denizens of Genesee Park (DDGP) holds the higher powers of the team accountable. Chief Executive Officer Howard Lincoln and President Chuck Armstrong have enjoyed hands-off ownership and bottomless Nintendo dollars to forge a championship team for the better part of a decade. Their corporate style reportedly drove away Lou Pinella -- and gave us Bob Melvin, Mike Hargrove, John McLarren, Jim Riggleman, Wakamatsu and Brown in roughly the shelf life of CSI Miami or The Dr. Phil Show. This dynamic duo spent $84 million on a team that lost 100 games this year. Retaining Lincoln and Armstrong goes against all logic and principles of corporate accountability and responsibility... yet, this duo keep their jobs. Go figure.
This year's team would drive almost anyone to drink. However, the magnitude of this year's failure warrants more than a vodka-nuanced cocktail. Here, hard liquor is in order -- straight out of the bottle, in a glass only if absolutely necessary. As drinking on an empty stomach is a recipe for disaster, hors d'oeuvres are in order. Something salty, savoury and sweet...like rumaki. Although the etiology of this appetizer is unknown, old-school foodies credit Victor Bergeron -- founder of the Polynesian-inspired Trader Vic's restaurants -- for creating rumaki, an hors d'oeuvre of chicken liver and water chestnut wrapped around a strip of bacon. Organ meats aren't for everybody. But for masochists who endured the 2010 season, chicken liver and bacon seems preferable to another Mariners whiffing contest involving Michael Saunders, Ryan Langerhans, and Josh Bard.
For the moment: Trader Vic, good. Trader Jack, not so much.
Rumaki
- 12 slices of bacon cut in half lengthwise
- 12 ounces of halved chicken livers
- 12 whole water chestnuts cut in half
Marinade
- ¼ cup of soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon minced ginger
- 2 tablespoons dry sherry
- 1 teaspoon sugar
Make marinade by combining the soy sauce, minced ginger, dry sherry and sugar. Add chicken livers and water chestnuts to the mixture. Marinate for half an hour.
Wrap half a bacon slice around pieces of chicken liver and water chestnut. Secure with toothpick.
If you are drawn to broiling your appetizers, place the rumaki on a shallow baking or broiling pan about five-to-six inches from the heat source. Broil for 10-to-15 minutes until the bacon is crisp.
If you prefer easy baking, put rumaki in 375-degree oven for 20-to-25 minutes.
Epilogue: If the so-called Mariner brain trust continues to field losing teams, they'd better up the ante for Fan Appreciation Night. How much do you really value your shrinking base of fans? The small-money, 57-105 Pittsburgh Pirates gave away a flat-screen television and a Blu-Ray player (as opposed to cash-rich Mariners, which meted out the TV and Blu-Ray player separately). The 69-93 Washington Nationals rewarded their long-suffering base with a "fan appreciation month" of giveaways spread out over the final 16 games. The Milwaukee Brewers, who sported a 77-85 record this year, bestowed a Brewers-themed, custom-painted, 2010 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy Lo on one lucky fan. Better yet, Mariners management, take a page from the Oprah book: "You get an eZee bike, you get an eZee bike, and you get an eZee bike..."
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