Members of the Seattle Mariners in the dugout during a game at Safeco Park in 2010.
The year is 2001, the day is Oct. 22. The beloved Seattle Mariners are facing the Yankees in the original Yankee Stadium for the remaining spot in the World Series. They have had an electric year, with 116 wins. Even though they have lost the first three games against the Yankees, even though it is the bottom of the ninth and they are nine points behind, it seems inevitable that they will use more of the magic they have already demonstrated and pull through. Mike Cameron, our center fielder, is up to bat. There are already two outs. He lines it to right field, and the ball is caught. The Mariners have lost, they aren’t going to the World Series.
The 2001 season has since become a legend to Mariners fans, something emblematic of our legacy as a team: they had done so amazingly, they had broken records, but it still wasn’t enough to get to the Series.
In 2025, almost 25 years later, they have still never made it all the way. It’s easy to view that season as the beginning of the end for the team, to fall into a notion that the Mariners are eternally doomed. This mindset, however, minimizes the truly incredible year they had in 2001 and rejects a future where they finally take the trophy home.
Amanda Cumming, a baseball writer, lifelong Mariners fan, and previous Safeco field (now T-Mobile Park) employee, reminisced on the 2001 season as one of the best they have ever had.
“It was just really magical, the whole year,” Cumming said. “They’d had a really magical year in 1995 when they made the playoffs for the first time. But that was like really anxiety-driven magic, because you were on the edge of your seat, hoping they would win. And in 2001, they just won. And you had this feeling like you would turn on a game or go to the ballpark, and you just knew that they would win.”
In the three years leading up to 2001, the Mariners had also lost three of their most prolific players to date. Even without those players that the team had been relying on in the mid-90s, the team was able to win 116 games, tying with the Cubs for the most games ever won in a season.
“Nobody expected them to be that good,” Cumming said. “And it’s because they lost Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr, and Alex Rodriguez…so they didn’t really have that superstar power. And just for whatever reason, every player clicked and had a great season that year. And it was kind of feeling like that a little bit in April with the [2025] Mariners.”
Anders Jorstad, a writer for Lookout Landing, has noticed fans getting stuck in a negative mindset. Having become a fan himself in 2009, Jorstad began his affair with the team when they were about to tailspin into some of their worst seasons.
According to Jorstad, the current management of the team is incredibly cautious in their decision-making. Not wanting to send the team back into the dark ages of the 2010s, they would rather ensure the Mariners win a consistent amount of games every year than have an insane 2001-esque season.
“The way that the teams are currently being constructed by President of baseball operations, Jerry Potter, and General Manager Justin Hollander, they are a more risk-averse group of decision makers than those guys were back in the 2001 season,” Jorstad said. “Because when you have such high highs like that 2001, you have those really low lows… [They] would rather kind of play the long game. They want a sustainable winner … their goal is to win 54% of games, which I think a lot of people were upset with.”
Jorstad’s introduction to the Mariners was when they were at their worst. Rather than turning him into a pessimist, it has given him a perspective that many fans lack. It’s difficult to harbor frustration for a team you began to love when they were nothing but disappointing.
“I like having a reason to root for a team every year and having a reason to, like, pay attention to them every year…the playoff odds of them are generally somewhere in the 50% to 60% range,” Jorstad said. “That to me means I’m going to care all summer long, so I will have a reason to tune in. I’ll have a reason to watch the standings. I will have a reason to still be watching in September, which we have not been able to say about a lot of the Mariners teams in the last 15 years. That is something that I don’t take for granted.”
Tremayne Person, host of the Mariners podcast “Keep it Electric,” was raised in Virginia, but still managed to fall in love with the Mariners with almost 3,000 miles separating him from their home.
Person, like most fans, has moments of doubt in the fate of the team but sees a glimmer of what they had in 2001 within the current roster.
“We often forget how crazy of a year Mike Cameron had that year,” Person said. “I think he had 25 home runs and had 110 RBIs (runs batted in), and he was a defensive stalwart. And in center field, which is very similar to how Julio Rodriguez is right now.”
What really made 2001 special was the balance within the roster. Talent wasn’t only flowing on the offensive side, but on the mound as well. Something that Person points out is mirrored in the 2025 roster.
“The pitching rotation in 2001 was also really good,” Person said. “[They] had one young pitcher, Freddy Garcia. He was like 24, and then the rest were just like grizzled old veterans who were just…striking while the iron is hot. So the pitching, even though this year… they have a lot of young pitchers … they both are also, really strong, really talented. I think the teams actually are pretty comparable, but I just don’t think that [the] 2025 Mariners have, like, the same kind of magic.”
Magic, unfortunately, cannot be the only thing we rely on to get us to the series. Person examined a few different steps management will need to take in order to finally get on the same level as the teams who are consistently making it further in the postseason. Overall, it seems the future of the team relies heavily on making some changes to the roster.
“We play really clean baseball, we’re one of the better defensive teams in the league, but they’re not the fastest, they’re not the strongest, they’re not making highlight reel plays … there’s just better talent on other teams,” Person said. “They [management] either need to open up the checkbook and really get some game-changing batters in the roster, or make some really big trades.”
Between Jorstad, Cumming, and Person, everyone agreed on at least one thing: we will see the Mariners make it to the World Series in this lifetime. It may be next year, in five years, in 10 years, but there is a very real, very obtainable future in which the commissioner’s trophy finally finds a way to the PNW.
As a long-time Mariners fan myself, it can be so hard to see how good they have been, and could be, when they are losing games almost half of the time. But, since beginning these interviews, they have won four games in a row — there is light at the end of the tunnel. All it takes is some fresh talent and one season of magic to turn everything around.
I’ll be damned if I don’t live to see the Mariners win the World Series.
Reach contributing writer Montanna Lovins at archives@dailyuw.com. X: @montannalovins Bluesky: @montannalovins.bsky.social
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