The Mariners of old suffered 15 miserable losing seasons in a row. Their team logo was very plain 'trident M'. Their uniforms were hideous, especially the away uniforms- which the local fans mercifully did not have to see. Attendance was extremely low. Over their first 12 seasons, they averaged little better than 12 thousand people per game.
They played in a concrete tomb, also known as the kingdome, with nearly 60 thousand seats. The dome had no bullpen, so the relief pitchers had to sit and warm up in foul territory. Public Address speakers were suspended from the ceiling and occasionally a high fly ball would hit one and fall to the ground uncaught. (The field rules were that the speakers were part of the field of play and the batter was awarded a base hit in that scenario.) The ushers and concession staff would normally be easy to find in their homely orange and brown polyester suits, but they turned out to be well camoflaged in a baseball game at the Kingdome, with its 50 thousand empty orange and brown seats.
There were two ways to get into Mariners games. You could pay to get in (although I do not know anyone who actually did this) or you could get free tickets. The easiest way to get tickets was to attend school. If you got grades, you got free tickets. Good grades resulted in tickets to three games. Bad grades also resulted in tickets to three games. (Did anyone ever consider the educational benefits of offering more tickets to those with bad grades?) With three kids in school, our family was able to attend 9 games each year. I do remember seeing them win one game.
In addition to free tickets, the other approach to boosting attendance was to have a give-away night. I cannot remember going to a Mariners game where I did not receive some free item. It is still unknown why the baseball concession stands stocked Mariners items. Down in the garage, we had a cupboard which was our Mariners shrine. It was full of stacks of blue hats, each with a partially attached gold trident M. These items stayed in the cupboard unless we were playing baseball outside and needed something to serve as bases. It was extremely uncool to wear any Mariners item, especially to school.
Growing up in an American League city, I saw no need for the wimpy pitchers to bat. I liked the Designated Hitters that the Mariners used (Ken Phelps, Gorman Thomas) and never gave a thought to the National League. Those were just the teams that the Mariners never played...ever. I now live in a National League city (Houston). After following the Astros and seeing the game National League style, I am convinced that American League baseball is missing about 50% of the strategy. It is Baseball Lite.
Not only does the DH water the game down, but banning it will help reduce bench clearing brawls, according to Tim Sullivan of the San Diego Tribune:
If you want to fix a problem, you should start with the root cause, not the current culprit.
Ban the DH and you restore the reciprocal relationship of intimidation and retribution. You give baseball back its sense of symmetry; neatly summarized by the saying, "What goes around, comes around."
