And was gracious enough to provide us this article... thanks amigo ... the paragraph breaks might have to be entered by hand in the text editor here...
+++ I arrived early at Safeco (to make sure I'd get the Seattle Mariners Classic Commercials Volume 2 DVD) and wandered around the ballpark a while, looking at Betancourt, Meche, Olivo, and Bloomquist take batting and fielding practice. +++
LOL! :- )
+++ Joe Gerlitz, of Publicis, the firm behind the recent advertisements for the Seahawks and Emerald Downs, didn't like anything that alluded to the 1995 season. That meant no "Refuse to Lose, Part Deux," "Revive '95" or "Party like it's 1995." Ty Heckler agreed. "I think it alienates some of the players that weren't on that team; it's like throwing it in their face," +++
Ya, folks can be that way sometimes, but it's not like other cities have a moratorium on past glories. It's not like Oakland has a moratorium on the Bash Brothers, or the Braves on the 13 (?) straight division titles, or that the 2009 Mets bristle when the Amazin' Mets come up in conversation. Much less the way they wallow in Yankee glory in that town...
Friday night I arrived early at Safeco (to make sure I'd get the Seattle Mariners Classic Commercials Volume 2 DVD) and wandered around the ballpark a while, looking at Betancourt, Meche, Olivo, and Bloomquist take batting and fielding practice. At around 6 I looked over at the way up above right field stands and saw some people fiddling with a banner that said Revive '95. In the third inning, I wandered over there hoping to talk with them about '95, but they'd fled the scene for better seats. Still, I looked at the banner up close: it said "1995: Aug 24-Oct. 2: 26 wins 11 losses 2009 Aug 24-Oct. 4: 3-1." Since I have a website celebrating the '95 team (http://1995mariners.com), I started thinking. I've heard about Mariner players complaining that they're being compared to the '95 team for a while now. When I searched for "Revive '95+Mariners" this morning, I turned up a Seattle P-I story from September 2000 about finding an unofficial slogan for the M's (it was "That's what I'm talkin' about!" and not "Mojo Risin") that said this: "Joe Gerlitz, of Publicis, the firm behind the recent advertisements for the Seahawks and Emerald Downs, didn't like anything that alluded to the 1995 season. That meant no "Refuse to Lose, Part Deux," "Revive '95" or "Party like it's 1995." Ty Heckler agreed. "I think it alienates some of the players that weren't on that team; it's like throwing it in their face," Heckler said. "Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. are gone," he said. "It's in the past." So yeah, 1995 is the long gone past, and seeing Griffey at the plate doesn't bring back the Kingdome or inspire Jose Lopez to dream of hitting Edgar's double all over again. I think everyone realizes that hanging up a banner comparing '95 to '09 won't bring back that magic, especially for all the Mariners who grew up in Japan or Venezuela or the Dominican Republic. The players aren't going to use the dream of '95 to run off 18 wins in 20 games and roll into the playoffs. But the only way any Mariner team's going to supplant '95 and win over the fans' enduring loyalty to that team is by at least getting to the World Series. Nine years after 2000, Seattle fans still have the Double in their hearts because no other Mariner team has put another memory in its place. You could feel this when Griffey came back to Seattle in 2007, when he signed with the Mariners in February, and back in May, when Randy Johnson made probably his last start in Seattle. I doubt the Mariner players (besides Griffey) really know this: they didn't experience the '95 run, they're busy trying to win now, they have their own lives to live. One of the odd things about baseball is that the dedicated fans dwell in nostalgia—they live on it—but the players and coaches reject it: they have too much to worry about in the day-to-day experience of playing 162 games. Still, I like to think that when the Mariners look up and see the Revive '95 banner, they see it as a challenge to surpass that team, not an annoying reminder that they're performing in the shadow of Hall of Famers and franchise greats. The last thing to add here is that this spring, when I talked to Tom Hutyler, the public address man at Safeco, he made a point about the emotion of Griffey's return: "The only drawback is that issue about how you can't go home again, you can't replicate that feeling of however many years ago. He might hit a few of those high-arching homers, but the catches in center field aren't going to happen again. But I think people are smart enough to know he's not the same man now; they can't expect the same things to happen, and maybe it's enough just to have him back."