Link up with the Mariners

It seems like only yesterday, but it was a long time ago now.

We were at a Mariners’ game in the Kingdome, and M’s reliever Mike Schooler, the closer who was having trouble closing, was shagging batting practice fly balls in the outfield.

One boy was yelling at Schooler to please throw him a ball. So Schooler walked over to the fence, pointed at the boy and drew his arm back as if he was going to toss the boy the ball.

Then he stopped, turned and threw the ball back to the infield, laughing. The boy was crushed.

Luckily there was a Mariners’ fan nearby who knew the exact right thing to say.

“Don’t worry,” he yelled to the boy, loud enough for Schooler to hear, “he’ll throw you one in the ninth inning.”

The boy didn’t understand the rip, but Schooler did, because his head swiveled toward the fence nearly as quickly as it did after throwing Mark McGwire a hanging breaking ball.

He couldn’t identify the quick-witted fan, however, because everyone was laughing so hard, myself included.

Such are the memories of baseball.

It’s such a relaxing sport played at such a languid pace, it invites stories and conversation. Memories run deep, colored by time and embellished by repetition.

Many of those memories in the Inland Northwest revolve around the Mariners. Good memories of when they were bad (a blimp-like Gaylord Perry in those god-awful uniforms) and good memories when they were great (2001 anyone?). But the recent past hasn’t held many fond recollections.

Three last-place American League West finishes have a way of destroying brain cells faster than cheap Scotch.

Yet, despite their recent run of horrendous play, the M’s still have a deep fan base in the Inland Northwest.

And, if you count yourself among them, we want you.

We want you to join us at SportsLink as we follow the Mariners throughout their most successful season ever, as they win the A.L. West, ride through the playoffs and defeat the Dodgers in the World Series.

We also want you to join us at SportsLink as the pitching falls apart, Jose Guillen rips management and they lose another 90 games.

Either way – or the more than likely the real in-between result – we want you to follow the M’s with us.

We know there are Mariners fan sites out there like ussmariner.com or mvn.com/mlb-mariners or detectovision.com or lookoutlanding.com, but we want to fill a void.

The usual fan sites offer opinion – and we’ll have that too, ours and yours – but not as much information as many of us would like.

Remember that recent ESPN commercial with the guy who was talking out of his “pants” because he didn’t have enough knowledge of college basketball? Well, we want to make sure that doesn’t happen to you concerning the M’s.

We link every day to Mariners stories from around the country, stories from reputable news sources with access to real information. And if you’ve found a link we’ve overlooked, you can add it with a comment, helping M’s fans everywhere stay up on the team.

It’s one-site shopping.

And each day we have a question about something being in the news, from the pitching staff to minor league prospects to player’s superstitions.

If you want to be the most knowledgable Mariners fan sitting in section 323, check in each day.

By the way, one of the other M’s fans standing behind the Kingdome fence gave the kid one of his batting practice balls. And Schooler was off to Texas soon after.