Mariners Island, My Couch

As I sit here in Atlanta on a Thursday afternoon and watch the Mariners on MLB.tv, I feel like a castaway on a desert island. There isn't a person within 1000 miles of me that really gives a damn about this game, and here I sit filled with rage at the "arm discomfort" of Adrian Sampson. It's nice to have Twitter to share the frustration, but it's just not the same as watching with folks who care. Why? Because when I yell at Twitter or my couch or some other inanimate object, they don't yell back. They don't try to calm me down, or remind me that this isn't really a new feeling for Mariners fans, or anything. They just sit there, like couches do, and silently mock my pain.

**Also, the MLB App updates faster than MLB.tv shows the action. I need to turn off my notifications before Justin Upton hits another double that I know about before it happens, and preemptively yell. The couch is confused.**

Being a displaced sports fan is an interesting experience. I've done it before. When I lived in Boston I once got kicked out of a bar in the middle of the third quarter of a Husky football game. Not because I was drunk or loud or anything, but because it was closing time. There is certainly some level of personal pride or honor that comes along with being the only fan at a bar. It's like you are really proving to yourself that you are in fact the fan that you think you are. Which is pretty dumb, because no one cares and you don't get a medal or anything for it. You just get that smug satisfaction that you care so much even an entire continent won't detract from the passion you feel for your team.

Which brings me to my point...is being a Mariners fan just about smug satisfaction? Being a fan of any team really, but especially a fan of a certain type of team that just continues being frustrating and awful year after year after year. I openly admit that I feel like I'm a better fan, and in some twisted way a better human, because I am going to sit here and watch another disappointing Mariners season to the bitter end. We relish it, don't we? But at what point does that become crazy? I totally understand doing it in Seattle, where you can go to work the next day and complain to your co-workers, or go to a bar and drink it away with fellow sufferers. But does a fan make a sound when he complains in an empty apartment...3000 miles away from anyone who cares? If it's about smugness, who am I better than? The couch? At least the couch is doing its job. I don't even have a job. I am not better than the couch.

These are the types of existential crises that each Mariners season brings. It's a pretty predictable arc. Optimism, reality, frustration, May, Watching for pride, 4 months of stubbornness, season ends. But this year the arc was extended a little, which actually makes it even worse right now. Whatever though, I'll be watching. It's a "grind" as they say. Luckily Dae-Ho Lee is around to do amazing feats of chubby athleticism.

**I forgot to turn the notifications off. That McCann home run really sucked, twice. Now it's the couch that is smug.**