Seattle Mariners

The earliest days of the Seattle Mariners played out not on the diamond, but in the courtroom. Seattle had actually received its first expansion MLB franchise in 1969 in the form of the Seattle Pilots, who played just a single season (at rather ill-named Sick’s Stadium) before being purchased and relocated to Wisconsin, where they would become the Milwaukee Brewers. The city and state sued Major League Baseball and were thus rewarded with a new franchise, the Seattle Mariners, who arrived to find themselves sharing a brand new stadium, the Kingdome, with the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL. On the field, the Mariners plumbed some serious depths through their first decade and a half, failing to post a winning record until 1993, reaching the playoffs for the first time in 1995 led by the pitching of the towering Big Unit, Randy Johnson, on the mound (Johnson won the Cy Young Award that year), Ken Griffey Jr. at the plate, and a Manager of the Year performance by Lou Piniella. The Mariners won a memorable ALDS series against the New York Yankees, coming from two games down to win three straight in front of a wild Seattle crowd of nearly 60,000 at the Kingdome, including an 11th inning victory in the Game Five decider with a double down the left field line by Edgar Martinez that scored two runs to flip the lead to 6-5 in favor of the Mariners. The team lost a heartbreaking six-game ALCS to the Cleveland Indians (now the Cleveland Guardians) but talk of the long-beleaguered Mariners leaving Seattle quieted down as the dramatic win over the Yankees had generated great interest in the team in the city. The Mariners continued to be a playoff contender through the 1990s and early 2000s, going closest in 2000 and 2001, the latter led by MVP and Rookie of the Year Ichiro Suzuki, who would go on to have one of the most legendary careers in modern MLB history (and certain the best by any Japanese player in MLB to date). Unfortunately for the Mariners and their fans, the team lost in both years in the ALCS to the Yankees, and would then go on to have one of the worst runs of form in recent memory, missing the playoffs for 20 consecutive seasons between 2002 and 2021. This painful playoff drought came mercifully to an end in 2022, albeit only via a Wild Card place, and the Mariners even managed to beat the Toronto Blue Jays two games to zero, but crashed out to the Houston Astros in the ALDS in a 3-0 sweep. In 2023, the team finished an agonizing one game out of a playoff place despite a .543 win percentage and 88-74 record. To date, The Mariners are currently the only active MLB team never to win a pennant (and thus never to have played in a World Series). While fans with any sense of history will not go into the upcoming seasons expecting this to change, there will be little glimmers of hope from the past couple of years that the Mariners can surprise a few teams if they can manage to sneak into the playoffs. 

Seattle Mariners Rivalries 

The Seattle Mariners have developed many division-based rivalries due to their perennial struggles to get anywhere near the playoffs, particularly against the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels (who are also relatively close to Seattle geographically). Previously, the Mariners had a long-standing divisional rivalry with the Oakland Athletics, but this has diminished somewhat since the divisions were reorganized, meaning that the two teams come less frequently into contact.

Getting the tickets you want to the most popular Seattle Mariners games can be tricky, so be sure to head over to TicketX to find exactly what you need at the most affordable prices around. Note as well that Seattle is really the closest MLB option for the entire Pacific Northwest, meaning that if you live in Vancouver, Canada or Portland, Oregon (or even Anchorage, Alaska) and want to head to an MLB game, Seattle is your closest port of call. In fact, despite the Toronto Blue Jays being the only Canadian team left in MLB, many baseball fans from the western provinces of Canada (Vancouver and its surrounding areas) actually support the Mariners. Vancouver is just a three hour drive from Seattle across the Peace Arch border crossing. Read more about our tips on "How to Get Cheap Seattle Mariners Game Tickets Today" on TicketX Magazine.