Why don’t Seattle fans seem to care about the Mariners’ success?
Sep 11, 2014, 6:04 AM | Updated: 8:43 am
Seattle Mariners' Mike Zunino stands near the on-deck circle in the second inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
While the Mariners are seriously in contention to make the playoffs, Seattle fans still appear to be holding out in terms of jumping on the bandwagon.
KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson was surprised when he turned on the Mariners game Tuesday night to see the stands looking pretty bare.
“There was nobody in the stands,” said Monson. “There were only 11,300 people at the game Tuesday night.”
710 ESPN Seattle host Danny O’Neil agreed there haven’t been as many people there as he’d like to see. “I was bummed to see the number of people there.”
O’Neil said the play on the field by the team has been fun to watch, and it’s really too bad the fans haven’t come around yet.
“This team is a fun team to root for. The actual experience of being around and pulling for this team is really pretty incredible,” said O’Neil.
While the team is really making some headway, according to O’Neil, it’s also somewhat understandable that after such a long playoff drought fans are a little skeptical.
“It’s been a dark decade,” said O’Neil. “This team hasn’t made the playoffs now going back to 2001, over 13 years. Some of that is going to take time to build that back.”
As for attendance in this series specifically, Wednesday night also saw low attendance with just under 17,000 fans, O’Neil says the Mariners shouldn’t take all the blame for that.
“The Houston Astros deserve some of this blame too. The Houston Astros are the team that’s in town right now and they’ve stripped their major league product down so far that now this is the second to third year of them being a largely irrelevant franchise. If I’m a Mariners fan, the Houston Astros is the last series I want to go see.”
There is an upcoming series though that O’Neil thinks might be more likely to draw fans out.
“I’m curious to see what happens this weekend. The Oakland A’s are in town. That’s the team the Mariners are chasing in the American League West standings,” said O’Neil. “If the Mariners pass the A’s, they’re going to make the playoffs. I’m really convinced of that, regardless of what happens with Detroit.”
Are you going to turn out to support the Mariners?
