Ya, 'cause this worked so damn well with the Sonics. Wait......

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not going to boycott them but agree with each of your issues. Although I feel the Jack Z thing is a little overblown, his trades do seem to be swaying back to the other team.

If we boycott Safeco, then they'll be moved and we won't even get to enjoy when the real MLB teams come to town (Yankees, Giants, Astros...

I'd never will tell anyone to boycott any local team, though I do have a personal 5 year boycott ongoing. I will not give the M's another dime thru ticket or merchandise sales until Lincoln and Armstrong are gone, and by the look at the high number of empty seats at Safeco, looks like I'm not the only one. I used to go to 15-20 games a year, now 0.

If the M's have a hard time finding their wallet to acquire top tier talent, I have a hard time finding mine to support their crap product!

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42-13, 29-3, and 23-17 and a Lombardi trophy from THIS century, deal with it niner trolls

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS SUPERBOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS!

a better seat for me I say

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http://personal-spectrum.com/

Have at it. I want it back after dumb and dumber (Chuck and Howard) are gone though.

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42-13, 29-3, and 23-17 and a Lombardi trophy from THIS century, deal with it niner trolls

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS SUPERBOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS!

They didn't give me a god damn beard hat.

Now THAT would have pissed me off right there

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http://personal-spectrum.com/

I stuck with the Mariners through the lows and lows of the past 9 years, but I stopped supporting them after they threw a hissyfit over the new NBA/NHL arena.

I can handle losing. I can't handle the slap in the face the Mariners gave all joint Mariners/Sonics fans.

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Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Bastards!!!!!!!!!

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42-13, 29-3, and 23-17 and a Lombardi trophy from THIS century, deal with it niner trolls

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS SUPERBOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS!

The above cemented the idea was of my personal boycott was the right thing to do. The Mariners don't want 2 more professional teams to compete with them for the Seattle sportsdollar. They know they have a crap product and dont have confidence in their own abilities and or willingness to spend the necessary dollars to put a championship caliber team on the field.

A successful business owner once said to me "If you do things the right way, you'll never have to worry about what your business competition does!" The M's brass could never grasp that concept.

IF you listen to the things the M's brass says you always hear the phrase "our goal is to put a competitive team on the field"............ that's it??? Mediocre teams are competitive! Notice how you never hear "our goal is to play in the World Series" or "our goal is to win championships"??? Nope, just being "competitive" is good enough for these a$$clowns!

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42-13, 29-3, and 23-17 and a Lombardi trophy from THIS century, deal with it niner trolls

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS SUPERBOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS!

Nope, I'm still going to the games because that's what fans do.

I'm not one of those fair-weather, bandwagon part time fan though...

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SUPERBOWL!!

So I dont follow the Mariners enough to know this, but what is the problem? Where is the problem?

Is it the ownership? Arent they owned by some old Japanese dude thats never even been to Safeco?

Wedge?

Year after year, whats the issue?

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"We ran into a buzz saw," - John Fox, Super Bowl XLVIII

Everything, just... everything

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3elieve

Do you also buy crappy products because "thats what consumers do"? Sports is a business. Don't sell yourself short by thinking you don't deserve to spend your money on something good.

If he changed his mind and decided to honor your request would he not still be a sheep? Your error is not making your proposition more lucrative.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.

It's a variety of things, which isn't surprising, because I imagine that if the issue were singular it would have much more easily been addressed by now. Ownership is very uninvolved in the team, which in and of itself doesn't have to be a problem, but when an organization isn't working well, having absent ownership can be a problem. That said, having OVERinvolved ownership, particularly when the owner is a buffoon, can also be a problem.

During the Bavasi years, the Mariners were devastated by a series of catastrophically stupid baseball moves. The talent that the Mariners shipped away during the Bavasi years for no returns is staggering, and is enough to make you want to vomit. This is all pretty well-documented and is the absolute foundation of the team's struggles. That Lincoln/Armstrong let Bavasi stick around long enough to devastate the team in this manner is inexcusable.

During the Zduriencik years, the Mariners have made much better baseball decisions (no, not all of them are winners), but have suffered their fair share of awful luck. Everyone thought Smoak, Montero, and Ackley would hit (and maybe Montero and Ackley still will), and if those three players were hitting to their potential right now, the Mariners look like a completely different team. Getting Guti (et al) for Putz was a stroke of brilliance, and if not for injury troubles, he'd be a star. A lot of extremely talented young players have completely tanked on the Mariners, and while you could assume that must be an indictment of coaching staff, I think it's more likely beyond the team's control. Prospects are always fluky in this way, and the Mariners have been on the receiving end of more than their share of highly-touted prospects flaming out.

Zduriencik is also hamstrung by a relatively limited budget. It's not true that management is UNWILLING to spend, and they have certainly made their fair share of lucrative offers, but unfortunately, the Mariners' reputation as a club (and the tendency of talented hitters to fade into nothingness in Seattle) makes them a difficult place to sell to free agents. You could argue whether or not buying bats like Fielder and Pujols is a good idea for the team, but I think it's fair to say that IF you had an unlimited budget, it's a fine idea - the Mariners don't, unfortunately.

On top of that, Zduriencik has suddenly decided that adding aging vets on 1-year deals to take up otherwise-useful at-bats from younger players is a fine idea. Jason Bay is one thing, but Raul Ibanez is another entirely. It probably doesn't substantially harm the club, but it certainly doesn't help the club.

I'm sure I could think of others, but the bottom line is - the Mariners are a mess. Their highly-talented farm system/trades produced three top-tier hitting talents that are all tanking. Those three were supposed to be the cornerstone of a new generation of Mariners that would carry the team back to relevance. That it hasn't happened is pretty devastating to the franchise. Seager seems good. Maybe Saunders and Zunino will be good. Maybe Ackley and Montero will turn it around, and Smoak will be the only loss of the three. Here's hoping.

Who cares what he spends his money on? it ain't hurtin' no body.

There's more than just going to root for the M's, going to the stadium itself is fun, if he likes going there why call him a sheep?

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3elieve

some people just have misguided reasons why they hate the Ms. They arent good, which should be enough.

Pretty well said... alot of faith put into younger players after the debacle that Bavasi caused, and those younger players arent working out. Thankfully (atleast on the very front end) Hamilton turned us down or we'd have another 25 million a year invested in a player who isnt hitting.

Baseballs a funny sport, and to put together a successful team you either need to spend 100s of millions or get lucky with young players. Weve tried the younger player approach and while each of Smoak, Ackely and Montero all looked the part in their projections, they just havent hit.

We still have a strong farm system with young talent. if the younger guys can show promise and start to become atleast average MLB level players we may rebound for 2014 with a new crop of free agent possibilities and the likes of Walker, Hultzen, Franklin and Zunino joining

Exactly.


I don't even bother watching the games or keeping up with them, it's a waste of time until real changes are made.


Chances are they lost anyway.

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Interesting, thanks jkitsune

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"We ran into a buzz saw," - John Fox, Super Bowl XLVIII

After seeing the Seahawks completely revamp the organization from a laughingstock disaster to the potential for a dynasty in three short years, I have even less faith in the Mariners than I did before. I'm sorry, but fielding a crappy product and actively working against other local sports franchises, and trying to shellac it with a cheep coat of humor and a beard hat is not a professional way to run a sports franchise. Disjointed leadership in the team + concerted effort to keep the Sonics away + laughable product on the field + gimmicks and funny commercials as the only efforts to bring fans in = train wreck I am not willing to pay to see.

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World Champion Seattle Seahawks football. It's an addiction, and there is no cure.

I'm not going to defend the Mariners too much on this, because they don't really give me much to defend them with. Baseball franchises don't rebuild as quickly as football franchises, in large part because there's so many levels of minor league system before players are even prepared to join the major league club. Good drafts in baseball don't generally pay dividends until several years down the road, and so you would expect, generally, that it may take 5-6 years to rebuild.

Obviously, it's taken longer than that, so I'm not using that as an excuse. Z has been a far better GM than Bavasi was (low bar to hurdle), and if Ackley, Smoak, and Montero were living up to their potential, we'd be looking at a much different future than we are right now. I think it's easy to forget that it's not as if the Mariners were the only people who thought these three would hit - Smoak and Montero were both top-10 prospects for many years in the eyes of scouts league-wide, and everyone thought Ackley would hit.

As for the PR, yeah. I don't really fault them for funny commercials and gimmicky promotions because all teams do that (the Giants do it less well, I can attest), but their tone-deaf bickering about the Sonics was an awful decision, and only served to alienate the franchise from the town.

This^ except I was more the 5-7 per year.

They have played pretty good ball the last 4 games, and seem to be gaining some confidence.

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Unless we want to be a 1 sport city we probably shouldn't boycott the Mariners.

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4/27/13 - I was there #humblethug
"He looked like a bad man," Sherman said, "and I knew we were alright."

winner winner chicken dinner !

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http://personal-spectrum.com/

I started boycotting them last season. I used to love going to games but I didn't go to one last year and i likely won't go to one this year. They will not get any more money from me until they put a quality product out there for a meaningful period of time.

Seahawks and Sounders both get great attendance and actually care about winning. Not sure where you're getting 1 potential sport from.

I'm not willing to give up Major League Baseball for a lower tier soccer league.

I'm not willing to give up an MLB team for an EPL team.

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SUPER BOWL 48 CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!

RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Huh, since when did not being a fairweather fan make someone a sheep?

Do I like the ownership group? Nope. But I'm a FAN.

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SUPERBOWL!!

Please refer to Sacramento Kings situation before deciding to boycott a crap product put forth by management that doesn't care. Or you can keep paying for a shit product. You're in a no win situation.

Are you going to begin trolling a mass of threads now? You are not doing very good at the one thread that you should remain in with your posts that wreak of whining.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.

If this is directed at me, my comment was relevant to the conversation, whereas yours was not. You're calling me out for 'whining' in a board about boycotting your home team. Sacramento was about to (and still might) lose their team because of bad management; if you want to ignore that example then fine; boycott the team until your owner can blame bad attendance on the bad market and move the team to North Carolina.

I think we can cut salamander some slack here because (despite the consistent inability to grasp the emotions of Sonics fans on this board) he does have a point. Boycotting and poor team attendance only fuel owners to move on, not make changes. On the contrary, in the Premier League fans take to the streets all the time to protest ownership and often help facilitate changes and in some cases push the owners out. However, ownership of teams here in the US know they have the power and dont feel threatened by the whims of its fans.

Now, the Ms seem to be getting things together a little.

We'd have the wnba too, to be fair.

I need not cut him any slack. He knows where his thoughts belong and it is not in this thread. He left that thread and decided to troll in others in an attempt to gather support from Seattle fans. Since he has done it here then he is demonstrating the willingness to infect any thread that may remotely relate to his cause therefore furthering his trolling. I give two shits about Sacramento.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.

You are trolling a Seattle sports board in an attempt to gain sympathy for a Sacramento team.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.

First off, I come here because I'm a Seahawks fan. Second, I haven't been disrespectful to any of the Sonics or Mariner fans. In fact I'm doing Mariner fans a favor by warning them what can happen when you don't support a bad team. I'm not trolling. What's the point of a forum if you only say what everyone already believes and wants to hear. I trust the people here can make up their own opinions without censoring or intimidating people with alternate points of view.

Baseball is completely different. They have crappy teams that have been crappy for years and hive no intention of ever getting better and no one cares. They have no salary cap. Small market teams realize they are at the mercy of the large markets. You can build a farm system and maybe hit a few years but in the end Its futile.

You don't get it and I can no longer help you to understand.

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I am a firm believer in luck, and I found that the harder I work the more I have of it.