The Seattle Mariners have featured some of the greatest players in baseball history.
There are the one-namers: Junior. A-Rod. Ichiro. The nicknames: Big Unit, King Felix.
The Mariners put together the best regular season ever, too, when they won 116 games in 2001.
And yet, somewhat inexplicably, the Mariners have never gone to the World Series.
It's not just that they haven't won one. They haven't even played in one.
MORE: The Joe DiMaggio reason Cal Raleigh should be the AL MVP
So when their 2025 postseason journey begins following a bye into the ALDS, the Mariners will be facing off not just with an opponent but with the ghosts of Octobers past.
If ever there was a team equipped to perform an exorcism, it's this one.
The Mariners' lineup is potent and deep. Cal Raleigh. Julio Rodriguez. Randy Arozarena. Josh Naylor. Eugenio Suarez. J.P. Crawford. Jorge Polanco. Even randomly on fire players like Dominic Canzone.
Seattle has a well-stocked pitching cupboard, too.
What the Mariners don't have is a history.
And no, this isn't a story where we'll try to connect the dots and say a postseason failure in 2001 means anything about what happens in 2025.
But baseball does have a funny way of prolonging droughts and curses and whatever other word you want to use.
MORE: Phillies' Bryce Harper is facing unprecedented pressure in playoffs
The sport is made for the consistent to succeed and for the erratic and sporadic to suffer.
Baseball fans in the Pacific Northwest have had to deal with their share of erratic performances.
But this year's team might just be different.
It's time for a Fall Classic to make it to Seattle. And if the Mariners finally get there, don't bet against them finishing the job.
More MLB News:
- Aaron Judge is in rare air with Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds
- Cal Raleigh officially resides with Babe Ruth in history books
- Julio Rodriguez made his choice to opt out of the All-Star Game look brilliant
- Shohei Ohtani is MLB's first member of a very specific 55-HR club
- Mets' epic collapse summed up by 0-67 stat
- Guardians complete unprecedentedly impossible MLB history