The darkest timeline

(Ed's note. Patrick wrote this post, but he is sick. So I am publishing it for him. Please do not yell at Patrick today.)

Yesterday, my colleague Mr. Bishop took you on a spirit voyage through the Bavasi era, and many of you barely made the passage. Afterward, the same semi-famous Internet Personality and I took part in the following badinage:

Obviously, this is pointless: our senior English classes proved incontrovertibly that this is the best of all possible worlds. But what this article intends to discuss is... what if it weren't? What if there were a timeline, an alternate universe, where everything about the Mariners really did go wrong?

PATRICK: Edgar did steroids.

NATHAN: Joey Cora did steroids.

KATE: The Double was fabricated in a studio like the moon landing.

PETER: Ackley played badly on purpose to get traded to the Yankees.

PATRICK: Kyle Seager reveals that he owns stock in Barstool.

MEG: Mike Zunino is left-handed but never finds out.

BRENDAN: Jerry Dipoto is still working for the Angels, and is basically Matt Damon in the Departed.

KATE: Chone Figgins spent every offseason secretly caring for AIDS babies in Somalia and donating his salary to microloans for developing nations.

PATRICK: Chris Gwynn played subliminal messages in all the clubhouses, hypnotizing the prospects into becoming convinced they couldn't succeed.

BRENDAN: Alex Rodriguez tried to stay in Seattle but the Mariners refused to extend a single contract offer.

ANDREW: Milton Bradley is elected into the Mariners Hall of Fame.

BRENDAN: Bill Bavasi is elected with him.

MEG: Rickie Weeks was never cut. He missed a team flight out of SeaTac, couldn't get another, and now lives at the airport.

PATRICK: It turns out the Mariner dogs are made of actual Mariner.

NATHAN: Kevin Kremin never existed; it's just a southern accent that Rizzs does once in a while.

ANDREW: Nelson Cruz's eyebrows are press-on.

ANDERS: Mike Zunino made John Buck a special cake for his birthday.

PATRICK: Jack Wilson is actually in the moose suit and no one will let him out.

PATRICK: He has to drink through a straw.

NATHAN: Jay Buhner doesn't own a truck, and has never driven one.

BRENDAN: A leaked memo from 2008 reveals Lincoln and Armstrong expressing regret at not firing Niehaus and taking a chance on that Joe Buck kid.

PATRICK: Griffey isn't actually his father's son; in a Prince and the Pauper plot, he met the real Griffey as a batboy with the Reds and traded lives, then refused to trade back.

MATT: You wake up from a dream to find out the Mariners never existed, Seattle has never had a baseball team, and that the whole thing has all been in your head. Then you wake up from ​*that*​ dream to find that the Mariners actually have existed, and they have indeed been terrible for 38 years, and that the Marlins have two World Series trophies.

*****

(This is Nathan again) Whew! That was rough. I'm sorry we had to do that to you, and during such a miserable time of year. There is merit, however, and possible joy, to be taken from imagining the most frightening, horrific things. By the act of conjuring terror we acknowledge its very falseness, and can (hopefully) thus take more happiness in the real, tangible blessings of this reality we exist in today.

Be happy, be joyous, be radiant, and triumphant. None of these things are real, at least not in this universe.

Probably.