SEATTLE -- Junior Griffey and Alex Rodriguez. The Kid and a kid.
|  | | Life will go on in Seattle without Ken Griffey Jr., but will his Mariners jerseys sell? Cricket Levering ponders a purchase. |
Maybe this town wasn't big enough for the both of them, just like it's not big enough for sparkling new Safeco Field and the Kingdome, now in the process of being eviscerated just a few blocks away.
Alex Rodriguez is Safeco Field. He's a wonderful player, still fresh out of the box, and he never does anything uncomfortable or embarrassing.
Ken Griffey is ... well, to say he's the Kingdome would be stretching this analogy past its breaking point. But, like the Kingdome, Griffey was generally accessible to the masses, if somewhat disagreeable when the Mariners weren't winning.
Late Thursday morning at the Pyramid Alehouse, corner of First Avenue and Royal Brougham Way and just across the street from Safeco Field, there's already a bustling lunch crowd at 11:30, and by noon there will be seven parties on the waiting list. The TVs are all tuned to ESPN, and KJR Sports Radio maintains a studio on the second floor.
But this is not a place for baseball fans. It's a place to conduct business, or unwind after three oh-so-rigorous hours of meetings and e-mail. Turn to the man sitting to your right at the bar and ask, "So, are you a Mariners fan?" and you're just as likely to hear "Mmmm, sort of" as anything else. Stroll around, and instead of hearing tales of Junior and Alex, it's eBay and Amazon.
This ain't Boston or the North Side of Chicago. It's Seattle, and when you do find a Mariners fan, chances are that he or she started following the team either in 1995, when the team finally won, or last year, when the fan moved here from San Jose or Minneapolis. Yes, there are some longtime fans in Seattle, but you certainly won't find them here at the Alehouse, a stone's throw from left field.
Walk five minutes north and you're at the Kingdome. Gate B, to be precise, and right across the street from Sluggers, the only real sports bar close to either of the ballparks. Where the Pyramid was filled to capacity, Sluggers is nearly deserted, like a college library the Friday night after finals. There's a guy at the bar nursing his third beer of the day -- "If Griffey doesn't like it here, I say get his ass outta here" -- and, sitting around one of those too-small round tables, a quartet of women with bleached hair, not exactly young but not quite middle-aged, either. The kind of people you'd often see in the upper deck at the Kingdome, but who rarely get into Safeco unless the boss can't use the tickets that night.
These four know about the trade, of course. Wednesday night, it was a big enough story that some of the local network affiliates ran the news scrolling across the bottom of the TV screens.
Susie: "Sure, I'll miss Junior. But we offered him a big contract and it wasn't enough, so what can you do?"
Jan: "I just think it's a shame that we won't get to see him anymore. And it's a shame that everyone's so down on Griffey after all the great things he did."
Sheryl: "Yeah, if it wasn't for him there wouldn't be a Safeco Field. And now that he's gone, it's a good thing they have a new park or else nobody would show up this year."
Daria: "It won't be the same without him, but I think -- what's his name, Gillick? -- is smart enough to get some good players back. Losing Junior won't be so bad if we're winning."
Or as that great populist Lyndon Johnson once said, "Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."
When it comes to sports, tomorrow is all that really matters, whether you're in Boston, Seattle or Timbuktu.
If the Mariners win tomorrow, Gillick's a hero and the ballpark is full every night.
And if they lose tomorrow? The good people of Seattle will find something else to worry about. Just like the good old days.
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