By Hype Coordinator Patrick Michaud, Bureau of Very Important Baseball Feelings
Your soundtrack:
Friends, Seattleites, and beloved baseball acolytes, it is Opening Day. Each one begins with the eternal, often irrational, but always beautiful conviction that this is the year for our team.
In 1977, a baseball team arrived in this city. Seattle responded by falling deeply in love. We showed up and spent the next several decades collectively holding our breath. We watched Junior float across center field like gravity was merely a suggestion. We watched Edgar demolish sliders like they were the Kingdome itself ☹. We watched the 2001 squad win 116 games and still not make the World Series. And then, last year, the Mariners won the AL West. Cal hit sixty home runs, and I’m still mad about the MVP vote.
Today, March 26th, 2026, the Mariners take the field against the Cleveland Guardians for the first game of this season. The players will be wearing a “50 Seasons” patch on their jerseys, one that incorporates 116 lines, nodding to the 2001 team’s legendary win total.
There is something transcendent about Opening Day. The way the whole city leans in. The way even people who spent six months saying “I don’t really follow baseball” suddenly have very strong opinions about the lineup and anxieties about rotator cuffs. The way hope, that most stubborn and renewable of resources, replenishes itself overnight as if it hadn’t just watched a team strand eleven runners against the Astros in September.
To you, the fans heading to T-Mobile Park today, please eat something new (my food recommendations are below), please don’t leave early because the traffic “isn’t that bad” (it is that bad), and please, for the love of everything sacred, look both ways before you cross 1st Avenue South. Hype Coordinator Patrick Michaud will not be responsible for the outcome if you don’t.
TOP 3 FOODS WE ARE EXCITED TO TRY THIS SEASON
In no particular order:
Fish and Chips from Ivars- I need that souvenir Washington State Ferry boat. I apologize in advance to my significant other because I will be eating all future meals out of it.
Crab Fries in section 187- If these live up to the hype, they may take over for garlic fries. Apparently, I’m not allowed to eat garlic fries anymore because of the offense I’ve caused in the vampire community. I’m listening, I’m learning.
This one might come as a surprise – Curry Donuts – Now stop laughing because “of course, the cop wants a donut.” Donuts are the perfect treat, curry is awesome, so the two combined? Let’s find out together!
Bonus: They now have four different NA beers and cheap hotdogs on the value menu if you are trying for 9 in 9 and don’t want to risk the DUI but are somehow ok with 9 hotdogs. Your cardiologist would like a word.
A BRIEF NOTE ON PARKING FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT SPD
The Link Light Rail drops you off basically inside the stadium. It was designed this way on purpose. If you drive, please lock your vehicle. Your Cal Raleigh bobblehead should not be left visible on the back seat. That’s not a metaphor. That’s just good sense.
Play ball! Let’s go Mariners! Let’s go Seattle! WE BELIEVE! And if you see an officer near the stadium today, feel free to say hello or wave with all five fingers, we are all excited about baseball and have been thinking about the lineup since pitchers and catchers first reported to Peoria, if we’re being honest.
Happy 50th, Mariners. The city loves you. Even when you make us cry.