If you’ve ever worked at a failing business, you know the general numbness that overtakes you after a while. Working in a continuously underperforming school district, every school year that wound down had not the satisfying tick of a checkbox completed, but the grim rasp of another notch in the belt: another year down, another summer of escape, another year closer to retirement. At least with businesses that are closing up shop you get the thrill of a going-out-of-business sale, everything must go, make us a deal on the fixtures.
The Mariners haven’t treated fans to a going-out-of-business sale for the past few years, instead choosing to remain stubbornly non-mathematically-eliminated deep into the calendar turning to September.