Must Be the Season of the Witch

SEATTLE — Every year, pitchers and catchers report for spring training, and just as spring represents a reawakening in the natural world, spring training provides a reawakening for every team, a fresh start, full of renewed optimism. No matter the team, fans across the league allow themselves to dream a little, to believe that this year might be the one.

You could be my silver springs
Blue-green colors flashin’
I would be your only dream
Your shining autumn, ocean crashing.

But for 29 teams, the season will end in heartbreak. For some teams that heartbreak might come as early as June or July, for others in August or September, and a few will experience the agony of October sorrow. Over the last several years, the Seattle Mariners have unwittingly built a tradition of remaining very much in the playoff hunt until the final week of the regular season, only to miss the cut by a harrowingly thin margin. They did make the playoffs in 2022, ending a 20-year postseason drought, but they struggled to cross that threshold again. Instead, they fell into a familiar rhythm, playing hard until the very end, but then their season was over. Their time was up.

Time cast its spell on you, but you won’t forget me
I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me.

This season is different. The Mariners not only secured a place in the postseason, but they also won the AL West for the first time since 2001. In doing so, they eschewed the Wild Card Series and advanced directly to the best-of-five Division Series, which begins on Saturday against the Tigers in Seattle. And all it took was a little witchcraft.

The lyrics quoted in italics above come from “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac. The song was written by Stevie Nicks about the end of her romantic relationship with Lindsey Buckingham, the band’s lead guitarist and a fellow vocalist. Some speculate the song contains a hex, that after the couplet referencing a spell, when the next four lines are repeated three times in a live performance of the song while Nicks locks eyes with Buckingham, they double as a curse on Buckingham, leaving him permanently plagued by Nicks and her haunting vocals.

But rather than waiting until after the fact to heal heartbreak using a hex, one Mariners fan opted for a more proactive approach. On September 5, Steven Blackburn posted on social media, “I HAVE PAID AN ETSY WITCH TO UNFUCK THE MARINERS, BESTIES HELP ME MANIFEST 🙏🙏🙏🙏” The witch then completed the spell using only the best materials, “It was a ritual process full of beautiful energies,” according to the confirmation sent to Blackburn the following day. After that, the only thing left to do was “stay positive and accept the manifestation of the spell.”

Following the incantation, the Mariners scored 28 runs in their next two games against the Braves, carried that momentum into a 10-game winning streak, and went from 23% odds of winning the AL West to clinching the division with four games left in the regular season. Over their last 21 games, they have just four entries in the loss column, with three of those losses occurring after they’d clinched the division.

Here’s a non-comprehensive list of some of the other highlights from Seattle’s enchanted stretch-run:

• ✨ Cal Raleigh hit nine home runs (bringing his season total to 60).
• ✨ Josh Naylor stole seven bases (bringing his season total to 30).
• ✨ After entering the game on September 10 as a pinch-runner, Leo Rivas hit his second career home run to walk off the Cardinals in extras.
• ✨ One night after the Rivas walk-off, Harry Ford hit a walk-off sac fly as a pinch-hitter in just his fourth-ever big league plate appearance.
• ✨ Luis Castillo allowed only three earned runs over 25 1/3 innings after allowing 19 earned runs across his previous 17 innings.
• ✨ Bryan Woo struck out 29 batters in a mere 12 innings pitched.
• ✨ George Kirby struck out 34 batters in 23 1/3 innings pitched (with the help of a new sinker grip he learned from Woo).
• ✨ Dominic Canzone went 5-for-5 with three home runs on September 16 against the Royals but got overshadowed by Raleigh’s hitting two home runs — one that broke Mickey Mantle’s single-season record for homers by a switch-hitter and one that tied Ken Griffey Jr.’s single-season record for homers by a Mariner.
• ✨ Victor Robles made a wild, game-saving catch in Houston on September 20, and didn’t get injured this time.
• ✨ To cap off a sweep of the Astros the following night, J.P. Crawford hit a grand slam as part of a seven-run inning on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.
• ✨ Trailing the Rockies 3-1 in the eighth inning on September 23 and needing a win to clinch a playoff berth, Naylor put the Mariners in front for good with a bases-loaded double.
• ✨ The next night, Raleigh had a characteristic two-homer game (his 59th and 60th blasts of the season) in the win that clinched the division.

The Etsy witch doesn’t deserve credit for all of the team’s accomplishments over the last few weeks. And though it’s nice when a variable produces a clearly quantifiable cause-and-effect relationship, Blackburn feels that what the Etsy witch offers is more of a soft science. “The biggest factor for the win streak, in my opinion, is the team playing as hard as they have, and never giving up,” he told KOMO News a couple of weeks ago. “I think a lot of what the Etsy witch has brought everyone is just hope and belief.”

Reasons to keep hope alive can be hard won during such a long season. Particularly when so many factors that determine the outcome of a game lie outside the control of any individual player and even further outside the control of a fan. Hitters don’t control what pitches they see, pitchers don’t control whether the defense makes a play, fans don’t control anything other than the clothes they wear and where they sit to watch the game. The lack of control can lead to feelings of hopelessness. But rather than give in to hopelessness, we manufacture control and create new sources of hope.

I spoke to Seattle closer Andrés Muñoz on Saturday and he stressed the importance of routine in allowing him to feel prepared and in control. “I try to do the exact same thing every day. I have to maintain my same routine without changing anything.” He goes through his process step-by-step in the same order and in the same manner every day, right down to the route he takes when walking out to the bullpen. “Routine is really, really important for us,” he continued. “It makes us feel like we are doing everything that we have to do to be ready for the game. And then as soon as we are in there, if the thing doesn’t go our way, we know that we did everything we could do.”

Some aspects of player routines are intuitive. They’re athletes taking care of their bodies and preparing their minds. Other aspects are … less intuitive. “I usually wear the same undershirt unless I pitch bad, then I switch,” said starting pitcher Bryce Miller. Lucky articles of clothing are pretty standard fare among athlete superstitions. Miller has also been wearing the same cleats all season, but that’s more about comfort than luck. “I got like a million cleats up there,” he said as he gestured up at the top shelf of his locker, “but I keep wearing these.” While going through the process of tightening and tying his laces just so, he explained he’s leery of wearing new spikes in a game because he wants to avoid blisters, but it’s not just that. “I’ll wear these cleats till they break. I like to be comfortable. I don’t really care if they look like they’re used.”

Muñoz, who claims to be the most superstitious player on the team, also tends to stick to the same spikes. “Same cleats every day,” he proclaimed while standing outside the dugout after batting practice. But then he looked down at his feet and added, “Weird today because I’m using different ones.” Later that night, he entered in the ninth inning of a tie game against the Dodgers and walked the first two batters. Both baserunners then came around to score on a double from Enrique Hernández. It was the first time Muñoz walked two batters in an outing since August 6 and his first time allowing two runs in an outing since August 29. I’m guessing those cleats won’t be seeing the field this postseason.

And just as players have routines, fans have routines and rituals for rooting on their team. Natalie, who donned a witch’s hat on Friday night at T-Mobile Park, said she makes a point of avoiding jinxes when talking about the team’s future outcomes. “I don’t like to forecast if they’re going to do well in the future.” McKenna, another fan from Friday’s game, has a detailed checklist for every game she attends. “I can only wear my Cal jersey,” she said. “I always have to get tofu tots. Every single game. And I usually park in the same parking garage.” Next, I spoke to Matt and Gilbert as they took in the game from the TVs on the upper concourse. They went back and forth rattling off the things they might do while watching a game at home to generate some positive juju for the team when things aren’t going well. “I’ll stop watching sometimes. If I’m drinking a certain thing, I’ll stop,” said Matt. Then Gilbert chimed in, “Go to or don’t go to the bathroom. Change what you’re wearing, what jersey you have on.”

Fans in Seattle are doing all the standard fan things to send good vibes to the team, as well as sporting witch garb and fake mustaches (mirroring the team’s recent facial hair trend, which they believe has helped power their surge). Matt has a simple explanation for why fans latch onto these rituals: “It’s the group dynamic. It gives people a way to get involved.” Fans want to feel like they’re part of a community (or coven, if you will), and they’ll go pretty far to gain membership. Matt and Gilbert, who both sport beards, confessed they’ve considered shaving their facial hair into mustaches for the postseason run. McKenna said she’d show up to almost anything in costume, if asked. “And it doesn’t matter what it is,” she continued, “You could ask me to show up in a Teletubby costume. I probably would. And I have one.” Natalie would go even further. She said she’d storm the field, even if it meant risking arrest.

Which brings us back to witches, who have likewise frequently found themselves at risk of arrest, but not necessarily because they broke any laws. “Witches have historically been understood and treated as threats to patriarchal forms of power,” said anthropologist Emma Louise Backe. Those accused of witchcraft, “Were women who did not regularly attend Church (an inherently patriarchal institution), were unmarried or widowed, were economically self-sufficient, or dressed and acted immodestly by societal standards of the time.” These women offered hope to those unhappy with their existing lot in life. They kindled the idea that it might be possible to operate outside the systems that felt rigged against all but a select few.

Naturally, they had to be burned at the stake.

But instead of responding to threats on their lives by conforming to cultural norms or accepting their fate as outsiders, witches found community with one another. The institutions of power thought they could kill these dangerous women, or at least turn them into outcasts, and instead they formed covens and combined their powers to protect and defend each other. As our understanding of witches and their cultural significance has evolved, Backe notes that witch is no longer a term of condemnation, but one used to indicate empowerment and solidarity.

Like witches, the Mariners don’t exactly conform to the norms of baseball. They’ve got a catcher hitting home runs in quantities never seen before from someone at the position, and doing it from both sides of the plate. Their stocky first baseman has bottom-of-the-league sprint speed, but more stolen bases than all but 16 other players. Moreover, they combine power and speed at levels unmatched across the league, ranking third in both home runs and stolen bases. Oh, and their closer’s cat travels with the team.

The team doesn’t conform to its own recent norms either. In a rotation typically headlined by Castillo and Logan Gilbert, Woo has been this season’s top performer. And in a stadium where offense goes to die, the Mariners scored more runs than any Seattle team since 2016 (and if they’d managed an additional three runs, this year’s squad would have been the highest-scoring Mariners club since 2007). In another era, this is the kind of stuff that might provoke accusations of witchcraft.

In keeping with tradition, when accused of witchcraft, or perhaps, loudly proclaiming the solicitation of witchcraft, the most suitable response is to foster community with other outcasts. After the first few decisive wins of the Mariners Etsy Witch Era, grateful fans reached out to Blackburn, wanting to reimburse him for the spell. Instead, Blackburn asked they make a donation to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ young people. With the current patriarchal powers-that-be treating trans and nonbinary people as modern day witches that must be eradicated from society, Blackburn’s call to action feels particularly poetic.

Hope is a powerful antidote for many woes. It heals and unifies. That’s why those who seek to maintain positions of power also seek to suffocate hope in those who challenge their authority. But as long as hope remains, we keep fighting. And if we keep fighting, it’s impossible to fail. Because true failure only comes if we give up. A team might lose a game, but there’s always another game ahead, if not this season, then the next one. Losses are just a setback until the next opportunity to fight. And the persistent fight of these Mariners isn’t lost on their manager. Following a 3-2 loss to the Dodgers last Friday night, in which the Mariners nearly mounted an eighth-inning comeback, skipper Dan Wilson told reporters, “I thought the guys, you know, they played hard till the end. Fought.” In a game with the division already clinched, they still showed up and fought.

Perhaps baseball is so suited to superstition because of the way its schedule demands a day-in-and-day-out commitment to fight. And hope to fuel that fight. To keep hope flowing throughout a marathon season, sometimes it has to be mined from strange places. Maybe a witch-for-hire, maybe lucky spikes, maybe matching mustaches. Or maybe as they lock in on the postseason, the Mariners will strike gold and discover some whole new source of hope.

Only time will tell, but for now, I’ll leave you with the closing battle cry from another coven’s anthem.

Down, down, down the road
Down the witches’ road
Follow me, my friend
To glory at the end.