Interview #10: Geoff Litwin, Mariner diehard
Who happens to also be slowly becoming a Swiftie
Background: Geoff was born in 1986, growing up a 10-minute walk from the Space Needle in Seattle. He became a baseball fan during the Mariners fantastic run of great teams in the 90s and has remained loyal ever since. After a decade in the desert where he went college to Arizona State, he moved back to Seattle where met his wife Caitlin. He still goes to games all the time, just not Opening Day.
The Mariners in the 90’s
What's your favorite baseball memory?
“My favorite memory is The Double (in 1995). Edgar Martinez, against the Yankees, drives in Griffey. He scores at the plate, you know, they dogpile on him. That year, you know, it was like the 90s, the Yankees were just dominating everyone. There was no Dodgers outspending other teams. It was just the Yankees and everyone else. So the Mariners had to play them, and it wasn't... you know, the Mariners were just supposed to get dog-walked against the Yankees and they ended up kind of being that scrappy team that figured out how to beat them. The Mariners lineup wasn't horrible by any means. It was Griffey, Buhner, Edgar, A-Rod. But it just wasn't the Yankees. And I was like 9 or 10 at the time. So a fun, pivotal time for Seattle. And that was basically our very limited taste of success in sports.”
Did you go to a lot of games in the 90s?
“Yeah, especially that year. The Mariners finished with the same record as the California Angels, and they had to have a one-game playoff to decide who won the AL West. And my mom went down to the stadium and got in line for tickets because she knew I was a huge baseball fan. She was able to get tickets for us, for the Kingdome and let me skip, because it was like a random Thursday or Friday game, literally the day after the season ended, let me skip school. And we went to the game to watch the Mariners beat the Angels. (note: that game was actually on a Monday, 10/2/95)
I went to a Catholic grade school and Monday through Thursday, we had to wear our Catholic school uniforms. But Fridays, or maybe like one Friday a month, you got a free dress. So everyone would come in Starter jackets or jerseys and their hats backwards. Like it was kind of one of those, you know, hip things that like if you wanted to be seen as cool or at least fit in, you're like, OK, I'm wearing all my coolest Mariner gear.”
So you and your buddies went a lot during high school. So Safeco opened in ‘01?
“‘99. It was the house Griffey built. We'd figure out the bus schedule and go down together and come back up. I always just kind of found a way to go see a game, especially if there's like a good team in town or once interleague play started, you started seeing teams you don't normally see. That was always kind of fun.
When I could take the bus down to the stadium, walk into the stadium, smell hot dogs, sodas, you know, all of that would be kind of hitting you and and start building memories in your head. Opening Day just became like such a holiday. Nowadays I hate going to Opening Day because there's like 70,000 people there. And no matter how many times it happens, they'll run out of hot dogs and beer and soda in like the 4th inning. So I'll watch it at home, but still make sure to at least watch the opening series. You know, first pitch to last pitch to watch the Mariners, and then you know, they'll get swept and I'll just be like, alright, like it's gonna be a shitty season.”
How was it going to the brand new stadium?
“You’d go sitting like the nosebleeds or there would be a lot of ticket promotional things like when Buhner was still on the team, they'd have Buhner Buzz nights, where he would like, be outside the stadium 3 hours before the game, like shaving people's heads. And if you if you did that, you'd get, I think either free admittance or like a heavily discounted ticket.”
And you did that?
“Yeah, I did that a couple times. In grade school, the guys would just randomly like buzz their heads if their hair grew too long as opposed to actually getting a reasonable haircut.”
How much do you think having affordable access to games and going as much as you did help?
“That's a good question. I think it's definitely easier to watch baseball in person. You hear the crack of the bat or the umpire yelling strike as opposed to on TV. When I moved back to Seattle, I worked really close to the stadium, so I would always look on the third-party ticket sellers and they would literally have tickets for like 5 bucks, so I'd just be like, alright, cool. I'm gonna go to the game, drink a few beers. I'd go alone or I'd go with friends.
I think if the Mariners were as good as the Yankees and as marketable, and the average ticket was a lot more money, probably would have warped my love of baseball a little bit. But, I think at the same time I probably would have found ways around it, like maybe I'd save more money to go to games or I'd, you know, watch more on TV. I've loved it since I was a kid playing t-ball, so I feel like I would have found a way to go to games or watch it or be as invested as I am nowadays.”
The Kid, Ichiro and Julio
Did you play?
“Yeah, I played Little League all the way up through high school. Early to mid-90s to, you know, early 2000s Seattle was more of a baseball town than a football town. Seahawks fans will say otherwise, but nobody really gave a shit until their recent success. And it obviously helped that the Mariners had Ken Griffey Jr., which inspired a lot of kids to play baseball or just follow baseball. So Griffey definitely inspired me to play and I wanted to be just like Griffey, but White. But you know, I did not have the genetics to play as good as him.”
“Kids were wearing hats backwards. He was also challenging kind of the old, traditional ways of baseball. He was just like, I'm just a good baseball player. I'm gonna wear my hat the way I wanna wear it. I'm gonna play with flash. I'm gonna wear a chain while manning center field and just play with kind of like the reckless abandon he did. I mean, that took us out of the playoffs a couple of years when he broke his wrist making the sweetest catch I might have ever seen, but...”
“I remember playing t-ball. I remember my mom, we just those basic baseball jerseys you get at Big 5, and she wrote 24 on the back of mine. So I'm like, oh, I'm gonna play center field, and I'm gonna be just like Ken Griffey Jr. I just fell in love with baseball and playing baseball. I'd grab the sports page from the newspaper and I'd just read about all the statistics and who hit what and how the Mariners are doing, what the records of other teams are. I just became obsessed with everything having to do with baseball.”
So he was your favorite player growing up. They traded him when you were, 13 or 14?
“I get why he wanted to leave. He was from Cincinnati and wanted to be around family as opposed to being in Seattle. But Seattle was also just notoriously cheap and not signing any of their solid players like they were the Tampa Bay Rays before Tampa Bay existed.”
Yeah, but then Ichiro came over. What was that like?
“That was insane. You know, up to his rookie season, there wasn't the technology that, there wasn't YouTube that we could just look up and be like, oh, OK, this guy's really fucking good. So it was just believing what was reported by baseball writers. But I remember the articles like were like, oh, it's this Japanese baseball player that's really good in Japan, but nobody really knows how that's going to translate to the Major Leagues. And, you know, there was Japanese and Asian players in the Major Leagues before, like (Hideo) Nomo. But I think it was mostly pitchers who were able to assimilate to the American game a little easier.
Nobody really knew how a hitter would. I remember the 2001 116-win season. Nobody thought the Mariners were going to be any good? They're like, oh, Ichiro might be OK and then he ended up being Rookie of the Year and the MVP. And just kind of took the city by storm again. Throwing out Terrence Long, that was his big ‘welcome to the big leagues moment.’ And then people were like, OK, this guy might be alright.”
Now you’ve got Julio Rodriguez, and he’s signed long-term.
“He's the new kid, the new wave.”
So you were in Arizona for a decade. Did you stay as invested in the team then?
“I would come visit and see family or friends and go to a game. I watched the team as much as possible. I remember watching Felix's perfect game on my phone at work, being like, ‘Oh, I got to go take lunch again,’ just to watch another couple innings and sneak around to watch it.”
What were you doing for work? You weren't doing something important like air traffic control were you?
“No, no. I was a bellman at the Renaissance in downtown Phoenix. You knew exactly the back areas where there was no camera visibility and you’d listen to your radio but kind of dick around.”
What was the town like when you moved back in the 2010s?
“When I came back, Seattle was definitely more pro-Seahawks because they were in a pretty solidly dominant era. Them and the 49ers had a really good rivalry going. That was kind of like Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll going at it. So the Mariners kind of fell by the wayside. I mean, the Mariners, once they started making the playoffs in the 90s, they would spend money, but they just weren't smart about it. Like they'd be cheap when they could have re-signed Randy Johnson. They probably never would have come close to matching the contract A-Rod got going to the Rangers.” ($250million over 10 years, at the time the largest contract ever in American sports.., twice as much)
“But they decided that they weren't even gonna entertain the idea of trying to sign those Hall of Fame players. And then when they did decide to spend money, it was contracts like Richie Sexson, who hit a lot of home runs, but you know, he was just a big ass first baseman with some power. Adrian Beltre was, you know, he's beloved in Seattle, but he definitely had a more prolific career outside of Seattle, especially in Texas. You know, they they went through it again, they had Robinson Cano on the big contract. They signed Nelson Cruz on the big contract and then they just kind of got old and, you know, it was just like, do we just try to keep throwing more money at this or do we actually try to revamp this team?”
Did them being cheap and letting those big-name players go make you less of a fan at all?
“That's a good question. I don't think I ever was like ‘fuck the Mariners’, you know. After the 116-win season into the early to mid-2010s where they just kind of stopped giving a shit it felt like. But I'd say no matter how bad they are, the Mariners are a team that I'll always watch and care about. And then Arizona Sate football, which, they never do anything good either. Oh, and then because of my dad, I also like the Mets. So I'm just completely fucked.”
I also like the Mets. So I'm just completely fucked
Corbin Carroll, a cool dude
Is your wife a Mariners fan?
“She's definitely a D-backs fan because when Corbin Carroll was in high school, she was his athletic trainer at Lakeside (in Seattle). And when he got voted to start the All-Star game this last year he had a signing at a T-Mobile store downtown near the ballpark. So she went down, waited in line. She didn't tell him or say anything because she was sure that all of his high school friends and family and everyone in between was dm-ing him or texting him. But she said that when she got up to the front of the line, he was sitting down, taking pictures with people. It was very structured like oh, the kid can kind of walk by where Corbin's sitting, lean in for a pose, but, like, don't touch him. Like there wasn't any kind of personability to it.
And he was just signing, like, a weird little, it wasn't even a baseball card. It was like a T-Mobile, little index card. And she said as soon as she got up to the front, he sprinted over to her and gave her the biggest hug. And they talked for a few minutes, and then she let him go back to signing and taking photos and entertaining people. She wasn't doing it, obviously for any attention, but she just wanted to go and and show support to him and she said it seemed like he really recognized that and appreciated it.”
He sprinted over to her and gave her the biggest hug
So she likes baseball, too. Is that something that’s important to you two?
“Yeah, it's definitely something we bonded over pretty early in our first few months of dating. We met on Bumble and then I met her and her friends out at some club. And then we started texting. She's just as big of a sports fan as me, like she loves watching football. She'll watch the Seahawks, loves watching the Mariners, obviously loves watching Corbin Carroll.
She was watching the Super Bowl, probably more intensely than I was because she started listening to the Kelces’ podcast (New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce), and she absolutely loves Jason Kelce and obviously Travis too. Ironically, through that, like she never really listened to Taylor Swift. But now it's like, oh, Taylor Swift's not that bad.”
Are you happy with having to listen to more Taylor Swift songs now?
“I wouldn't say it's my favorite type of music, or like top ten artists that I'd play, but her music's catchy. She had like one or two songs that were decent and then you kind of just hear it enough that you're like, oh I get why she's talented and she's popular. It's kind of like Nickelback or Creed. They just make catchy music and, you know, generally white people love catchy music.”
I get why Taylor Swift is talented and she's popular. It's kind of like Nickelback or Creed.
Takeaways
I’d never really thought about what it must be like to be in a town with the game’s most popular player, maybe the closest thing popularity-wise to Michael Jordan. Geoff and I are the same age, so I remember Ken Griffey Jr. much like he did. He was the man for his whole Mariners career in the 1990s. Everyone had Mariners hats, did the iconic batting stance, wanted to play center field. Every summer we’d watch him win yet another Home Run Derby or lead the league in home runs or make incredible robberies at the wall.
But it was cool to see how huge he really was in Seattle, a city that hadn’t really had a huge baseball history until then. They had the Seattle Pilots, who moved to Milwaukee after only one season in 1969. They played in the Kingdome, one of the ugliest stadiums ever forced upon us. But they took the city over with their run in the mid-90’s and since then, they’re always one of the more passionate fan bases, as you can tell from this interview. I cut out a lot of the roster talk and stat talk, but it was a big chunk because he’s so invested in the sport.
That Ichiro throw, watching it again, I mean it was an incredible throw. But what was Terrence Long doing going for third? He barely touched second base when Ichiro had the ball. I think I could’ve thrown him out… the throw just would’ve had a lot more arc on it.
The Corbin Carroll story was great, too. I figured he was a good guy, so hearing about how he remembered her from back in high school, especially with all the attention and responsibilities he had as a local boy coming back to Seattle for the All-Star Game in his rookie season. I’m glad the Diamondbacks are keeping him around.
Also, I’d never heard a Taylor Swift-Nickelback comparison before, but, there it is.
