Brady's Spin: Celtics Championship Win Has Me Dreaming About a Mariners Title
This is obviously not a basketball site. But I, like a lot of you, found myself watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night. The Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in that game to capture the title - their NBA record 18th.
And it simply got me thinking: Just what if the Seattle Mariners were able to capture a title this year? It wouldn't be their 18th, it would be their first, and while there's obvious meaning for the Celtics in having the most in NBA history, there would be incredible meaning in being the first M's team too.
See, the Mariners are now the only major league franchise to have never been to the World Series. And while these players didn't create that nearly 50-year drought, several of them have lived with the reality of that fact for many years either through the major leagues or through a journey up the minors. It's a burden that they've carried and it's not fair, but it's life in professional sports.
The relief that I saw on the face of Jayson Tatum when the clocks ticked to 0:00 on Monday is the same kind of relief that I can imagine on the face of Julio Rodriguez.
There are plenty of other parallels, too. The Celtics went 16 years between titles, and in a way that win on Monday was for the guys who played in between who didn't win, like Seattle's own Isaiah Thomas, who helped rebuild the franchise once again in the later 2010s. It was for Marcus Smart, the Celtics-loving heartbeat of the organization for years, who was surprisingly traded away last offseason. And it was for Gordon Hayward, a superstar who came to Boston and things just didn't go to plan.
Couldn't you see a Mariners title being for Marco Gonzales, who carried the franchise through the lean years of 2019-2020? Who helped build the M's winning clubhouse culture. Couldn't you see it being for Edgar Martinez, who stuck out an entire Hall of Fame career in Seattle and never saw the title? How about for Felix Hernandez, our King, who for years was the only thing that made the franchise relevant? And for Dave Niehaus, the longtime voice of the M's who won't have lived long enough to see the day?
The Celtics won for the 38-year-old Al Horford, who finally, after 17 years, got his first title. Couldn't you see the M's winning for Mitch Haniger, who certainly isn't that old but has dealt with a slew of injuries and stuck by Seattle through it all? Brad Stevens coached the Celtics for eight seasons, taking them to the Eastern Conference Finals multiple times. He then moved to the front office and finally got it done three years later.
Can't you imagine the relief on the face of Scott Servais, who has managed the M's for nine years now, established a clubhouse culture, and broken the drought? He's never gotten as close as Stevens got with the Celtics, but he's done a lot for the M's - the title would make him a Seattle legend.
The Mariners enter play on Tuesday at 43-31 and with a 9.0 game lead in the American League West. None of that means they are guaranteed a championship, but after what I saw in the NBA on Monday night, I'm allowing myself to dream.
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