Why I believe Major League Baseball is rigged against the Mariners

Here are 4 chilling coincidences that may prove to you that Major League Baseball is rigged against the Seattle Mariners. Please read all of these before you jump to conclusions stating otherwise.

1. If you hadn't noticed, every other team in Major League Baseball has gotten to the playoffs since 2002...except for one team: The Seattle Mariners. Although, you can somewhat blame ownership for not spending enough money, they are NOT the only reason.

2. When the Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers after the 1969 season, the city of Seattle felt betrayed by not just the team owners, who didn't have any money, but by conniving MLB officials who looked the other way as some shady car dealer named Bud Selig bought the team. In response, former Washington State Attorney General Slade Gorton sued MLB on behalf of Washington State calling for a new team in the Northwest & $7 million in damages. During the trial, Bill Dwyer, the lawyer representing the City of Seattle, produced evidence that secret talks took place between the Pilots Owners, and Bud Selig during the 1969 World Series. According to MLB rules, you cannot under ANY circumstances, sell or even talk of selling your team publicly or privately. Seattle eventually did get the Mariners, so this isn't the worst coincidence...or maybe it is, I don't know.

3. When Bud Selig [yes, the same guy who took the Pilots away] became Commissioner of MLB in 1992, it was conveniently mere weeks after the Seattle Mariners hired Lou Piniella, who would lead the Mariners to four playoff appearances [1995, 1997, 2000 & 2001]. Since 1993, MLB has added two new Postseason Rounds [the Division Series in 1995 & the Wild Card Game in 2012] So really it's getting more difficult for the Mariners to get to the Playoffs, let alone a World Series. He also employed the current MLB umpire group back in 2000.

4. Edgar Martinez hasn't made the Hall of Fame

Since his retirement from MLB after the 2004 season, Edgar Martinez has NOT been given the honor of being in the Hall of Fame. I don't believe that it's because he didn't play an actual position, I believe it's because he played in Seattle. If you think about it, if Edgar had played for the New York Yankees, he'd be in the Hall of Fame on the 1st attempt[which, for Edgar, was in 2010, six years ago]. Mark my words: David Ortiz will get into the Hall of Fame before Edgar Martinez. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong...

The Safeco Effect

Before I start, I would like to take a moment & say congratulations to my mom, who is getting married in 2 hours [as of this writing] in Ireland.

Something occurred back in the 1990's that I think bears repeating...

The Seattle Mariners had a ridiculously good hitting team in the mid to late 90's. They had Ken Griffey Jr, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, Alex Rodriguez, etc. But they were a ridiculously horrible pitching team. Actually, they had three good pitchers who were not just good, they were three of the best in the league while they were with the team: Randy Johnson, Jamie Moyer & [I can't believe I'm about to write this] Jeff Fassero. However, the only problem was that these three guys were acquired in trades. Why is this a problem, you may ask? For years, the Seattle Mariners had not just a terrible track record of developing young pitchers, they were the worst. To be fair, part of that can be attributed to the Kingdome, which was a park that favored the hitters. But if that was the whole problem, then there would be no point in me writing this entry, now would it? The other [& more stupid] part was that the Mariners developed these young pitchers the exact wrong way: They rushed them up to the Majors for no good reason & these young pitchers were at fault for no good reason. The only good young pitcher they had during this time was Derek Lowe & we traded him to the Red Sox along with Jason Varitek for some busted pitching machine.

But since the Mariners moved to Safeco Field [a park that favors the pitchers] in July, 1999, the exact opposite has happened: The Mariners can develop good young pitchers [i.e. Felix Hernandez], they just can't develop good hitters, with the exception of 3rd Baseman Kyle Seager. This is something I'd like to call "The Safeco Effect". This means that no matter how much potential you have as a hitter, you will not live up to that potential in Safeco Field.