Two decades after Seattle\u2019s record-breaking 2001 season, a new generation of Mariners fans is fueling the same electric energy.<\/p>\n
SEATTLE \u2014 For fans who remember the Mariners\u2019 2001 playoff run, standing outside T-Mobile Park this week feels like stepping into a time machine. Twenty-four years after that record-breaking season, the city once again finds itself two wins away from a World Series berth \u2014 and the nostalgia is unmistakable.<\/p>\n
Back then, Seattle\u2019s baseball fever was called \u201cSODO mojo.\u201d In 2001, the team won 116 games, tying a Major League Baseball record, and advanced to the American League Championship Series before falling to the New York Yankees. The Mariners were eliminated on October 22, 2001, when they lost Game 5 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
For fans like Brandon and Tarren Fix of Tacoma, that season holds personal meaning. Tarren Fix was pregnant during the 2001 run \u2014 and the couple joked about naming their son after the team\u2019s new superstar, Ichiro Suzuki.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctor said, \u2018Do you have any names for him?\u2019 We were jokingly like, \u2018If it\u2019s a boy, maybe Ichiro,\u2019\u201d Tarren Fix said. \u201cWhen he was born, she said, \u2018We got us an Ichiro.\u2019 So she unofficially named him.\u201d<\/p>\n
That baby, Solomon Fix, is 24 now,\u00a0 and just experienced his first Mariners playoff game in person. The family paid about $283 each for standing-room-only tickets Thursday night, a stark contrast to 2001, when ALCS single-game seats at Safeco Field cost $65 to $85 and World Series tickets ran $125 to $175.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible,\u201d Brandon Fix said. \u201cHe\u2019s fully grown, graduated college, and never seen any of this since he was literally born.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2001, fans lined up outside Tower Records locations for wristbands just to earn a place in line to buy tickets \u2014 no seat guaranteed. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be really hard to get,\u201d one fan told KING 5 News that year. \u201cIt\u2019s been sold out here for so long, so it\u2019s going to be difficult, but we\u2019re going to do everything we can to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another fan shouted the rallying cry of that era: \u201cWe\u2019re going all the way. We\u2019re winning the World Series!\u201d<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t, of course. But the optimism, and anxiety, never really left.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really up to the nine men on the diamond whose performance directly determines the state of my mental health,\u201d said fan Katie Biddle, who also attended both the 2001 and 2025 runs.<\/p>\n
This time, Seattle is daring to believe again. The Mariners\u2019 2025 postseason push has sent ticket prices and fan expectations skyrocketing. Standard-price ALCS tickets now start around $262 before service fees, and World Series home-game seats, when available at all,\u00a0 run \u201ca few hundred\u201d dollars at face value before resale markets drive them even higher.<\/p>\n
And while the numbers have changed, the emotion hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s up to us to just take these two games,\u201d Brandon Fix said. \u201cGentlemen\u2019s sweep, that\u2019s what we\u2019re all about right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Fix family, the connection between 2001 and 2025 is more than sentimental, it\u2019s generational. Their \u201cIchiro baby\u201d is grown, and a new era of Mariners fans is carrying the torch.<\/p>\n
The 2001 season, meanwhile, will forever stand as one of the sport\u2019s most historic, not just for Seattle, but for baseball. Games were postponed for six days following the September 11 attacks, marking the first nationwide MLB shutdown since World War I. When play resumed, America found a moment of unity in the game, and Seattle found a citywide identity in its team.<\/p>\n
Two decades later, that same spirit is alive again in SODO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two decades after Seattle\u2019s record-breaking 2001 season, a new generation of Mariners fans is fueling the same electric…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-219242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}