The organization sits one win from its first World Series, and the team continues to provide more magic than longtime Seattle fans \u2014 who have experienced plenty of heartbreak \u2014 ever could have dreamed of. For a dedicated fan base starved for success after so many years of falling short, this Mariners\u2019 run has taken on a greater meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaseball is the most beautiful, romantic and emotion-provoking sport on the planet,\u201d longtime season ticket holder Ana Krafchick said. \u201cAnd getting to see the Mariners play this deep is the best thing that\u2019s happened to my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Mariners fans are pouring their faith into this year\u2019s team. (Jane Gershovich \/ MLB Photos via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Blackburn\u2019s initial Etsy witch purchase didn\u2019t come on a whim. He had been mulling over the idea since a friend asked him about it in June. Blackburn isn\u2019t an expert on spells, but he thought waiting for the right moment could help.<\/p>\n
So when the Mariners found themselves in an early September slide, losing ground to a Houston Astros team responsible for much of Seattle\u2019s recent suffering, Blackburn made his move. On Sept. 2, following the team\u2019s fourth straight loss and fifth in six games, he found Luna and made a simple request: a powerful, custom spell to uncurse the Mariners (cost: $16).<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wish is for the Seattle Mariners to get their act together and start winning baseball games again,\u201d Blackburn wrote to Luna, in part, \u201cand hopefully make their way to the World Series and win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blackburn placed the order on the night of Sept. 5. He got confirmation from Luna that the spell had been cast the following afternoon, with instructions to stay positive to help manifest the spell into materializing. Blackburn posted on X, where he has roughly 1,200 followers. The two tweets \u2014 the first explaining his request and the second confirming the spell was cast \u2014 generated more than 450,000 views.<\/p>\n
On the day Blackburn\u2019s spell was cast, the Mariners beat the Atlanta Braves 10-2. The next day, they won 18-2, and the Mariners\u2019 official X account posted<\/a>: \u201cshoutout to the etsy witch,\u201d above the winning game graphic.<\/p>\n shoutout to the etsy witch pic.twitter.com\/XalePUoOkW<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 7, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n In late September, during the second-to-last series of the regular season, Seattle traveled to Houston for a pivotal three-game series. It was the kind of series previous Mariners teams in a division race would have lost. Instead, they swept the Astros, taking a lead in the division they\u2019d never relinquish. It was Seattle\u2019s first AL West title since that magical 2001 season, when the team won 116 games and reached the ALCS.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the last decade, we have been haunted by the Astros over and over,\u201d said longtime fan Nathan Bishop, who runs a Mariners newsletter and has had several friends dress up as witches for games this season. \u201cThis year it was like, \u2018OK, this is not every team that has come before. This group is able to tell its own story.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Mariners fan base is a proudly quirky and fiercely loyal group that has clung to every potential spark like a rain-soaked shirt that\u2019s morphed into a second skin. It is not just witches and mustaches (a nod to the Mariners players\u2019 facial hair) roaming Seattle. Fans have changed their social media handles to variations of \u201cEtsy witch\u201d and visited Salem, Mass., to try to ensure the team\u2019s mystical powers hold up.<\/p>\n Even snack time has taken on special meaning for Mariners fans since early September. Around the time Blackburn ordered the spell and the first mustaches began to sprout, Mariners president Jerry Dipoto and broadcaster Rick Rizzs brought back a classic superstition involving Cheetos. When the team was in Atlanta, Dipoto resumed an old routine, ensuring that Rizzs received a bag of Cheetos from the baseball operations group on game day.<\/p>\n And then there are the shoes.<\/p>\n In Game 2 of the 2022 AL Wild Card Series against the same Blue Jays team they are squaring off with now, the Mariners rallied from an 8-1 deficit. A fan at a team watch party at T-Mobile Park was spotted with a Birkenstock on top of his head. Thompson and his team zoomed in on the fan, and when the Mariners got a hit, they flashed back to him with a \u201cRally shoe\u201d graphic. Seattle won the game 10-9 and clinched a series win.<\/p>\n The shoe-on-the-head superstition returned with a vengeance during the 15-inning marathon in Game 5 of the ALDS \u2014 momentarily confusing the national TV broadcasters as they scanned a crowd suddenly donning footwear on their noggins.<\/p>\n \n The \u201cRally shoe\u201d in action during Game 2 of the ALCS. (Steve Russell \/ Toronto Star via Getty Images)<\/p>\n As the Mariners push towards a World Series, no one wants to break the momentum. Even Dipoto\u2019s wife has been washing and wearing the same pair of socks to the games. In baseball, you don\u2019t mess with superstitions.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think something is pushing you in the right direction, you\u2019re loath to not do it that way,\u201d said Dipoto, who wore the same shirt under his uniform during his playing days until it fell apart.<\/p>\n Season ticket holder Amy Franz, who hasn\u2019t missed a home game since Edgar Martinez\u2019s Hall of Fame induction in 2019, combines all of the superstitions when she attends games. She\u2019s been wearing a witch hat since the Etsy witch spell became known, with a fake mustache and special glittery shoes to put on her head. In the 15th inning of the ALDS Game 5, Franz realized she was missing something: her bag of Cheetos.<\/p>\n \u201cI told my husband the bag was under his seat, and as soon as I opened them we got the hit to win the game,\u201d Franz said.<\/p>\n Born in 1977, the Seattle Mariners have yet to experience life as a World Series team. That\u2019s 48 years of pent-up emotions from a fan base just waiting to explode with joy \u2014 if that moment ever comes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to say I\u2019ve done an \u2018Angels in the Outfield<\/a>\u2019 prayer, and I\u2019m pretty agnostic,\u201d said Mariners super-fan Saul Spady, who went viral for tearing up in the stands during Game 2 of the ALDS.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mariners have been a tragic fan base and need all the help they can get, and everyone desperately wants to feel like they have a role in helping this team,\u201d said Spady, who has grown a mustache for the first time in his life. \u201cThey are picking their fandom piece. I\u2019m embracing being \u2018Mariners Crying Guy\u2019<\/a>, because how cool is that? This fan base is deep and weird and awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like lots of Mariners fans are criers,\u201d said Krafchick, who grew up going to Mariners games. \u201cIt\u2019s an emotional group. You saw Saul, he was bawling, it\u2019s just such a release of so many feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n Krafchick wasn\u2019t immune to those emotions as she watched the Mariners clinch a berth to the ALCS on Sept. 10, her late father Steven\u2019s birthday. On one forearm, Krafchick has a tattoo of home plate with her dad\u2019s initials, \u201cSPK\u201d; on the other is \u201cMy, oh my,\u201d the famous catchphrase coined by late Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus, written in her father\u2019s handwriting. Steve died from ALS in 2020, and of all the things they bonded over, the Mariners were the biggest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mariners bring the city and whole community together in a really beautiful way,\u201d Krafchick said.<\/p>\n The bond has been strengthened through years of misery.<\/p>\n \u201cI think people outside of Seattle look at Mariners fans and say this team is so mediocre every year, but it\u2019s not that,\u201d said Mariners lifelong fan Joe Veyera. \u201cYear-in, year-out we have been a good team but always fall like one or two games off of the playoffs. There\u2019s a level of heartbreak there that I don\u2019t think people nationally quite grasp.\u201d<\/p>\n Veyera was just 8 the last time the Mariners went to the ALCS.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to look back and be like \u2018Man, I grew up waiting for this team to make a run like this,\u2019\u201d Veyera said. \u201cYou think about all the friendships you\u2019ve had, any people you\u2019ve lost, it\u2019s hard to not get emotional about it, thinking about all the changes between these two moments and everything that happened in between.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Bishop\u2019s lasting memories from the last division-winning team isn\u2019t from the action on the field. It is of him jumping off the couch and hugging his dad in a way he hasn\u2019t since. This time around, Bishop is bringing his son to Mariners\u2019 playoff games.<\/p>\n Becky Mulhollen\u2019s first date with her husband came at a Mariners game during that inaugural 1977 season. On Wednesday, she was there with her 11-year-old granddaughter, Olivia, teaching her how to keep score. Mulhollen keeps score at every game and has more than 50 years of Mariners history in a hope chest at her home. She raised her kids here, spreading out a blanket in front of their seats in left field so they could play. This season, Mulhollen says, has been surreal, an emotion echoed by everyone interviewed for this story.<\/p>\n \n Amy Franz and Becky Mulhollen show off their game day attire. (Brittany Ghiroli \/ The Athletic)<\/p>\n No matter what happens, Mariners fans will always have this season. A new generation of fans will grow up remembering the 2025 M\u2019s and how they made the whole city fall in love with baseball. Across the state, events are being rescheduled.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this,\u201d said one Seattle-area teacher to parents, \u201cbut I jumped on the Mariners bandwagon and can\u2019t have parent conferences during the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Workplaces are turning into viewing parties after hours. At Adobe\u2019s offices in Fremont, it\u2019s not uncommon for dozens of employees to stay late to watch on the large televisions so they don\u2019t miss a pitch while commuting. Everyone has Mariners fever. The Seattle Sounders paid tribute<\/a> to the M\u2019s earlier this week with their goal celebration. Earlier this month, Julio Rodr\u00edguez got a rousing ovation at the Seattle Kraken game while riding on the Zamboni.<\/p>\n The city held a Mariners rally last Wednesday, and mayor Bruce Harrell officially declared Oct. 16 \u201cHumpy Day\u201d in honor of the Mariners\u2019 now viral salmon mascot. Humpy lost 165 consecutive salmon races before winning during the second iteration of the race during Game 5 of the ALDS. Thompson, who helped hatch the idea for the race before the 2024 season, said the team doesn\u2019t script the endings and that it was the regular Humpy running when he got his iconic win.<\/p>\n What fun would scripting any of this be? Humpy\u2019s win was unexpected, unprecedented, a real David versus Goliath tale. If the Mariners are going to get to the organization\u2019s first World Series, they\u2019ll have to do a few more improbable things. So might their fans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe meeting of all of this has created a cocktail of Mariners fans that are superstitious, want to be here early and want to have an impact on what happens on the field,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI believe as much as they do what they do has an impact, whether it\u2019s what jacket they wear, what mustache they grow or what fish wins.\u201d<\/p>\n Thompson, in his eighth season with the Mariners, said this run has shifted the fan base into another gear. And whether they\u2019re ultimately the last team standing or not, the city won\u2019t soon forget what bringing home a division title, and playoff baseball, back to Seattle has meant for a quirky, rabid bunch.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m somebody that looks at life through baseball,\u201d Mulhollen said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s always hope with the next hit and the next run. You never know what will happen. Is there disappointment? Yes, but with disappointment comes great joy. Do I think we will make the World Series? Yes, absolutely. Will I be disappointed if we don\u2019t? Yes, absolutely.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s baseball. You have to learn how to deal with adversity. You don\u2019t give up. You keep hoping until you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2241101830-scaled.jpg\")
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