I admit that despite the fact I have lived nearly 30 years in Seattle or its immediate environs, I have never really been a fan of its sports teams. Having been “raised” in Wisconsin, when checking out sports scores, standings or statistics, my principle interest is how my old teams are performing. Locally, the only “game” in town anyways at the present time is the Seattle Mariners, and frankly I couldn’t care less. After the Washington Nationals won the World Series last year, managed by a Latino, Dave Martinez, the Mariners are the only MLB team never to have reached the World Series, and they don’t appear to be anywhere close to going this year.
The roster of former Mariners who played on World Series teams is staggering. Just since 2010 it includes Fernando Rodney, Chris Taylor (twice), Brandon Morrow, Mike Montgomery, Kendrys Morales, Chris Young, Mike Morse, Jason Vargas, Mike Carp, Doug Fister, Ramon Santiago, Arthur Rhodes, Adrian Beltre, Mike Lowe (twice), Yorvit Torrealba, Cliff Lee, Roenis Elias and Hunter Strickland. Before 2010, just a sampling includes Tino Martinez (five times with the Yankees) Alex Rodriguez, Todd Cruz, Luis Sojo (also five with the Yankees), Mike Meyers, Jamie Moyer, David Ortiz, Randy Johnson and Freddy Garcia.
While it is said that Seattle is where players’ careers go to die, that wasn’t always true. Some former Mariners, like Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez, put up big numbers in the old King Dome, but the first two left while the leaving was good, before pitcher-friendly Safeco Field was completed. Since then, the only HOF worthy numbers by a player who spent most of his career with the Mariners were put up by a slap-single hitter, Ichiro Suzuki; the Mariners have continued to struggle to find a power hitter who could put enough “oomph” on the ball to hit it out of the park on a consistent basis.
Ironically, the only player the Mariners found who could do that was a player from the Dominican Republic, Nelson Cruz, who the team completely wasted over his four-year stint—just as the team wasted Felix Hernandez’s best years. Cruz batted .280, hit 163 homeruns and drove in 414 runs, including an AL leading 119 in 2017. The Mariners did not re-sign Cruz after the 2018 season—he was “too old”—and he signed with the Minnesota Twins, where in 2019 he batted .311, hit 41 homeruns and knocked in 108. His 1.031 OPS was second in the AL. Through the first 29 games this season, Cruz was batting .343 with 10 homeruns and 26 RBIs, and a 1.121 OPS.
Now why do I say “ironic”? Back in 2018, Dr. Lorena Martin, formerly the “token” Latina working in the Seattle Mariners organization as the “high performance director,” filed a lawsuit accusing team management of ignoring repeated instances of “discriminatory treatment,” and anti-Latino comments by General Manager Jerry Dipoto, manager Scott Servais and director of player development Andy McKay. She also claimed the Lisa McKay in HR also treated her as if she was just a number. Martin asserted in her lawsuit that she was “wrongfully terminated” from her position because of her complaints.
That wasn’t all. According to a story at the time in the Tacoma News-Tribune, Martin charged that “McKay called Dominican players ‘just plain stupid’ and that in a separate meeting, Servais told her that you don’t see Latino catchers or managers because ‘they aren’t bright enough. They are dumb.’” Further, her complaint “alleges Dipoto in August blamed Latino players for ruining the Mariners’ clubhouse culture and for the team’s fall out of the American League playoff picture. It says this was repeated to Martin ‘in an effort to intimidate her.’ Dipoto allegedly stated ‘in a serious and condescending manner’ in a January meeting that ‘Latino players don’t work hard, they’re lazy, and it’s part of their culture.’ Servais allegedly replied, ‘especially Dominican players, they aren’t bright enough, that’s why you don’t see any Latino Managers or Latino Catchers.’”
Perhaps Servais never heard of Ivan Rodriguez, who was a Hall of Fame catcher, or Javy Lopez, Yadier Molina, Tony Pena or Manny Sanguillen. Along with Dave Martinez, Alex Cora and Ozzie Guillen have managed teams to World Series victories. Now, how many have all those “smart” managers the Mariners hired over the decades have ever taken this team to even one?
The Mariners organization called the claims “ludicrous,” and “completely fabricated.” The MLB office investigated, but naturally they found no “credible” evidence of racial bias against Martin or Latino players. If these charges had been in regard to black players, would they have been treated more seriously? Very likely.
We can conjecture why Dipoto and Servais were eager to bash Latino players. After all, they had signed Robinson Cano to a 10-year, $240 million contract after he was having a HOF-type career with the Yankees. Cano had three solid if not spectacular years with the Mariners, then he tested positive for a banned substance, and was traded the following year. But while the Mariners have been making “mistakes” like this for decades, for some reason the climes of Seattle just doesn’t seem to “agree” with players who come here. They either had their best years before they came here, or after they left.
That is the “curse” of this franchise, and no amount of racist buck-passing will change that. The fact is that despite the Mariner organization and the MLB front office denials, the truth of Martin’s accusations are fairly plain to see. The 2020 Mariners have not a single Latino position player on their roster, and three Latino pitchers, of whom only one was born outside the U.S. The Dominican Republic produces the most foreign-born players in the MLB; Yohan Ramirez is the lone Mariner representative out of a record 110 on MLB rosters this year. The Mariners have by far the fewest Latino players on their 40-man roster than any other team.
Last time I checked, the Mariners were on a three-game winning streak—just enough to get them out of last place in the entire AL. And oh yeah, this team hasn’t been to the postseason since 2001—another league-leading “streak.” And this year, they don’t have any Latino players to blame for adding on another year of futility.
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