Ranking the Best & Worst Mariner Slogans Ever Used

When I heard what the 2018 Mariners slogan was, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Not only was it plain, nondescript, and brutally monosyllabic, but to me it also is unfortunately accurate.

2018 Seattle Mariners: Good.

Good. That’s it. Good. See where my sentiment comes from? Good is the response to when an outcome that was to be expected is announced. “Your car passed its emissions test.” Good.

Good is what you click on a rating scale when the item at hand wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t great. It’s a synonym for “fine.”

It’s what you say when something bad happened to you – but it wasn’t too bad (Eh, it’s all good).

It’s also what you say when something bad didn’t happen. “Felix didn’t get hurt on Opening Day.” Oh, good!

Occasionally, we use “good” to express true satisfaction in something. “You looked good out there,” “Hey, this beer is good!” “Felix looked good tonight.” But good always takes a back seat to great in such scenarios – and as a sports team, you want to be great.

However, good is unfortunately an accurate description of where the Mariners are aiming to be this season. After the injury-ridden campaign of 2017, we are hoping the news that comes out of the clubhouse is not bad. Felix didn’t hurt himself on Friday night. Okay, good.

As I continued thinking about the state of the franchise and the way management collectively arrived at Good, I went down a deep dive of old slogans to see how this one compared to the great and bad ones of the past. So here are my top 5, my bottom 5, and an obscure honorable mention.

The Best 5:

#5. “True to the Blue” (2014-2015)

Apart from it getting pretty much no exposure because the Mariners weren’t all that great when they played under it, I actually quite liked True to the Blue. The reason for this was both the rhyming scheme and how the addition of “Blue” creatively stood for the city. Seattle is blue – with the ocean, the rain, the color of its baseball team, and the common mood of its baseball fans. For me, True to the Blue was – and is, since it’s still kind of used tod y – a sneaky way for the front office to say that the team is part of the city and the fans who support it day in, day out. It wasn’t a great slogan, but it wasn’t a bad slogan. It was fine. It was good.

#4. “You Gotta Love These Guys” (1996-1997)

The Kingdome was a dark place in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Seahawks made the playoffs only once, and the Mariners were still yet to touch postseason play since their inception in 1977. But on the north side of downtown, the Sonics were killing it in Key Arena. So when the dream 1995 Ners squad brought some life to the Kingdome, the city’s sports enthusiasm that originated with its basketball team soon began to spread to its ballclub. And with lovable faces like Griffey and Edgar leading the way, the front office hopped onto the hype by simply appealing to the players. You had to love these guys – not only were they decent, players but they had saved baseball in Seattle the year before.

#3. “We Can Do It Together” (1977)

The 1970s were just incredible, weren’t they? Yea, the slogan is somewhat raunchy (and apparently that’s what they were going for), but like True to the Blue, this was also a tagline that subtly included the fans in the mission of the team. It sounds a lot like a High School Musical song – but I’d love to see the Ners return to this and use Robby and Zunino together on a poster.

#2. “SoDo Mojo” (2000 & 2001)

Most would probably rank this as the best M’s slogan in history, and I wouldn’t blame them for it. SoDo Mojo was the perfect way to label the wonderful seasons of 2000 and 2001. It incorporated the city by giving a nod to the neighborhood where Safeco is located, along with acknowledging the incredible magic that was spewing out of the ballpark in those days.

The slogan has continued on in M’s lore today, as you can still buy socks, t-shirts, and ballcaps with it printed on them. The only reason it’s not number one is because it couldn’t have been around if it weren’t for Refuse to Lose.

#1. “Refuse to Lose” (1995)

13 games out in August, never having made the playoffs, facing potential relocation…the Refuse to Lose campaign tops this list because it’s what saved Ners baseball. (Note: this also includes its brother phrase, My Oh My). When the Mariners went on their incredible 1995 run, the entire city hopped on board with the team, with everyone – from fans to players – adopting this catchy phrase as their mantra. It is, in my opinion, because of the days of Refuse to Lose that we were able to have the other great team slogans that followed…and, unfortunately, the bad ones as well.

Honorable Mention:

“Chicks Dig the Ground Ball” (2011-2012)

This one is honorable mention because it wasn’t official, nor was it only the Mariners who used it. The slightly raunchy phrase was actually an MLB-wide slogan, first used by ESPN Magazine in 2011 to promote how Brandon McCarthy recreated himself as a groundball pitcher and then married a model. But what’s funny was that the Mariners appropriated it that year to promote their own groundball pitchers, and as a backlash, wound up highlighting their rollover groundball hitters as well. And that’s not a good thing.

The Worst 5

#5. “Viva la Mojo” (2003)

This was just a butchered attempt to recreate a slogan that was once great but had died out completely because it had been overused. Like a catchy pop tune on the radio that quickly turns sour because it’s played too much, the “Mojo” buzzword faded in impact real quick…because the front office recycled it THREE DIFFERENT TIMES. Unleash the Mojo was just a terrible attempt to appeal to the weird craze around "Who Let The Dogs Out," while Mojo Risin’ was actually okay in my book because it was a very clever reference to a Doors song. But then came Viva La Mojo. This was a couple of years after the glory days of 2000 and 2001, and it just feels like the front office just got lazy and merely hit “copy/ paste” on a slogan that once worked and then shamelessly added a Latina flair on top. It was bad. The Mojo died. It’s been dead since.

#4. “Believe Big” (2010)

This one begins my count down of the slogans that have pretty much summarized the state of the franchise over the past few years. The fans were told to Believe Big in 2010 – and the fans got zero return on investment, as the team went 61-101. The slogans that follow this give a great idea of how the team has declined in talent while the front office ascended in desperation.

#3. “Good” (2018)

The shrinking from Big to Good showed that we’ve at least narrowed our expectations. This shift took a few years to arrive at, yeah, but the team isn’t all that bad now. It’s not great either. It’s fine – it’s good. Whatever.

#2. “A New Day, A New Way” (2009)

“Alright, so we aren’t gonna tell you to Believe Big, nor are we going to tell you that we’re Good (ahem, fine) – we’re just going to tell you that we’ve wiped the slate clean, and are going to start trying out new things.” The funny thing is, this slogan actually worked for a hot second: the Ners went 85-77 under A New Day, A New Way. But unfortunately, this got us onto the hype train which led to Believe Big the following year…and that team, again, lost 101 games.

#1. “Whatever it Takes” (2016-2017)

Desperation rings through this phrase like you can’t imagine. Whatever it Takes was, to me, essentially an acknowledgement of the long playoff drought and a declaration that we are now all-ears for any and all suggestions of how on earth we can claw our way out of this franchise slump. “Anyone got any ideas?” I can hear front office saying. “Seriously, we’ll try anything. Whatever it takes…because honestly, we’ve hit rock bottom.”

. . .

I would like to follow this list up with a very brief story. As I was collecting slogans from the archives of various Seattle-based media outlets, I stumbled upon a Reddit page in which a couple of die-hard Mariner fans were also going through old M’s taglines. They were discussing Two Outs, So What and debating whether or not it was an official slogan. It wasn’t – but the fans had taken to it, so it kind of was.

The funny part about the whole thing came when one of the commenters made a very nitpicky comment, saying “I actually think it was Mariners Baseball: Two Outs, So What.” The original post writer retaliated by mentioned the list and saying “I think all of these things start with ‘Mariners Baseball’.” And then, out of left field, some random blogger hopped on and dropped the mic by adding “Like Depression.”

If this 2018 season doesn’t go well, maybe that’s a decent and fairly realistic thought: Mariners Baseball: Depression.

#NerNostalgia #Opinion