SEATTLE – By 7 o’clock Saturday morning, a line had already formed outside T-Mobile Park, hundreds of fans eager to get inside several hours ahead of the start of the Mariners’ FanFest event.
They came this weekend to celebrate the Mariners, to bask in the success of one of the best teams in franchise history, during what is becoming of the best eras in Seattle sports history.
The Mariners themselves? Well, they’re hoping for the chance to celebrate their Sodo neighbors next weekend at the Super Bowl when the Seahawks play the New England Patriots in the Bay Area.
Julio Rodríguez counts Seahawks star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba as a friend, and he will obviously be cheering on the Seahawks.
Cal Raleigh is planning to be there at Super Bowl 60, joking he’d crash at the East Bay home of teammate Bryan Woo’s parents if he had to.
“I’ll stay there too if (they’re) allowing,” Josh Naylor added with a laugh.
Raleigh attended the NFC championship game with manager Dan Wilson last weekend at Lumen Field, and there’s no doubt who he’s supporting in the Super Bowl. “Seahawks by a million,” he said.
Naylor, the slugging first baseman, grew up in Canada as an avid hockey fan. He wore a custom Kraken jersey during warmups through much of the Mariners’ playoff run in October, but he recently got his first football jersey — Sam Darnold’s No. 14 — and he’s trying to secure tickets to attend his first Super Bowl.
A few weeks ago, Naylor helped organize a dinner with a handful of M’s teammates in Arizona, and he’s trying to get a few of them to go to the Super Bowl with him.
“This would be like a lifelong memory that I would have if I’m able to go and support them,” Naylor said. “It’d be a cool team-bonding opportunity, like we’re gonna go support our team that’s a jump and a skip across the street.
“And maybe when we’re in the World Series, they’re gonna come support us.”
The Mariners aren’t being shy about championship aspirations of their own.
After getting closer to the World Series than any Mariners team ever has — just eight outs away in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series in Toronto — the Mariners say they have heightened expectations of themselves for 2026.
“I feel like I can speak for a lot of the guys. Getting to where we did, I feel like that’s the floor for us this year,” starting pitcher George Kirby said Saturday. “Anything else doesn’t cut it.”
The bar, indeed, has been raised.
“Obviously, last year is great. I’m glad we got to celebrate that. It was a special season,” said Raleigh, who finished second in the AL MVP voting after his 60-homer season. “But at the same time, it’s that fine line of being able to turn the page and look forward to a new year and understand that what we’re trying to accomplish here is winning a World Series.”
As painful as the Game 7 loss in Toronto was, Rodríguez said the playoff experience overall “will do wonders” for the Mariners going forward.
“I think we’re all in a better place,” the star center fielder said.
The first players will formally report to Mariners spring training next weekend — Super Bowl Sunday — in Peoria, Ariz.
Wilson, entering his second full season as manager, has been part of the Mariners organization for more than 30 years, and he hasn’t seen a reception like he saw awaiting him Saturday morning from fans outside the ballpark. The Mariners sold all 25,000 tickets available for the two-day FanFest, the first full-fledged winter fan event the club has hosted since 2017.
“It’s incredible, just feeling the energy in here today,” Wilson said. “The fans are so excited, both from coming off of last year and what lies ahead for us. And pulling in today, this morning, seeing lines of people out front — wow.”