Kyle Seager's no-show for Mariners' 50th anniversary almost feels too perfect

Kyle Seager is not expected to be on hand for this weekend's festivities at T-Mobile Park, where the Seattle Mariners will be celebrating their 50th anniversary by honoring their 50 greatest players. It's a darn shame, but it's also hard to imagine a more fitting tribute to Seager than the spotlight not being on him.

Before anyone gets up in arms about Seager's no-show, Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times noted in his report that it's not about any lingering beef with Jerry Dipoto and the front office. Seager's excuse is that he's in Cooperstown for his son's travel team, and it checks out:

Granted, one can't help but wonder if this is one of those "a little Column A, a little Column B" things. Seager did not end his 11-year tenure with the Mariners on the best terms with the brass, and that wasn't even five years ago.

Kyle Seager's Mariners story is as much about toil as it is about triumph

Thankfully, there won't be a shortage of stars to account for Seager's absence at T-Mobile Park. As they still work for the Mariners, Edgar Martinez and Ichiro Suzuki are regulars even on ordinary weekends. Ken Griffey Jr. and Jay Buhner are in town, and Félix Hernández is slated to arrive Thursday. Randy Johnson will be there, too. Heck, even Alex Rodriguez is showing up.

So, basically a "Who's who?" of players who have defined the first 50 seasons of Mariners baseball. These are the guys. The legends. The icons. The ones who make you reach for the rose-colored glasses that the franchise is all too willing to hand out.

They're also the only six guys who rank ahead of Seager among the Mariners' all-time WAR leaders. And see if you can spot the difference between him and them:

Unlike his fellow all-time Mariners greats, Seager never won a major award or played in the postseason during his 11 years with the team.

The only real recognition he got was as an All-Star and Gold Glover in 2014. Apart from that, he didn't land in the top 10 of the MVP voting even once. And while he seems like a clear choice for the Mariners Hall of Fame, he could be a one-and-done in his first year on the National Hall of Fame ballot next year.

Kyle Seager is 'The Dark Knight' of the Mariners' 50-year saga

It's only natural to wonder if Seager might have gotten more attention during his career if the Mariners hadn't been so, well, bad. He only played on three winning teams in 11 seasons, with his career ending right before the current contention window opened in 2022.

Hernández can relate, though not as much with the obscurity part, on account of his Cy Young Award win in 2010 and his six All-Star selections. He earned those, obviously. Yet attention-wise, the deck was stacked in his favor in a way that it wasn't for Seager. Hernández was hyped as the game's best pitching prospect when he was coming up in the mid-2000s. Seager was never a top-100 prospect in any capacity.

One supposes you have to credit Seager for not letting obscurity rub him the wrong way. He leaned into it, famously poking fun at himself after his younger brother, Kyle, came up in the mid-2010s and became an instant star for the Los Angeles Dodgers:

How Seager's career ended is like catnip for the film buffs among us. In real life, he vanished like Keyser Söze at the end of The Usual Suspects. But in the zeitgeist, he's like Batman at the end of The Dark Knight. He looms as some kind of hero. Deserved but not needed? Needed but not deserved? One of those two.

Whatever the case, it's good to know he's still out there. And even if it won't happen this weekend, there's little doubt that Mariners fans will welcome him with open arms at T-Mobile Park any time he wants to come back.

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