The great conflict of remembering the 2001 Mariners

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald in "The Great Gatsby"

Of course, the Mariners celebrated their past Saturday night. They're not exactly a party right now, if you haven't noticed. The 2001 season remains, for lack of a championship, their greatest accomplishment. So they acknowledged the remarkable feat of winning 116 games 10 years ago and treated the rest like litter, ignoring the disappointment of not winning, or even making, the World Series that year.

There's nothing wrong with that. See, that's the thing about the past. It's versatile. It's polarizing. It's left to interpretation. Events of the past can be considered history or histrionics. They can be revered or resented. Time heals. Time obscures. Time confuses. Some are inclined to remember joy because they're joyful people. Some are inclined to remember torture because they're tortured people.

In truth, history is fact buried beneath a deep coating of emotion and perception. Sometimes, you never get to the center of that Tootsie Pop.

The past is conflicting, yet magnetic. Inescapable, it seems. And here are the 2001 Mariners, heroes and ghosts, a standard and an aberration.

You'll never forget them. Or, heck, you'll never forgive them. They're the team that changed Seattle baseball for better and for worse.

Better: The 2001 Mariners showed this city mind-boggling excellence. They transformed Seattle from a baseball town that hoped for greatness into one that expected it.

Worse: They had a sure thing, and with an ALCS letdown, they proved nothing in baseball is a sure thing. And they created a monster: the erroneous belief the Mariners can win without megastars, the erroneous feeling that winning is always just a few free agency tweaks away, the institutional arrogance that, because they built something special in 2001, they can do it again by not straying too far from the model.

Every year, the Mariners remove themselves a little more from that 2001 frame of mind, but it has been a difficult decade of transition. They realize now that rare talent ... from Hall of Famer-to-be front office whiz Pat Gillick to manager Lou Piniella to stars both underappreciated (Edgar Martinez) and blossoming (Ichiro) and on and on — made their plan work. Current general manager Jack Zduriencik is doing a solid job of rebuilding the organization the right way, from the farm system up.

Still, 2001 evokes grins and winces.

Emails I received this past week ranged from impassioned declarations that 2001 was "the worst thing that ever happened to the Mariners" to heartfelt memories to exasperation that the Mariners haven't even come close to the big time the past decade. People tweak the past to say what they need it to say about the Mariners' present. The past, like a great swindler, is convincing from all angles.

During the 2001 season, it felt like the Mariners were announcing their arrival as a baseball power. Those record-tying 116 victories earned them their fourth playoff appearance since the magical comeback of 1995. Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez had all departed, but the Mariners were better than ever. It felt like a new beginning. It felt like the baseball gods loved them, at last.

It led to the most painful of their postseason experiences. The New York Yankees got them in five games, and Piniella's fear that the Mariners were one left-handed bat short of matching up perfectly with the Yankees proved true. Why didn't they get an extra bat? Why did they have to be so far ahead in the standings that they felt either invincible or unwilling to mess up a good thing?

The angst left over from 2001 comes from feelings of "What if?" and a bewilderment caused by raised expectations. For once, Seattle didn't have to hope. It knew. Then it got hurt, again. And then the baseball team returned to the epic futility of its origins, a past that had seemingly been expunged.

See, that's the thing about the past. It's vast. And if it's inescapable, you never know when it'll creep up again.

The Mariners are right to celebrate 2001 because it's the best team they've ever known. Better to keep the fan base connected to that team, even with the conflicted emotions it inspires, than make people remember the franchise that wallowed without a playoff berth from 1977 until the breakthrough of 1995.

You get the feeling that 2001 will age well, that Seattle will hold onto its glory more dearly over time, that fans will defend it against foreign ignorance when the rest of the nation forgets how good that team was.

See, that's the best thing about the past. It's yours.

Celebrate it. Curse it. Protect it.

Jerry Brewer: 206-464-2277 or jbrewer@seattletimes.com, Twitter: @Jerry_Brewer