One would think that being raised by stray dogs and living off the meager income that comes from selling used bottlecaps would be a hindrance to starting and maintaining a thriving Web publishing career, but I stand before you as living proof that if you can dream it, you can wake up and realize that you can get close to being something resembling it.

I started this site in January 2003 as a way to keep connected to my home city, where as of then I no longer lived, and to the Mariners. I miss living where there’s no MLB team, and doing this (almost) every day keeps me up on what’s going on so I don’t feel like my baseball knowledge will atrophy.

I write about the Mariners, I write about Arsenal, and I write about a bunch of other stuff too – none of it well, all of it with a degree of seriousness that would probably surprise my parents. I’m not the guy to turn to when you want competent statistical analysis, idealized lineups, or trade impacts; I’m the guy you turn to when you want to take a break from all that thinkin’.

Why “Nice Guys Finish Third”?

When this here interthing started, I called it the SS Mariner. Back then, there were only two or three of us doing this, and nobody cared about any of it except for a small group of family members and people who knew where to look.

As the Internet got more widely accepted, though, things changed – and my site changed with it. I renamed it to avoid either confusion with or cheapening of the USS Mariner, and when I was looking for a new name, I was trying to find something that encapsulated my frustrations with the Mariners in a way that would also be somewhat funny, a type of coping mechanism which, if you’ve been a fan of the M’s for any length of time, just kinda comes naturally.

The Mariners have always prized “good guys” and “clubhouse assets” over hard-nosed competitors, and they seem to go out of their way to sign guys that will bring credit to the community rather than guys that will bring hardware to Safeco (with the exception of Carl Everett, that is…). Thus, nice guys. And, since nice guys finish last was a bit too pessimistic even for me, Nice Guys Finish Third was born.