That night when Jim Bouton, Ball Four afficianado, Shawn Collins, Pilots collector, Charles Kapner and I first cooked up the idea of reuniting the Pilots for a game against the 1977 Seattle Mariners, we had no idea that there were so many Pilots fans around the world. We were sure that, with your response and the success of old-timer's games in other cities, the Mariners would be excited about getting involved.

They weren't.

After some polite initial interest, the idea died faster than a routine fly ball in Ichiro's glove. It's unfortunate, because—let's be honest—with the players getting older, the chance of this game ever happening is getting smaller each year. What are the Mariners missing out on? A chance to celebrate their own past and give Seattle the closure it never got when the Pilots left, with the grandest old-timers game ever staged. Oh, and butts in seats.

Thank you again for all of your input. I'm disappointed that it looks like the game won't happen, but I won't second-guess the Mariners' decisions. I've done my share of that over signing Jeff Cirillo when they could have had Scott Rolen…or drafting Roger Salkeld when Frank Thomas was available or trading Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek for Healthcliff Slocumb or…okay, okay, I'll stop now. I'm going to leave the guestbook on-line a while longer, although I think we've gotten all of the mileage out of it that we can.

If you have a connection to the M's, or if you're in the media (special thanks to Peter Callaghan of the Tacoma News Tribune for his efforts) and want to put in a good word, please do so! A game like this has never happened, so it would take all of us working together, plus some luck to pull it off. Please Let me know if you have any ideas.

This site is not affiliated with the Seattle Mariners. We are not acting on their behalf or with their approval. Thanks to Alxnet.com for providing the guestbook.