The Greatest Non-Rivalry In Baseball.

Let me preface this post by saying it has no basis in current events, it's just something I've noticed over the past few years, and it's finally bothered me enough to write about it.

Since interleague play began in 1997, many natural rivalries have been cultivated: Yankees and Mets, White Sox and Cubs, Angels and Dodgers, etc. These make the most sense because, after all, these teams exist in opposite leagues in the same state. One rivalry, though, seems incredibly confusing, and that is the rivalry (yes, it's apparently a real rivalry) between the Mariners and the Padres.

This may not seem like a big deal to the majority of readers. The reason for that is because it's not. These teams almost always underperform, neither team has ever won a championship (Padres lost in 1984 and 1998, Mariners made the ALCS once or twice in the late 90s/early 2000s but never advanced to the World Series), and both teams are more notorious for their mediocrity than anything else. And yet, every single season, baseball fans find themselves subjected to these forced, uninteresting series between the San Diego "Huh?" Padres and Seattle "What?" Mariners. However, there is a little more history to this odd matchup than it seems.

Back in the 1930s (yes, this "rivalry" is older than the majority of baseball fans), when the Padres were just starting out as a minor league team, they had a fierce competition with the minor league team in Seattle which was a precursor to the short-lived Seattle Pilots (the now-Milwaukee Brewers). For most of the teams' history, they actually did have many meetings, and they each seemed to hold a small amount of interest and solicited a fair amount of passion from the fans. Once both teams became part of MLB, though, and were put in opposing leagues, they didn't face each other at all from the 1960s until 1997, when the at-the-time unpopular interleague play was instituted. The two faced each other for the first time as major league teams, and the anticipation was...well, there wasn't any, really. While it was a treat for fans to see Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez play against Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman, the excitement surrounding the matchup was less than palpable. Neither team appeared to be poised for greatness that season, so the series was largely ignored...as nearly every single other series that followed it would be.

Now, if either team becomes a powerhouse (or, even better, if both do...although the Cubs will probably win a World Series before the Mariners make another ALCS), then this rivalry might have some meaning to it, especially if they happened to meet in October for the Fall Classic (I know, I know, but a man can dream). But until then, it's hardly Yankees and Red Sox...it's not even Twins and Brewers. But it will go down as the best, most heated rivalry that never was.