Sweepless in Seattle: Royals lose 6-2 to Mariners

A chance to take the Wild Card is slipping away

Before moving to the Kansas City area when I was nine years old, my family and I lived in Berea, Ohio. As a result, I spent a few firsts in Cleveland, and I still have a soft spot for the area and some friends I’ve maintained. I saw my first big league baseball game there—then the Indians at what was named Jacobs Field. I also spent my first day at an amusement park at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

Cedar Point is one of those places where people who aren’t into amusement parks or roller coasters have heard about. In 1989, Cedar Point fired off the first salvo in a nearly two-decade period of time that became to be known as the “coaster wars” with the construction of the 205-foot tall Magnum XL-200, the first full-circuit roller coaster over 200 feet high. Cedar Point would go on to build some of the biggest and most innovative coasters in the world, and as a kid I got to ride some of them (and watch, with awe, the ones I wasn’t yet tall enough to ride).

As you imagine, I got really into coasters. I watched turn-of-the-milennium documentaries about the biggest and scariest rides from channels like Discovery and The Learning Channel and The Travel Channel back when, you know, they had somewhat educational programming. I remember very clearly the first time I rode the Mamba at Worlds of Fun and can recite the entire recorded spiel to this day. “Welcome to the Mamba, one of the tallest, fastest, and steepest roller coasters in the world. At this time, step into your seat, fasten your safety belt, and pull down on your lap bar...”

I grew up, and I married someone, and that someone could have been a person who hated roller coasters or was indifferent to them; the result would have been the same, that I would not have ridden some of the featured coasters from those Discover/TLC/Travel Channels shows. But my wife also loves roller coasters, and we’ve ridden some of those big rides including Nemesis at Alton Towers and Fujiyama at Fuji-Q Highland and The Beast at King’s Island. The list goes on.

I am very aware that the Kansas City Royals played a baseball game tonight. They lost to the Seattle Mariners. Kansas City scored two runs, and they have now scored two or fewer runs 40 out of 85 total games in 2025. This caps off an 8-18 June that included only one, lonely victory at Kauffman Stadium. More importantly, since the Mariners currently hold the third AL Wild Card slot, tonight’s loss pushed the Royals to 5.5 games back from the playoffs.

But we did not watch the game. My wife and I were at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio this evening in San Antonio, and we had a lovely time riding some coasters. In fact, we closed out the night with three consecutive rides—without even having to get off and re-enter the queue—in the front row on the dive coaster Dr. Diabolical’s Cliffhanger. Yesterday, I got my 150th coaster credit on Iron Rattler; my wife got her 100th credit on Fury 325 a few weeks ago at Carowinds in Charlotte.

I would have provided a detailed write-up if the team had shown some some life. But this is Royals Review, not MLB.com or the Star, and we are beholden to our readers in whatever they need. Frankly, at this moment, you need a place to vent and I am here to provide for you a little entertainment and a comment section in which to do so. Lord knows that the Royals aren’t providing the entertainment.

So coasters it is. Thank you for coming to America’s rocking roller coast. Ride on.