It started as a joke, but the “rally shoe” might’ve been just the push the Mariners needed to clinch their spot the American League Division Series, at least if you ask the fans who gathered at T-Mobile Park on Saturday.
Going into the top of the eighth inning with the Mariners trailing Toronto 9-5, 31-year-old West Seattle resident Ben Cox decided to try something crazy in an attempt to spark a Mariners rally, so Cox took a yellow Birkenstock off his left foot and put it on his head.
The cameras at the T-Mobile Park Watch Party found him, and made him a ballpark sensation.
Some in the crowd laughed when Cox was shown on the board with the shoe perched on top of his long hair, but a few fans joined in. After Cal Raleigh lined a single to left field to score Eugenio Suarez and make it 9-6, a few more joined.
Wild-card series game 2:
Mariners 10, Blue jays 9
By the time J.P. Crawford’s bloop double landed in center field to clear the bases and tie the game at 9-9, the chants echoed off the stadium rafters.
“Rally shoe! Rally shoe! Rally shoe!”
When Adam Frazier doubled in the top of the ninth inning to put the Mariners ahead for good at 10-9, it seemed that most of the stadium had gotten the message. The rally shoe was working.
With many shoes balanced on many heads in anticipation, the crowd roared in jubilation as catcher Cal Raleigh crossed the plate with the eventual winning run.
“When the base hits started falling and we tied it up, people were fully on board for the rally shoe,” Cox said. “I think the shoe might exist. It might be a real thing.”
While Cox made the rally shoe a hit, its origins came earlier in the season when Cox witnessed another fan at a Mariners game put a shoe on his own head. A few fans over the years have attached shoe to dome to try to get a rally started, but never quite to Saturday’s effect.
“I was like, ‘that’s kind of fun,’” Cox said. “So I was like ‘hey, maybe we can get something going. Let’s change it up.’ Full respect to the guy that first brought the shoe on the hat, I’m just happy that it worked for the boys, because there is nothing better than winning a game and making it to the ALDS.”
Tyler Thompson was the Mariners control room producer who created the Rally Shoe graphic on the video board. With baseball being such a superstitious sport and the Mariners trailing, he saw the shoe as something that could be a memorable rallying point for the thousands of fans in attendance.
“I’m looking for something that could provide that magical spark for this team,” Thompson said. “This whole season has been magical. I see a guy with a sandal on his head …. and I’m like ‘That feels like something,’ and that feels like something we could get the entire crowd to buy into.
“I’ve never seen a rally shoe, and it feels like Mariners fans embarked on something new that really worked.”
Cox was introduced to the crowd after the game, and gave his autographed shoe to the Mariners in exchange for “some fun Mariners stuff.” According to a tweet by Mariners Marketing VP Kevin Martinez, the shoe is going to the Mariners Hall of Fame.
“It’s actually my wife’s yellow (Birkenstocks), but good thing is we wear the same shoe size,” Cox said. “I appreciate her for supplying me with the shoe.”
While Cox’s shoe will live on in Mariners’ lore, he takes no credit for the victory.
He might’ve brought a spark of joy to the Seattle crowd, but it was the Mariners who built it into a roaring fire.
“I won’t take any credit from those guys,” Cox said. “All I am here is a fan, and I just love the way that they play. There is not a player that I love more than the entire team. I appreciate them for coming out and playing baseball the right way.”
People seemed to agree, the rally shoe worked.
Converse, Nikes, or Birkenstocks, all shoes were welcome.
“It was beautiful to be here with these thousands of people,” Mariners fan Mark Wittow said. “I don’t know why I put a shoe on my head, but I joined in the fun.”
Wittow summed up the feelings for many overjoyed fans in the Pacific Northwest, describing Saturday’s game as “utter joy.”
“(I’m) delirious. This is so wonderful,” Wittow said. “The comeback was so magnificent, to see them pick themselves up. I thought they were in hell, and then we were in purgatory. Then we soared with the eagles.”