When the winless, anthropomorphic salmon wearing an orange life vest and yellow floaties crossed the finish line, 47,000 souls erupted in a celebration so thunderous that the rumbling was classified as a miniature seismic event. Strangers hugged. Grown men cried. Skeptics smiled. A fan base conditioned to expect disappointment around each and every corner roared to life.
Down on the outfield warning track, the fish of the hour thrust its fins to the sky.
That fish, Humpy, is the lovable loser of the Seattle Mariners’ seafood-themed mascot race, appropriately dubbed The Salmon Run. For the past two seasons, Humpy and his three salmon companions have competed against one another between innings during every Mariners home game. The event, like other mascot races around MLB, has become a fixture of the in-game experience at T-Mobile Park.
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Before last week, Humpy — far and away the most popular of Seattle’s salmon — had gone a startling 0-165 during Mariners games. Victory for Humpy, as it has so often seemed for this franchise, felt eternally out of reach.
But something about this October, for both Seattle baseball and its beloved fish, is undeniably different.
ALDS Game 5 will be remembered forever in the Pacific Northwest for reasons too numerous to count. Jorge Polanco’s series-winning, demon-shushing, walk-off single in the 15th inning certainly takes the cake. But Humpy’s moment of glory, which provided an understandably exhausted crowd with a galvanizing burst of energy, has made waves as well.
“In my 31 years of life, I’ve never gotten more text messages than I did that night,” Tyler Thompson, the Mariners’ director of game entertainment & experiential marketing and the mastermind behind the Salmon Run, told Yahoo Sports via phone on Monday.
“From friends, family, from coworkers, from, you know, people that are just fans, that I’m acquainted with who I haven’t heard from in a long time, reached out and were like, ‘The Humpy win — that was amazing! That recharged the stadium.’”
Thompson and his team dreamed up the now-notorious event ahead of the 2024 season. A number of other clubs around the league had implemented mascot races — the Nationals’ presidents, the Pirates’ pierogies, the Brewers’ sausages — and the Mariners wanted one of their own. They tossed around a few theme ideas, including city landmarks, famous Seattle rock stars or Mariners franchise icons. But the group, according to Thompson, settled on fish because “we were all really sparked to the concept of what is the most ecologically important race in our region: the salmon run.”
For the non-aquatically inclined, “run” is a commonly used term for the seasonal migration of fish — in this case, salmon in the Pacific Northwest. During the late summer and early fall, the various waterways of Puget Sound are teeming with fish, providing the region with an important cultural touchpoint and economic driver.
Thompson and Co. leaned all the way in on that, developing their mascots to fit four of the most prominent species of Pacific salmon and giving each one a unique, Seattle-oriented identity. There is King Salmon, who dons a crown and a red royal robe in a tribute to Mariners legend “King” Félix Hernández. Sockeye Salmon is a cheeky reference to Seattle’s grunge music scene, complete with a nose ring, blue flannel and beanie. And Silver Salmon, always wearing headphones and carrying a Microsoft device, shouts out the city’s tech industry.
Typically, that trio takes turns winning, while Humpy — a pink or humpback salmon, widely considered the least desirable of the species — plays the clueless buffoon. This is, after all, a fish wearing a life preserver.
“[Humpy as a species] rates in the same place that it finishes in the run at the Mariners games,” Dave Maider, a lifelong Seattleite and salmon a-fish-ionado, explained to Yahoo Sports. “When you fish for them recreationally, they don’t keep for very long, so it would make sense that they couldn’t run foul pole to foul pole.”
That reputation, combined with the Seattle baseball team’s feeble history of winning, helped Hump blossom into a star. Humpy receives far and away the loudest cheers during introductions before the Salmon Run. For many casual fans, Humpy’s name carries more cache than, say, Game 5’s other hero, reserve infielder Leo Rivas. When the Mariners held salmon-mascot-themed giveaway days, the Humpy merchandise far outsold that of the other three racers. There are even Humpy tattoos.
Prior to Friday, Humpy was 0-165 in the Salmon Run at T-Mobile Park. (Davis Long/Yahoo Sports)
Before ALDS Game 5 on Friday, there were whispers around the Mariners organization that Humpy’s first win might come during the race that day. Backup outfielder Luke Raley even turned to catcher/DH Mitch Garver in the dugout before the race and predicted it would be Humpy’s day. But that didn’t turn out to be the case, as Humpy once again came up short.
But as the game crawled into extra innings and beyond, an idea popped into Thompson’s head.
“You know, there’s not really a blueprint of what you’re doing in the 13th or 14th or 15th inning once you get there,” he explained. “We make game-day schedules that go nine innings because that’s what a baseball game typically is. When we start getting into inning break 28, 29, 30, plus pitching changes, we’re starting to try to get creative and figure out what we’re going to do, especially on Friday night.
“We were starting to feel the crowd’s fatigue. They can only be on their feet cheering for that many strikes in that game, that many pitches.”
And so from his perch in the T-Mobile Park videoboard control center, Thompson called down to a member of his staff to see if another race was possible. He wanted to spark the crowd to life. The rest, of course, is history.
“We run the fish out mid-15, introduce them as normal, and something came over our beloved Humpy,” Thompson said coyly. “He felt like that was the moment, and he got the historic first win. And just a few batters later, the Mariners were walking it off in historic fashion.
“That was, you know, that was Humpy being a team player in that sense. He said, you know, ‘Now is my time to shine, now is my time to win, to show our fans and show our dugout that anything’s possible.’”
Humpy’s victory sent T-Mobile Park into legitimate pandemonium. Mariners players lined up on the top step of the dugout hooted and hollered as Humpy crossed the finish line. Players who happened to not be watching — they were still playing a baseball game, after all — were startled by the sudden wall of noise cascading down from the seats. From up in his suite with the rest of his front office, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto was locked in the entire time.
“Our first reaction was, ‘Oh, my God, this is the day that Humpy wins,’” he told Yahoo Sports. “We didn’t know it was coming. We had no idea.”
That energy continued into the bottom of the 15th, as the Mariners loaded the bases with one out. Moments before Polanco’s clutch single, the Fox broadcast panned to a wide angle from behind home plate that included a shot of the video board.
On the jumbotron as Polanco dug into the box? Humpy, in the crowd, surrounded by adoring fans, jumping up and down, screaming their hearts out.
For Thompson, who has worked for the Mariners since 2018 and whose Twitter bio contains the phrase “Humpy’s Dad,” the entire experience has been immensely gratifying.
“It was incredible for me and, I think, everybody in our control room. This character that we love as much as our fans do, seeing Humpy have the moment, see Humpy be celebrated by everybody …” he marveled. “I feel what our fans feel when I’m in the control room. If they’re losing steam, sometimes I lose steam, and vice versa. And it’s on me and on our control room to say we got to reengage this crowd. We got to get this place fired up. We can have … an impact, and we got to do everything we can to help get this team to win.
“And on that night, Humpy included, everybody left everything on the table and did what we could to try to walk it off in the 15th inning.”
Now, as the ALCS moves to T-Mobile Park for Game 3 on Wednesday, with the Mariners two wins from their first World Series appearance, an obvious question emerges: What now? What will happen? What is the next chapter in Humpy’s story? How can Thompson and the Mariners keep this thing going? What is the appropriate path forward for this piscatorial icon?
“I think people believe in the power of the Humpy win now,” Thompson said.
Whether that means a streak is in order or it’ll be back to doormat status for everyone’s favorite swimmer is anyone’s guess. Humpy will have at least three more chances to triumph this season, including potential pennant-clinchers in Game 4 and, if necessary, Game 5.
And given how good Seattle has looked against Toronto thus far, there’s a solid chance we see Humpy letting loose in the World Series, a superstar on the biggest stage. Believe it or not, the future — for the Mariners and their most famous fish — finally feels bright.
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