COUNTERPOINT: Dreaming postseason dreams

The Mariners will make the playoffs, because last night in a deep dark slumber, I had a dream. Oh, what a wonderful dream. The highlight came when Kenji Johjima hit a walk-off homer off of Angels pitcher Bartolo Colon to secure a spot in the 2007 playoff for the M's. Unfortunately, my 5 a.m. alarm clock woke me up before it all ended. But what happened before my techno-rooster squawker woke me up looked nothing short of amazing.

The dream starts off with me going to a few good ball games at Safeco just because a group of friends have tickets or the stadium had some free bobble heads. I usually find myself more concerned with hot dogs and whether or not Fox Sports Net post-show reporter Angie Mentink had taken her maternity leave. 

The Mariners manage to keep things pretty normal. They keep pace with the Angels in the American League West, just four games back, but it seems inevitable that they will soon fall into their mid-season slump, only to fall off the map.

Then, thanks to the self-destruction of the Yankees, Joe Torre gets axed, and then for some odd reason, the Mariners' big wigs decide to spend some money and bring Mr. Pinstripes to Seattle.

Realizing his mistakes with the "Evil Empire," Torre completely revamps his tactics and focuses the M's on a team-centered, non-egocentric game plan. Pummeling Jeter and the boys in the American League Championship Series sits at the top of his list of things to do. Things start to look up.

To top it all off, Torre pulls his little bald sidekick [HTML_REMOVED] Don Zimmer [HTML_REMOVED] out of his cryogenic coma to come help him out.

Any player not giving 110 percent gets sent straight to the minors under Torre's new game plan. So when Beltre and Sexson start moping around the clubhouse [HTML_REMOVED] poof, they're gone [HTML_REMOVED] and are replaced by some minor-league hot shots ready to prove themselves.

These young guns buy into the old-school Torre mantra like he is selling Big League Chew laced with Pop Rocks. They love it all, and they love to win.

The whole team brings back a life to Seattle baseball that has not been seen since [HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED] well, it has never been seen before at this level.

Imagine The Sandlot, but with 23-year-olds smacking the ball around. Instead of having a freckly-faced fat kid bossing them around the field, they have two Japanese samurai [HTML_REMOVED] Kenji and Ichiro [HTML_REMOVED] show them how to light the fires and burn the tires [HTML_REMOVED] also known as decimating the A.L. West.

With all the SODO MOJO starting to pulse through Safeco's veins, suddenly the execs get really generous. The stadium starts selling upper-deck tickets for four bucks, and I'm going to every M's game I can get my hands on tickets to [HTML_REMOVED] along with 55,000 of my closest friends.

After coming from behind to win like 15 games in August, the M's look red hot in September.

Then Johjima knocks his 47th home run of the season out of the park, "PLAYOFF BOUND" starts flashing on the display screens and Safeco goes nuts as that same techno songs they always play blares through the stadium.

And why is this going to happen? Because it's almost June, and the Mariners are still in the hunt. Anything can happen.

Reach columnist James Schleicher at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.