The Ancient Mariner: Moyer Spot Part Of New Team Ad Campaign

New Spot Takes Tongue-In- Cheek Look At Moyer’s Career

The Mariners have unveiled a new TV ad campaign for the ’06 season, via Copacino & Fujikado, Seattle, that consists of six spots featuring 12 different players. The first spot is titled “Tribute,” which jokingly claims 43-year-old P Jamie Moyer broke into MLB as a batboy in ’26 and pitched in his first game in ’35. “The Kollectors” shows fans collecting the letter “K” from different places and concludes with P Felix Hernandez striking out a batter. Other spots include “The Great Wall of Adrian,” featuring 3B Adrian Beltre; “The Legend of Big Richie,” featuring 1B Richie Sexson; and “Epidemic,” featuring fans imitating RF Ichiro Suzuki. The final spot is “Talk To The Glove,” which makes fun of players talking to each other with their gloves covering their mouths and features C Kenji Johjima, P Jarrod Washburn and SS Yuniesky Betancourt (Mariners). Copacino & Fujikado Creative Dir Jim Copacino said, “We’re sort of in a new cycle. ... We don’t know these guys the way we have in the past and these commercials give people a peek behind the curtain, show some of their idiosyncrasies and their large personalities” (SEATTLE P-I, 3/16).

TICKET SALES: In Seattle, John Hickey reports the Mariners have sold just over 15,000 season tickets, down about 2,000 from the same point last year. However, individual-game tickets and group sales “are either holding steady or are down only marginally from a year ago,” and the opening weekend of ticket sales last month was the fourth-best in team history. The team drew 2.73 million fans last year, down from a record 3.54 million fans in ’02 (SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, 3/17).