Today is the day.

Today is they day that the city of Seattle says their goodbyes to a local legend, and it will be bittersweet for many of us.

Today is the day that Felix Hernandez, otherwise known as King Felix, makes his last start after 14 seasons in a Mariners uniform.

Fourteen seasons is a long time doing anything and if you kept up with Hernandez and the Mariners you know that there were ups and downs.

That’s why Hernandez goes down as one of the most fascinating athletes in Seattle history for me.

After starting his career as 19 year old phenom, he went on to dominate the game for nearly 10 straight seasons. He signed a long term lengthy contract to keep him hear, and the tears were flowing from him and his family once they realized how many people in Seattle loved him.

He threw a perfect game, one of the few sporting events I’ll always remember where I was listening to the call ( I was sitting in the parking lot waiting to go to the dentist. Even though I was late, it was the happiest dentist appointment of my life). He won the only CY Young in Mariners history while striking out 292 batters that season.

He was on top of the baseball world, even though he had not pitched in the postseason yet. That postseason absence would always be a thorn in his side and of course the organization he played for.

Unfortunately, injuries and age caught up with Hernandez like for most players. Even more unfortunately, it seemed like Hernandez wasn’t really attempting to transform himself into a more complete pitcher while he lost velocity.

This where things got a bit contentious between the Mariners and Hernandez.

In a nutshell Hernandez wasn’t exactly a workout warrior, and as age and injuries piled up, the Mariners organization felt like he wasn’t giving enough effort to change his body. Also an issue was his pitching mechanics and adjusting his pitching style as his velocity and spin rate dropped.

These were real issues, and Hernandez should garner some of the blame, but lets not forget what kind of effort Hernandez gave this piss poor Mariners organization for nearly 10 years.

From 2006 to 2015 Hernandez averaged about 222 innings per season. Boil that down even more and that means he was roughly pitching 25 games a season.

So lets dissect these stats a bit more. During this span Hernandez averaged 205 strike outs per game, a 3.42 ERA, a 1.2 WHIP and 8.3 strikeouts per 9 innings.

THIS WAS DURING A 10 YEAR SPAN ON A SHITTY TEAM THAT NEVER GAME HIM ANY HELP.

Sorry for yelling, but it gets me fired up every time. Yes, the Mariners paid Hernandez. Yes, they tried to surround him at times with talent. But the real issue, is that they failed every single time they tried.

They basically marched Hernandez out there during these 10 years to lose 2-0 or some bullshit like that every damn night.

Watching it live was infuriating. I can only imagine what it was like for Hernandez, who was one of the best in the game during those 10 seasons. He was voted a top 10 CY Young candidate six of those 10 seasons and was an All Star for six seasons.

In my opinion, Hernandez has to go down as a top 5 sports icon in the city of Seattle. Put his face on the Mt. Rushmore of Seattle athletes. I could care less about these last couple of seasons of Hernandez’s career, because lets be honest it pretty much mirrored the sad state of the Mariners franchise.

And at least Hernandez can say he gave 10 good years, hell great years, when the the Mariners organization didn’t.

We might not act like this is a big deal right now because no one is watching or caring about the Mariners as this season drags on again (now celebrating 18 years of no playoffs) but 10 years from now we’ll look back and say “damn Felix really deserved more”.

But for now, thanks for everything Felix.