Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie frontman, loves the Mariners. Jayson Jenks, the writer of this article who is disgusted with himself for using the third person, loves Death Cab for Cutie and occasionally writes about the Mariners. Those feel like good enough reasons to meet up outside a Pioneer Square coffee shop and talk.



Gibbard thinks the Mariners might be cursed. No, really



“I’m 42 years old now,” he says. “I was born into this team.”



He means that almost literally: He was born in Bremerton in 1976; the Mariners were born in 1977. He had no choice: The Mariners are his team. This gets him thinking about the Red Sox and Yankees and the way Safeco Field/T-Mobile Park is always filled with their “fans” when those teams are in town.



“There’s always this thing where people say, ‘Well, Red Sox fans, they travel,’” he says. “Bullshit. Bullshit. These are people who fucking...