The Etsy Witch and the Seattle Mariners: What Really Happened

The Etsy witch Mariners story is the moment the Etsy witch trend crossed into American sports. On September 5, 2025, Seattle Mariners fan Steven Blackburn posted on X that he had paid an Etsy witch to fix his slumping team. Seattle had lost four in a row and six of seven. The next two games, against the Atlanta Braves, ended in a combined 28-4 rout, the team's official account posted "shoutout to the etsy witch," and the Mariners rode a 10-game winning streak toward their first American League West title since 2001.

Here is the verified timeline, who was involved, why the story spread so fast, what it tells us about the Etsy witch phenomenon, and an honest answer to the question every fan eventually asks: can a spell actually win baseball games?

What happened between the Mariners and the Etsy witch?

A frustrated fan bought a spell, the team got hot, and the internet connected the dots. That is the whole story, and it is a good one.

According to KOMO News, Blackburn, a fan from Lake Stevens, Washington, paid the Etsy shop SpellByLuna $15.99 for a spell asking that the Mariners "get their act together and start winning baseball games again," and, ideally, make it to the World Series and win. The listing price was $19.99 with a $4 shop discount. The seller replied that the ritual was complete and, in the words reported by Seattle media, "full of beautiful energies."

Then the bats woke up.

Timeline: the Etsy witch and the 2025 Mariners

Sources: MyNorthwest, KOMO News, and the 2025 Seattle Mariners season record.

Who was involved?

Only a handful of people are part of the verified story:

• Steven Blackburn, the fan who bought the spell and posted about it. When fans offered to repay him, he asked them to donate to The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention nonprofit for LGBTQ+ young people, instead. His image even appeared on the screens at T-Mobile Park, according to KOMO.
• SpellByLuna, the Etsy shop that sold the spell. By September 12, KOMO reported the shop was listed as "currently not selling on Etsy." Beyond the order confirmation, the seller did not become a public figure in the story.
• The Seattle Mariners' social media team, which embraced the joke with its "shoutout to the etsy witch" post.
• Aaron Goldsmith, the Mariners broadcaster who declared the Etsy witch real during a walk-off celebration.

It is worth stressing what did not happen: none of the coverage we reviewed says the club itself hired a witch. The spell was one fan's purchase. The players had their own good-luck charm that month, a clubhouse mustache trend, which fans promptly merged with the witch into one superstition.

Why did the Mariners Etsy witch story go viral?

It went viral because it had perfect timing, a tiny price tag and a team that played along.

1. The results were instant and absurd. A spell bought on a Friday, followed by 28 runs in two days, is the kind of coincidence that writes its own headline.
2. The team joined in. An official MLB account thanking an Etsy witch turned a fan joke into a sanctioned storyline.
3. The Etsy witch trend was already hot. By September 2025 the trend had been building since a viral TikTok about a wedding weather spell in May. Fans already knew the joke. Our explainer on what an Etsy witch is covers how it started.
4. Baseball loves superstition. Rally caps, unwashed socks, not mentioning a no-hitter. A paid spell fit right into a sport that already runs on rituals.
5. It had a kind ending. Redirecting repayment money to The Trevor Project gave the story warmth beyond the joke.
6. It kept going. A one-day spike would have faded. A 10-game streak and a division title gave fans a reason to repeat the joke for weeks, in signs, costumes and shirts.

The Mariners Etsy witch shirt and the fan merch

Within days, independent sellers were printing "Etsy witch" Mariners designs. The common motif is a witch hat on the Mariners trident, often with a mustache to honor the players' good-luck facial hair. Some designs pair it with "My Oh My," the late broadcaster Dave Niehaus's famous call.

Two things to know if you want one:

• These shirts are fan-made, sold by independent shops on Etsy and print-on-demand sites. We found no evidence of official Mariners "Etsy witch" merchandise.
• Be choosy. Many copycat sites appear whenever a sports meme spikes. Buy from a seller with real reviews and original artwork, and avoid anything that uses official team logos without permission.

What the Mariners story says about the Etsy witch trend

The Mariners episode showed that the Etsy witch had become a shared cultural joke, not just a private purchase.

Before September 2025, buying a spell was mostly something people did quietly for love, money or wedding weather. Seattle made it public and communal. Thousands of people "believed" together, half seriously and half for fun, the same way a stadium stands up in the late innings. That is exactly what most buyers are paying for: not a guaranteed outcome, but a feeling of having done something about a situation outside their control.

It also showed the trend's fragility. The shop that sold the most famous sports spell of the year was listed as not selling on Etsy within a week, a reminder that Etsy officially bans metaphysical services that promise outcomes and removed many spell shops in early 2026. Our guide to whether witches are still on Etsy explains the policy history.

Other fan bases tried the same trick. NBC News, in its December 2025 year-in-review of the Etsy witch, described a New York Knicks fan who bought an $8.48 win spell during the playoffs. Sports spells became a small genre of their own.

Can a spell really affect a baseball game?

No evidence shows that a spell can change the outcome of a baseball game. The Mariners' run has a simpler explanation.

Good teams have hot streaks

The 2025 Mariners were a strong team having a slump, not a bad team transformed. They finished 90-72, and catcher Cal Raleigh hit 60 home runs, a record for a catcher. Baseball seasons are 162 games long, and good teams routinely string together long winning runs after a bad week. Buying a spell at a low point almost guarantees that what follows looks like a recovery, because regression toward a team's true level is the most likely thing to happen next.

We remember the hits, not the misses

Fans buy spells for their teams all the time. The ones that are followed by a losing streak never go viral. That is survivorship bias: we only hear about the spells that "worked."

The spell's biggest wish did not come true

The spell explicitly asked for a World Series win. Seattle lost the ALCS to Toronto 4-3 in Game 7, after leading late in the game. If the spell gets credit for the streak, it also has to take the blame for October. The honest view is that it deserves neither.

So what did it do?

What the Etsy witch did do is real, just not supernatural: it gave a frustrated fan base a joke to rally around, a shared ritual, and a story people still tell. That is not nothing. It is also exactly what we think rituals are good for, which is why we never promise outcomes. The same logic applies to weather spells, as our guide to whether Etsy witches work explains in detail.

Should you buy a spell for your team?

If it makes the season more fun, there is little harm in a $15 spell, as long as you treat it as entertainment and keep a few rules:

1. Expect nothing. Enjoy the story regardless of the standings.
2. Pay by card, through the marketplace where possible, so you can dispute a charge if nothing is delivered.
3. Ignore upsells. A seller who later says your team is "cursed" and needs a pricier ritual is running a scam.
4. Make it communal. The best part of the Mariners story was everyone joining in, not the spell itself.

For a full look at what spells cost and which price tiers are worth it, see our Etsy witch cost guide and our overview of Etsy witch spells.

Our take

At Weather Witch we focus on one thing: good-weather rituals for weddings and big days. We have no stake in the American League, and we are not affiliated with Etsy. But we love the Mariners story for the same reason we love wedding rituals: people facing something they cannot control found a way to feel a little lighter about it. If your own big day is outdoors, our wedding weather spell is a personal ritual for your date and place, with photo proof and a written blessing, and an honest promise that it is intention and comfort, not weather control.

The bottom line

The Etsy witch Mariners story is real: on September 5, 2025, fan Steven Blackburn paid an Etsy shop $15.99 for a spell, Seattle crushed Atlanta 28-4 over the next two games, won 10 straight, and clinched its first AL West title since 2001. The team's "shoutout to the etsy witch" made it a citywide joke and a fan-merch genre. Did the spell do it? No evidence says so: a good team broke out of a slump, and the spell's World Series wish fell one game short of even reaching the Fall Classic. As a shared ritual and a great story, though, it was a clear winner.