The Seattle Mariners are having an identity crisis.

In that regard, they're like Seattle itself — outgrowing down-home appeal without quite knowing how to get big-time hip. Consider their hunt for a catchy slogan. "Sodo Mojo" was retired with the Kingdome. Next came the transitional "Viva la Mojo" and last year, the generic "Get all of it."

Have the Mariners gotten it yet? Apparently not. Today, the team unveils a 2005 TV campaign with the bland tagline "What a Show!" and a series of spots that could be for Anyteam, USA.

It's going to come as quite a shock to fans of past ads. Since 1996, Seattle agency Copacino + Fujikado has delivered Mariners commercials, blatantly playing up Northwest identity and the cuddly quirks of pet players.

This year, the agency and team wanted something different. They achieved it, in the same way that building a toothpick skyscraper or the escalator to nowhere is different.

To showcase new manager Mike Hargrove, his coaching staff and the off-season acquisitions that are meant to make the Mariners bloom with promise, the 30-second spots are tied to a single concept.

That concept is QVC.

COURTESY SEATTLE MARINERS Ichiro Suzuki, left, and Raul Ibanez demonstrating the batter's box in one of the new Mariners ads.

Now, maybe it's just me, but I think even spoofs of home-shopping channels convey certain irrevocable messages. Like, "I'm here to make you buy something." Or "We're able to pass this great price on to you because of our low overhead."

Also speaking personally, infomercial pitchmen are not exactly the kind of folks you want to bring home.

Each of the Mariners spots faithfully replicates the QVC-style experience, from the product and price information framed around the TV screen to the semi-hysterical studio audience cued to applaud or else have its air supply cut off.

The "pitchmen" are the Mariners staff and players. But they've been saddled with a harder task than any purveyor of Hummel figurines or Magic Orange.

Trying to force baseball into an unnatural milieu, the spots' creators have asked the Mariners to sell objects or actions that are part of the game.

For instance: In "Batter's Box," Ichiro Suzuki and Raul Ibanez try to sell us a batter's box. In "Long Ball," Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson try to sell the long ball. In "The Cycle," Dan Wilson and Ryan Franklin try to sell a single, a double, a triple and — you get the idea.

COURTESY SEATTLE MARINERS Catcher Miguel Olivo is the "man on the street," demonstrating how "The Tag" makes any play complete.

I wish I could report that these brave, and occasionally charming, efforts are followed by over-the-top visuals or a few punch lines that signal to the world, "Hey, this is a goof. We're just being wacky here."

But only two spots actually demonstrate the "product," and they're done in very straightforward terms: Catcher Miguel Olivo makes a tag in "The Tag," which also includes Dan Wilson and Ryan Franklin; and "Pep Talk," hosted by Bret Boone and coaches Don Baylor and Bryan Price, has some fun videolike cuts of Hargrove as motivational speaker.

Too bad it stops there. I wanted more from Hargrove, who's got a marvelously deadpan style, and more from him would have pushed "Pep Talk" over the top where it belongs.

COURTESY SEATTLE MARINERS Pitchers Jamie Moyer, left, and Bobby Madritsch talk up the virtues of the slider, curve and fastball.

The only decent sight gags are from a spot called "Three Pitches." Jamie Moyer and Bobby Madritsch try to market the slider, the curve and the fastball while three identical baseballs nestle in a stand on their podium. A quick follow shows Ron Villone, Eddie Guardado, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and J.J. Putz in the bullpen as the phone rings.

On the other hand, maybe it's just as well the commercials didn't try to be funnier.

Two strenuous stabs at making us giggle — the impromptu entrance of a vacuum salesman and Jeremy Reed wandering in with a Mariners collectible statue while Gil Meche and Joel Piniero half-heartedly peddle "The Balk" — amount to maddening non sequiturs.

In fact, the entire underlying approach is nuts. It's like having someone peddle the clues from a game of charades, or the smoke from dry ice.

I had a chance last week to again view the 2003 and 2004 Mariners commercials, which still are available on the Internet and which contain the last great Edgar Martinez spots. Some were classic, like Edgar's idea of installing a Clapper mechanism for the Safeco lights or instructing rookies in the art of Northwest terminology.

Others artfully conveyed specific traits of the featured player: Boone's bat flip extrapolated to everyday life and Ichiro's hitting skills causing the "big shift" of 15 Oakland players to the outfield.

Taken in sum, they were maudlin and a bit too transparently eager to create a sense of family that would make us forget the Mariners' losing ways and that pricey, public-financed stadium.

However, they made sense: They were about baseball and the men playing it.

The Mariners 2005 campaign, with its vaguely enthusiastic "What a Show!" and ballpark-free infomercial setting, appears equally designed to keep our minds off recent abysmal seasons.

But the players' individuality is buried under a concept. The spots stretch so far to distance us from the team's record that we lose the team in the process. Isn't anybody here allowed to play this game?

The Mariners ads debut at 12:05 p.m. Saturday on Fox Sports Northwest when the Mariners play the Arizona Diamondbacks in a spring-training game. Meanwhile, you can judge them for yourself by going to www.seattlemariners.com and voting for your favorite. If you can find one.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com