SEATTLE — When the Seattle Mariners came from behind to beat the Blue Jays on Saturday, it silenced a packed stadium in Toronto.
There was one celebration back home that was caught on surveillance camera and has since been viewed millions of times.
“We weren’t even thinking about what we did after that," said Christian Umagat. "It just kind of happened."
Umagat, Eddie Flores and Ian Douglas are all in their 20s and work at the Toyota of Seattle car dealership in SoDo. They were bummed they had to work Saturday, and even more so when the Mariners were down seven runs.
“It definitely quieted down for a little bit, and then once we got those three runs to tie it up, everyone got back on their phones, TV volume went back up,” Flores said.
The group crowded around the lobby TV and watched their team defy the odds.
“Once it started getting close, it was like 7-4 or something, I was like, ‘Oh we can actually do this,’ because they’ve been doing this all year because the team only comes back,” Douglas said.
They didn’t want to work, but 30 minutes after their shift ended, they watched Mariners’ baseball history from the lobby of a car dealership.
“Last pitch, fly ball, we go crazy,” Umagat recalled. “Once he finally caught it, that’s when we went crazy."
The thing about pure joy is that it’s contagious. The video shows a fourth employee, working in the back at the time, skipping over to join the party.
It did not occur to the men that the surveillance cameras were rolling. They did not think someone would record the screen and post the clip online, but it happened, and they went viral.
“I came back and everybody was like, ‘Dude your video is, like, everywhere,’" Douglas said.
As of Tuesday morning, it’s been viewed more than 3.8 million times and was retweeted by Mariners superstar Julio Rodriguez himself.
"The lineup is fine, the pitching is fine, everything’s ready,” Douglas said.
Hopefully winning is contagious, too.