There are any number of people within sports who heap shame upon their families every time they leave the house. This season, however, baseball more or less found itself in the clear: no high-profile steroid busts, no Clemens re-un-reverse-retirements, no players smacking around their wives in full view of 50 Red Sox fans.

Ah, but there's still despair and intellectual/moral/emotional rot for those who dare to track it down. The race for sixth place starts behind these five entities.

MLB_most_embarrassing_mariners.jpgThe Seattle Mariners
You can almost—almost—forgive the Yankees this year's failure; they can blame a chunk of it on injuries and the rest on A-Rod. But the Mariners opened the season with a $118 million payroll, including $22.5 million in commitments to the since-released Richie Sexson and Jose Vidro. Along the way, they axed their manager and GM, and finished 61–101 (.377). Seattle boasts tasty seafood and gentile citizens who, charmingly, stop when the street signal starts blinking, but the city has become the Baltimore of professional sports.