1995 Mariners

    The timing couldn't have been more right for one of the most magical seasons in sports history.  I was 11 years old and just beginning any boy's fascination with the sport of baseball when the Seattle Mariners did the impossible: came back from 13 games behind the California Angels and won the division.  For much of the beginning of the season, up until late August, the Mariners had been way behind the Angels in the standings, so much that nobody in the world of sports thought they could have made a comeback.  But they did, and it was a great time to a fan of theirs.
    In late August, the Mariners were 13 games behind the Angels and one game under .500.  Playing the Yankees at home, Ken Griffey Jr., arguably the best player in baseball at the time, came up to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.  Ken had just come back from a severe wrist injury that had put him on the bench for most of the season.  He hit a two-run home run to win the game for the Mariners with that sweet swing of his.  Unknowingly, he’d started a chain reaction that wouldn’t end for weeks.  No one could have possibly known it would become the spark that ignited one of the great Cinderella seasons in baseball history.  It's as if he’d lit an Olympic torch with his game winning home run, and each Mariner in turn played a part in relaying it to the finish line.
    From then on the Mariners just kept on winning.  What's even more striking is the way in which they won all those games.  On September 10th, Joey Cora hit an 8th inning double on the road to help the Mariners earn a victory.  Another come-from-behind victory came against the Twins on September 13th when Jay Buhner hit a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 8th to defeat the pesky Kansas City Royals- a team who’d been leading the wild card race at the time.  At this point, the Mariners were just two games behind the Royals and five games behind the Angels: an improvement of eight games in less than a month.  Norm Charlton also earned his 9th save in 15 games.  Three days later, another Mariner hit a walk-off home-run; this time it was Dan Wilson’s turn.  Three days after that, Doug Strange hit a home run in the ninth inning to tie a game, setting up Ken Griffey Jr. to hit a game winning single in extra innings.  The Angels then lost five games in a row and the Mariners took the division lead with 10 games left in the season.  That means they’d gained 14 games on the Angels in less than a month.  This seems remarkable in itself, but the magic didn’t stop there.
    They swept the Rangers easily; then they swept the hated Oakland Athletics.  The series against the Athletics was the second most memorable of the season.  In game 1 they were down 6-0 and scored four runs on Vince Coleman's first ever career grand slam.  After Edgar Martinez hit a home run to tie the game, Alex Diaz hit one that won it.  In game 2 the 6’10 pitching ace Randy Johnson, that tall and lanky harvester of doom, shut them out on 15 strikeouts.  Game 3 was a see-saw game, arguably the most exciting of the season.  First Edgar tied the game with a double in the 7th, then Norm blew a save by allowing Danny Tartabull a two run home run.  In the bottom of the ninth, Tino Martinez was the next Mariner to join the hero parade.  Legendary Mariners announcer Dave Neihaus made this famous call when it happened:

    Here’s the pitch to Tino: swung on and belted, deep to right field and that will fly away!  And the Mariners win it 9-8, in perhaps the most incredible game in their history!  Back and forth, back and forth and Tino Martinez has his second home run of the game!  Unbelievable!  Off Dennis Eckersley!  And forty six thousand fans are losing their minds here in Seattle.  Tonight I’ll guarantee you it will be sleepless in Seattle for everybody who was here today, including me!

    A few days later, Neihaus made another famous call in Texas.  It was after Ken Griffey Jr. stepped up to the plate with the game tied, two outs, and the bases loaded:


    Swung on and hit deep to right field and it’s... Get out the rye bread and the mustard grandma, it’s grand salami time!


    At that point I couldn't believe what was happening.  Every time the team made a dramatic comeback, my excitement increased to levels I’d never known.  It was as if the Gods of baseball had opened up a portal to another dimension where all my dreams were coming true.
    At the end of the season the Angels made a comeback of their own, tying the Mariners for first place on the last game of the season.  There was a one game playoff for the division title, and it shut the entire city down.  At school every classroom’s television was tuned into the ballgame at the Kingdome, where Randy Johnson was throwing a perfect game into the sixth inning.  The game was tied at 0 in the seventh when the Mariners loaded the bases for Luis Sojo, another unlikely hero.  Out of all possible scenarios, Luis hit a ground ball down the right field line that got under the glove of the first baseman.  Somehow the ball got lost in the Angels bullpen, and before the right fielder could throw it back to the infield everyone had scored and Luis was on his way to third.  The ball was overthrown and when Luis rounded third base the Kingdome practically exploded with joy because everyone knew he’d make it home on an inside-the-park grand slam.  The look on Angels' pitcher Mark Langston's face after that was an absolutely priceless expression of disbelief.
    Eventually Randy Johnson gave up a run, but he pitched the game all the way to the finish.  He lead the Mariners to a 9-1 victory and a first place finish in the AL West.  The last pitch was a called strikeout, and no one will ever forget Randy's long arms extending to the sky just before the bench-clearing victory mob swarmed him with celebration.
    The Mariners saved their best for last in the 1995 ALDS against the Yankees.  They lost the first two games in New York; game 2 was a heartbreaker that went fifteen innings, but no one in their right mind would have counted this team out.  I certainly didn't, and nobody else in Seattle did either.  After the Mariners won game three, the biggest hero of them all, one Edgar Martinez, really took late inning dramatics to a another level.  In game four he hit a three run home run in the third, but the Mariners were still behind 5-4.  In the 8th inning, the game was tied at 6 when Edgar came up to the plate with the bases loaded and launched a grand slam to win the game.  Then in game five, arguably the greatest moment in Mariners history came during the 11th inning after the Yankees had scored a run in the top half and threatened to win the series.  Joey Cora laid down a fabulous bunt hit up the first base line, just like he'd done before Edgar's grand slam in the game before.     Then Griffey got a base hit up the middle, which sent Joey to third.  With runners on the corners and the Mariners down by one, Edgar approached the plate.  At this moment, you could almost sense the culmination of a month's worth of magical wonder rising off the floor of the dome, ready to decide the outcome of another close game in which they'd come from behind; from behind in all three facets- season, series, and game- against stupendous odds, making it all seem like something out of a fairy tale.  With the count 1-0, Edgar sent a line drive down the left field line, scoring Joey easily.  Junior ran as fast as his legs could carry him.  The throw was accurate but late, and Junior slid into a pile of white jerseys with happy faces under an umbrella of fireworks that alighted the Kingdome in an explosion of rapture:

    [The pitch is] swung on and lineddowntheleftfieldlineforabasehit!  Here comes Joey!  Here comes Junior to third base they're going to wave him in!... the.throw.will.be.late.the Mariners are going to play for the American League Championship and it just continues!  I don't believe it, MY OH MY!


    In the ALCS, the Mariners faced their greatest challenge, a Cleveland Indians team that had doubled up on their wins to losses (which is pretty rare in baseball).  They were a classic offensive juggernaut; as a team they’d ended up batting around .300 for the whole season.  The series wasn’t even close; the Mariners lost it four games to two in what was surely an anticlimax to the season.  In the World Series the Indians lost to the Braves in a major upset.
    It was a run for the ages though.  Victorious underdogs are the pride of an oppressed people, for the people are always unfavored against the powers that rule them.  A sports team can resemble a nation’s struggle against forces above them, forces that are set into motion by things like war and economics.  Strategies are drawn up, odds are weighed, and if by some miracle the people win the day, their momentum increases and the oppressor’s fear increases.  The 1995 Mariners were like guerilla soldiers ambushing legions of the finest warriors, who had better weapons and larger numbers.  Their hearts were steadfast against teams like the Angels and the Yankees, and for that we salute them.