![]() Jim Bates, Seattle resident and longtime fan: When the Pilots left, it was like, "We're not good enough." We've always had that "now we'll show 'em" attitude, but then the Mariners were awful, so we didn't show them very fast. 500 just twice in their first 18 seasons, existed only in box scores to the rest of the baseball world. For much of their history, the Mariners, tucked away in the Pacific Northwest and finishing above. A lawsuit brought about by the departure of the Pilots resulted in the creation of the Seattle Mariners in 1977. The Pilots played a single season in the Emerald City before moving, on April Fools' Day, to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. In 1969, Major League Baseball expanded by four teams, adding the Kansas City Royals, Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres - and the Seattle Pilots. Ben VanHouten/Seattle Mariners 'That's when Seattle became a baseball town' "The ballpark was filling up, and those 'Refuse to lose' signs were everywhere," says pitcher Tim Belcher. As Seattle rallied from a 13-game deficit in August to catch the Angels, Mariners fans turned out in full force. literally.Ī quarter of a century after Griffey's mad dash from first to home that won the series, ESPN consulted a broad range of sources connected to the moment - players, managers, broadcasters and fans - to find out what that era-defining game meant to them. And it changed the course of history for both franchises, saving baseball in Seattle and, ironically, igniting a Yankees dynasty. It featured a record 13 lead changes and six future Hall of Famers. What came next - a tense, back-and-forth 11-inning bout - climaxed the most exciting postseason series in baseball history. Seattle lost the first two games of the series in New York - the second a 15-inning gut punch - then battled back to force a winner-take-all Game 5 at the Kingdome on Oct. They improbably erased that 13-game deficit and earned their first-ever postseason berth by winning a one-game tiebreaker against the Angels, advancing to face the New York Yankees in an American League Division Series. "And you can all jump on my back."Īfter Griffey returned to action (two weeks ahead of schedule), the Mariners made a charge. So what are you doing to help the team, Junior? they asked. One day, outside the clubhouse, a convalescing Griffey, 25, was razzed by a few teammates. The shell-shocked Seattle Mariners fell 13 games behind the Angels by early August. The injury forced him to miss half the season. Johnson knew immediately, like everyone else who was watching, that he had witnessed one of the best catches in baseball history.īut on the play, Griffey's left hand, his throwing hand, absorbed the impact of the crash into the wall. ![]() Randy Johnson, who had thrown the pitch, collapsed to the turf. Griffey stuck his right cleat into the Kingdome's northwest green padding, just to the right of the 380-foot sign, and made a backhanded catch. Near the wall, he jumped up and his feet splayed in midair like an Olympic hurdler's. tracked a towering fly ball to right-center off the bat of Orioles outfielder Kevin Bass. In the seventh inning of a game against Baltimore on May 26, 1995, Ken Griffey Jr. Peter Keating and Anthony Olivieri with Dan Hajducky
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