by Kirby Arnold
Jay Buhner, coming out for early batting practice one afternoon, noticed the banner and became livid.
Randy Johnson. Photo courtesy of the Seattle Mariners
“Who put that up?” he screamed at workers who were preparing the stadium for that night’s game. “Somebody get up there and take that f—ing thing down! If anybody has a problem with it, come talk to me!
Then he told his teammates, “Were going to win the West. We’re not going to settle for the wild card.”
The Mariners beat the Twins two out of three but couldn’t gain ground on the Angels, who also won two of three from the White Sox.
With 16 games to play, the Mariners were five and a half games out of first place. The odds remained steep, but they knew the Angels would feel the pressure if they kept winning. Buhner hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning and the Mariners beat the Twins 7–4 on September 13, and the comeback nature of Mariners’ victories had created confidence in the clubhouse.
Soon, what once seemed impossible became reality.
The Mariners won eight of the next nine games, taking two of three from the White Sox and sweeping both the Rangers and A’s, while the Angels lost eight straight to the Royals, A’s, and Rangers.
As exciting as the race had become, the fans in Seattle weren’t exactly climbing over each other to get into the Kingdome. Crowds for their early September home series were larger than the 5,000 that usually showed up that time of the year, but still small considering the circumstances—between 12,000 and 18,000.
Besides the division race, the Mariners drew extra scrutiny in September of 1995, not all of it positive.
The owners had lobbied hard to replace the Kingdome with a new retractable-roof outdoor stadium, and their threat was clear: If a new stadium wasn’t built, the team would be put up for sale and, likely, moved out of Seattle, probably to St. Petersburg, Florida.
The issue spawned a healthy debate between those who believed Major League Baseball improved the quality of life in the city and others who argued that spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a sports stadium made no sense in the face of other social needs.
The stadium issue would be decided by King County voters on Tuesday, September 19, with a ballot measure that would determine a proposed sales tax increase from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent.
When the Mariners returned for their final homestand on September 18, Ken Griffey Jr. issued a plea for fans to step up their support of the team—at the turnstiles if not at the polls.
“We’re not asking for 60,000, but 25,000 or 30,000, that would be great,” he told reporters. “The last couple of games in the dome you could have put everybody on one level and still had room. You hate to see that.
“Fans have got to forget the owners, forget the players, and remember they’ve got a major-league team in town. This week they’ll decide if they want to keep this team or not. But whether we stay or go, this is the most important part of baseball history in Seattle. I hope they want to be a part of it.”
The Mariners beat the Rangers 8–1 in the opener of a three-game series and, combined with the Angels’ loss to Oakland, pulled within two games of the AL West lead. The fans had responded to Griffey, with an enthusiastic crowd of 29,515 that turned the Kingdome into a noise chamber.
Earlier in the day, the Mariners recorded another victory. They won a coin flip to determine the home team for a possible one-game playoff should the division finish in a first-place tie at the end of the regular season. They had no idea how important that would be to them less than three weeks later.
Tuesday, September 19—election day—became almost surreal in how the events on the field and at the polls played out. With some fans paying as much attention to the election results on their radios as they were to Dave Niehaus’s play-by-play of the game, the Mariners trailed the Rangers 4–2 going to the bottom of the ninth inning.
Adding to the fans’ disgust, early election results had the stadium measure failing.
Then manager Lou Piniella sent Doug Strange to the plate as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning, and he clubbed a two-run homer, just his second of the season, to tie the score. Two innings later, Griffey singled to score Strange with the winning run in a 5–4 Mariners victory.
The Mariners left the field trailing the fluttering Angels by one game in the division, then turned on the clubhouse TV to watch the election results. Like the comeback victory in the Kingdome, the stadium measure had turned around, too, with yes votes overtaking the no votes. When the Mariners went to bed that night, they were on the verge of first place in the division and getting their new stadium. Life couldn’t have been better for a baseball fan in Seattle.
Newspapers the next morning didn’t exactly proclaim victory on the stadium measure, but the results were encouraging. It led by 4,000 votes, but supporters were nervous because 47,000 absentee ballots remained uncounted.
On September 20, the Mariners put postseason tickets on sale in the morning, then continued their roll that night. They beat the Rangers again, 11–3, and achieved a place never seen in franchise history. With the Angels losing again, the M’s pulled into a first-place tie in the AL West.
After an off day, the Mariners began a three-game series against the A’s on September 22 and 51,500 in the Kingdome witnessed the most dramatic night in franchise history. The A’s hushed the crowd by taking an early 6–0 lead, but the Mariners stormed back with six runs in the fourth inning, highlighted by Vince Coleman’s grand slam. The A’s went back ahead 7–6 and carried that lead to the bottom of the eighth inning, when two more heroes emerged for the Mariners.
Edgar Martinez homered to lead off the eighth, tying the score 7–7, and the Mariners put two runners on base when Rich Amaral singled and Mike Blowers walked. Piniella sent switch-hitting Alex Diaz to pinch hit for Luis Sojo, and the A’s brought in left-hander Rick Honeycutt to face him.
Diaz connected for a three-run homer, just his third of the season, stirring the crowd into bedlam and leading to a 10–7 victory. The Angels fell again, their eighth straight loss, and the Mariners took a one-game lead in the division.
Those come-from-behind victories gave birth to a slogan that appeared in newspaper headlines and on home-made signs that fans brought to the Kingdome: Refuse to Lose.
“The more the Angels found weird ways to lose, we were finding unbelievable ways of winning,” Buhner said. “Once we got to mid-September, we knew we were going to catch them. We just hoped we wouldn’t run out of games.”
On September 23, Randy Johnson struck out 15 and pushed his record to 16–2 in a 7–0 shutout of the A’s—the Mariners’ 10th victory in 11 games—and the Angels lost again to give Seattle a two-game lead in the division.
The next night, Tino Martinez continued the hero-a-day parade when he hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Mariners a 9–8 victory.
The Angels came to Seattle for two games and, after the Mariners beat them 10–2 in the series opener on September 26, California beat the M’s 2–0 on a shutout by Chuck Finley. The Mariners led the Angels by two games with four remaining in the season.
With a magic number of two, all the Mariners needed to clinch a tie for the division title was to win twice in their final four-game series at Texas. They did that in the first two games, beating the Rangers 6–2 and 4–3.
Things weren’t going so well on the stadium vote, which headed toward defeat as absentee ballots were counted. A tally of the ballots on September 25 left the stadium issue trailing by 1,535 votes with only 3,000 ballots left to count.
With serious fears that Seattle could lose its team, government leaders called a special meeting of state, county, and city officials with Gov. Mike Lowry in Olympia, the state capitol. After a two-and-a-half-hour meeting, they reached an agreement to fund a new stadium, despite what had become a “no” vote on the issue.
“It’s in the interest of the quality of life in our state to build a stadium and s
ave the Mariners,” Lowry said.
The quality-of-life argument had become easier to sell because of the Mariners’ September success.
“Who’s to know if we don’t put that season together like we did, that we would even be talking about the Seattle Mariners years later,” said John McLaren, a coach on Piniella’s staff. “It might have been the St. Pete Mariners.”
So, having been deemed a state resource as precious as the mountains, trees, and ocean, the Mariners seemed safer in Seattle than they had in years. Now, if only they could finish their weekend mission and clinch the AL West.
The Angels made that difficult. They clubbed Oakland 4–1 and 9–6 in the first two games of their final series, keeping alive their hope of forcing a one-game playoff. The Angels’ only chance was to finish a sweep in their final two games against the A’s and hope the Mariners faltered in their last two at Texas. That’s exactly what happened. The Mariners fell miserably, 9–2 and 9–3 to the Rangers, while the Angels pummeled the A’s again, 9–3 and 8–2.
The teams flew to Seattle late Sunday for a Monday afternoon tiebreaker game in the Kingdome, with the winner moving into the first round of the playoffs against the Yankees, who had clinched the American League’s wild-card berth.
Despite their tailspin in Texas, the Mariners returned for the tiebreaker feeling confident. They had two huge advantages. By winning the coin flip on September 18, they would play the game in the Kingdome, where the volume of more than 52,000 fans had become a factor in their September surge. And with Randy Johnson starting, even on just three days of rest, it wouldn’t take many runs for the Mariners to win.
“When we got on that plane in Texas, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that we were going to win that game,” third baseman Mike Blowers said. “We knew what we were going to get out of Randy. We felt if we could score three runs, we would win that game.”
The Angels entered the game just as confident, having reversed their late-season plummet with the four-game sweep of the A’s.
“Once we tied it, we went to Seattle confident, and it didn’t matter who we were going to face,” said Eduardo Perez, a young infielder with the Angels. “We knew they were going to throw the Unit, we just didn’t know what our lineup would be. We figured it would be like we’d done before during the season, when we had all righties when we faced him.”
Instead, California manager Marcel Lachemann’s lineup included two left-handed hitters, Jim Edmonds and Garret Anderson, perhaps because of what the Angels had done to Johnson the last time they met him. With Edmonds and Anderson facing the Mariners’ ace for the first time, the Angels pounded Johnson in a 7–2 victory on August 1.
“It was a crazy situation,” Perez, said. “But we thought we couldn’t lose.”
The Angels started left-hander Mark Langston, the former Mariner who had been one of the organization’s best players in the 1980s before they traded him away. Langston, a 15-game winner, matched Johnson inning-for-inning early in the game, then blinked.
The Mariners broke a scoreless tie in the fifth against Langston with a walk and two hits, scoring the first run of the game on Vince Coleman’s RBI single. Johnson didn’t allow a baserunner through 5 ⅔ innings before Rex Hudler singled.
In the seventh, the Mariners gave Johnson all the runs he needed on one of the most famous plays in franchise history.
They loaded the bases with one out against Langston, who got another out before facing Luis Sojo. The veteran infielder from Venezuela hit a broken-bat cue shot down the right-field line, past first baseman J.T. Snow and into the Angels’ bullpen, where relief pitchers scattered and right fielder Tim Salmon had to dig the ball from under the bench.
All three Mariners scored and, when Langston’s relay throw flew past catcher Andy Allanson, Sojo sprinted home from third base. It became known as the “Everybody Scores” play, based on the radio call by Mariners announcer Rick Rizzs, and the Mariners led 5–0.
“Once it got away from us, Randy was determined,” the Angels’ Perez said. “That’s what took them to the next level. He was as dominating as he could be.”
The Mariners scored four more runs in the eighth to take a 9–0 lead and Johnson, after allowing Tony Phillips’s leadoff homer in the ninth, breezed through the Angels the rest of the way. He struck out Salmon on a called third strike for the final out, setting off a wild celebration both on the field and in the stands at the Kingdome.
“You couldn’t hear anything,” Blowers said. “It was not only loud, but it felt extremely hot down on the field. It was as warm as I’ve ever been in that place.”
The Mariners partied hard after that game, spraying champagne in the clubhouse and reveling in their first championship. The celebration was brief, however, because they had to be on the field at Yankee Stadium in less than 24 hours, and their plane was already warming up.
Comeback Against the Yankees
During the Mariners’ flight to New York, you wouldn’t have known if they’d won or lost just hours earlier.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more tired in my life,” third baseman Mike Blowers said. “It was more the emotional part of it all. That’s one of the few times I’ve actually slept on a flight.”
The Mariners had every reason to walk into Yankee Stadium both physically and emotionally worn out. In less than two days, they’d flown from Texas to Seattle, won the biggest game of their lives, then high-tailed it from Seattle to New York for Game 1 of the American League Division Series.
“It was tough,” bench coach Lee Elia said. “But you get to a point in postseason play where you don’t allow yourself to think of that stuff.”
Adrenaline and Ken Griffey Jr. nearly carried the Mariners to victory in the series opener. Griffey homered twice, his seventh-inning blow tying the score 4–4, but the Mariners’ bullpen ran dry, allowing four runs in the seventh and one in the eighth as the Yankees won 9–6.
The Mariners scored twice in the seventh inning of Game 2 to take a 4–3 lead, but Paul O’Neill’s home run in the bottom of the seventh tied the score 4–4. Griffey homered to give the Mariners a 5–4 lead in the 12th, but Ruben Sierra’s RBI double scored Jorge Posada to tie the game again.
Three innings later in a driving rain, Yankees catcher Jim Leyritz ended a five-hour, 12-minute epic when he drove a pitch from Tim Belcher for a two-run homer. The 7–5 victory put the Yankees in a commanding position in the best-of-five series, leaving them just one victory from clinching the series, which headed back to Seattle for Game 3 and, if needed, Games 4 and 5.
On the flight back home, Blowers and first baseman Tino Martinez discussed how the team had fallen to the brink of elimination, and how they hoped to reward the fans in Seattle—and themselves—with at least one postseason victory.
“We’d come way too far for this to happen,” Blowers said. “We had to win at least one playoff game because, as a player, you never know if you’re ever going to get back.”
Randy Johnson outpitched Jack McDowell and the Mariners won 7–4 in Game 3. The Mariners knew they’d cleared a big hurdle to win a game over the Yankees—“It was a sense of relief,” Blowers said—but it also renewed their hunger to win the series.
“You know what?” Jay Buhner asked Blowers. “If we win again tomorrow night, all the pressure is on them for Game 5.”
The next night, the Yankees played like there was no pressure at all. They blistered Mariners starter Chris Bosio early, scoring five runs in the first three innings. The 57,180 in the Kingdome, so raucous during the Mariners’ September stretch drive, had fallen silent.
Then Edgar Martinez changed the series. He clubbed a three-run homer in the third inning, and the Mariners scored four times to pull within a run at 5–4.
The Mariners scored an unearned run in the fifth inning to tie the score, and Ken Griffey Jr. homered in the sixth for a 6–5 lead. The Yankees tied it again in the top of the eighth when Norm Charlton threw a wild pitch, but the Mariners threatened ag
ain in the bottom of the eighth against John Wetteland.
Vince Coleman walked, Joey Cora reached on a bunt single, and Wetteland hit Griffey with a pitch to load the bases. That brought Martinez to the plate, and he crushed a two-ball, two-strike pitch from Wetteland over the center-field fence for a grand slam and a 10–6 Mariners lead. His seven RBIs in the game set a major-league postseason record.
Jay Buhner followed with a solo homer off reliever Steve Howe for an 11–6 score, and the Yankees put together a mild rally against Charlton and Bobby Ayala in the ninth, scoring twice, before Bill Risley got the final two outs.
The victory sent the Mariners into what amounted to another one-game playoff in the deciding Game 5 at the Kingdome. They’d have to win it this time without their ace, Randy Johnson, who was unavailable to start because he’d pitched two days earlier.
Andy Benes got the ball and he held the Yankees to four hits and four runs in 6 ⅔ innings. David Cone had held the Mariners to seven hits and single runs in the third and fourth innings, and the Yankees led 4–2 going into the bottom of the eighth.
Griffey hit a one-out homer to make it 4–3 before Cone, who was running out of gas, walked Tino Martinez, gave up a single to Buhner and walked Alex Diaz to load the bases. Piniella sent his super sub, Doug Strange, to pinch-hit for catcher Dan Wilson, and Cone walked Strange to force in a run, tying the score 4–4.
Yankees manager Buck Showalter replaced Cone with Mariano Rivera, a rookie right-hander who’d started 10 games for the Yankees that year. Rivera, showing a wicked fastball that would make him one of baseball’s greatest closers in future years, finished off the Mariners in the eighth.
Meanwhile, Randy Johnson, who’d started two days earlier, began warming up in the Mariners’ bullpen. After the first two Yankees in the ninth reached base, Piniella brought Johnson into the game, and he got three straight outs to leave the score tied 4–4.