by Kirby Arnold
On Thursday, September 13, commissioner Bud Selig announced that baseball wouldn’t resume until the following Tuesday, September 18.
“When they finally made the call to postpone, that’s when we said, ‘Oh crap! How do we get all these people home?’” Spellecy said.
The Mariners’ traveling party in Anaheim was larger than usual, with several families along to visit Disneyland.
“We lined up four buses and told everyone that we were going to leave at 11 o’clock on Friday morning and ride back to Seattle,” Spellecy said. “It was going to be a 20-some-hour trip.”
The Mariners didn’t abandon hope of arranging a flight back to Seattle, but that seemed futile because airspace remained closed.
“I was calling all my contacts within the airline industry, but everything was cancelled, and nobody knew when they would be flying again,” Spellecy said. “Then, Pat Gillick said, ‘Why don’t you call Alaska back?’”
Spellecy did, hoping for the off chance that Alaska Airlines would have a plane in Los Angeles that could transport the Mariners to Seattle if flights resumed. The airline’s response was as uncertain that day as it had been since the 9/11 attacks. Nobody knew when airspace would reopen, and when it did, nobody knew what regulations or limitations there would be.
“That’s fine,” Spellecy said. “Just keep us in mind.”
On Friday morning, the Mariners’ equipment was loaded onto a truck and it left about 9 a.m. to begin a drive of nearly 1,200 miles to Seattle. The four buses were scheduled to arrive at the hotel about an hour later, and Spellecy held another briefing with the team to discuss the trip back to Seattle.
About 30 minutes later, his cell phone rang. It was an official from Alaska Airlines.
“We have a plane. It’s at LAX and it’s yours if you want it,” Spellecy was told. His response was brief but emphatic.
“Yes! We want that flight!”
Just then, four buses rounded the corner and pulled onto the hotel grounds, ready for the long journey to Seattle. The Mariners used those buses, but only for the drive from Anaheim to Los Angeles International Airport.
Gillick held one last meeting to tell everyone of the change in plan—that the team would fly back to Seattle, not bus—and he emphasized that the threat to US security remained uncertain and that the situation was still serious.
“If there’s one practical joke or if anybody doesn’t go through security, if you’re carrying anything you shouldn’t or if you make bad jokes, you’re going to be in deep, deep trouble,” Gillick said. “This is not fun and games. Have your IDs ready. Have your passports ready. Don’t mess this up.”
“We had to make it very, very clear to everybody flying with us how serious this was,” Spellecy said.
That became apparent during the drive to the airport. Four cars from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department escorted the Mariners’ buses, and the freeways around Los Angeles were nearly deserted. So was LAX when the team arrived.
“It was such an eerie feeling,” Spellecy said. “It was desolate going up there. Nobody was driving. We were going 70 miles an hour on the freeway, and the traffic was maybe the quietest it’s ever been in LA. I think people were staying home wondering, ‘What’s going to happen next?’”
The buses arrived at the airport and the Mariners entered a terminal deserted of anyone but a few airline workers and numerous law enforcement officers.
“There were police standing all over the place when we got to the airport, but even they didn’t really know what was going on,” Spellecy said. “We had to take our luggage and check it, but the people with the airline had no idea what was going on, either. They hadn’t been working for three or four days, and then all of a sudden it’s open. There was a lot of confusion, and it took us a while to get on the plane.”
When the Mariners finally boarded the plane and settled in their seats, the pilot made a brief announcement before takeoff.
“We’re the only plane leaving right now,” he said. “Welcome aboard and let’s get out of here.”
The Mariners were never so glad to hear those words.
Life After 9/11
The Mariners had to get their minds back on baseball when games resumed on Tuesday, September 18. It wasn’t easy.
The terrorist attacks still weighed on everyone’s mind, and every jet that flew over Safeco Field on its approach to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport became a nervous reminder of what happened a week earlier.
Everyone who attended the first game back against the Angels received a small American flag, and pregame ceremonies brought tears to a lot of eyes. Between “God Bless America” and the “Star Spangled Banner,” the sellout crowd broke into a loud chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Manager Lou Piniella called it a beautiful moment, and third baseman Mark McLemore was like many of the players, having to dig deep for the focus needed to play the game.
“I was pretty much a wreck until the first inning,” McLemore said.
They all felt a responsibility to get back on the field and give America a diversion from what had occurred on the East Coast a week earlier.
“We were going through one of the roughest times in this country’s history, and the people needed baseball as something to get their minds off everything on TV that was so negative,” second baseman Bret Boone said. “I felt a responsibility as an athlete, as an entertainer, to go back to work and for three hours a night allow people to watch a ballgame and get their minds off it. That was our obligation to the country.”
Pitcher Freddy Garcia did his part in the first game back, pitching a three-hit complete game in the Mariners’ 4–0 victory over the Angels. That cut the magic number for clinching the division title to one—an Oakland loss or a Mariners victory would give the M’s their third division championship.
That could happen the next night, and the Mariners knew that their victory celebration would be seen, and probably critiqued, nationwide. They knew it needed to be tasteful and not the raucous, champagne-spraying delirium that is common when baseball teams win championships.
“We talked for a week about how we should do it,” Cameron said. “We knew we had to do it in a respectful way.”
Oakland lost to the Texas Rangers, and the Mariners beat the Angels, clinching the third division championship in franchise history. When closer Kazuhiro Sasaki got Jose Nieves on a popup to Boone for the final out of a 5–0 victory, there was no massive pileup of players on the field.
Instead, the Mariners hugged each other and waved to the crowd. McLemore took an American flag and walked to the top of the pitcher’s mound, waving it as his Mariners teammates gathered nearby.
“McLemore had talked a little about doing that,” bench coach John McLaren said. “But the way it unfolded, it was spontaneous.”
The players, coaches, and Piniella all dropped to a knee on the mound and bowed their heads for a moment of silence. The stadium fell silent, except for some who sobbed at the scene. The emotion overwhelmed Mariners utility player Stan Javier, who broke down and cried.
Then the players rose to their feet and made a slow walk around the diamond, led by McLemore with the American flag. The crowd cheered loudly, but with respect.
Relief pitcher Arthur Rhodes broke from the pack of players and ran down the left-field line, where he stopped and embraced a police officer.
Edgar Martinez holds an American flag during pregame ceremonies at Safeco Field in 2001 when baseball resumed after the 9/11 attacks. Photo by Dan Bates/The Herald of Everett, Washington
Players took turns carrying the flag around the diamond, and when they reached home plate, Cameron and Piniella held it aloft. The players smiled, waved and then retreated to the clubhouse for their own private, but still respectfully quiet, celebration of the division title.
“We had a little champagne because we’ve worked hard,” Piniella said. “It was subdued and it was in very good taste.”
With the division championship
secure and still 16 games remaining in the season, there were more important matters than an all-out effort to beat the single-season record of 116 victories. The Mariners needed to go 11–5 the rest of the way to do that, and it was entirely possible on this team, but Piniella knew it was more important to get them ready for the playoffs. The first step was to give the regulars plenty of rest in the final two weeks of the regular season.
Piniella did that, and the Mariners lost four straight, leaving them stuck on 106 victories with a dozen games remaining.
“We had to win 10 of the last 12 to tie the record,” Cameron said. “I’m not sure how many in a row we won, but we were playing very, very well by the end of the season.”
The Mariners won nine of the next 10, leaving them one victory from tying the record with two games remaining in the regular season. They got it in the next-to-last game, beating the Rangers 1–0 on October 6 when minor-league call-up Denny Stark led a parade of five Mariners pitchers to the mound as Piniella tuned up his staff for the playoffs.
The Rangers won the final game 4–3, scoring a run in the top of the ninth, to leave the Mariners with 116 victories.
Illness Strikes a Star
Along with their great baseball, the Mariners were blessed with good health most of the 2001 season. Injuries to front-line players were minimal.
Outfielder Jay Buhner missed all but the final month because of an injury to his left foot. Norm Charlton, Edgar Martinez, and Stan Javier all spent time on the 15-day disabled list with leg issues, but they returned to play key roles in the Mariners’ drive to the division championship.
Manager Lou Piniella rotated his lineup, giving starters frequent time off in order to keep everyone fresh through the heat of the summer.
It was all working well until shortstop Carlos Guillen got sick in September.
“He’d had problems off and on the whole year,” head athletic trainer Rick Griffin said.
Guillen said nothing about feeling sick, but he’d experienced nosebleeds during the season and missed several games.
“The 10 days when he was really suffering, he hit over .400,” Griffin said. “He could get himself through the games, but then he’d go home feeling bad, and he was coughing up blood.”
Guillen underwent tests, and on September 28 his problem was diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis. He was hospitalized immediately and placed under quarantine because of the highly contagious disease.
“Carlos probably contracted it from someone when he was home in Venezuela,” Griffin said. “He was toughing it out. But if it had gone on much longer without treatment, it could have become extremely serious.”
Guillen’s teammates became very worried because the disease can be spread via airborne particles, and they had spent considerable time in close quarters on flights, buses, and in clubhouses.
Every Mariner was tested for TB, and nine players tested positive, meaning they had contracted the disease although they hadn’t shown symptoms of illness. Those nine, whose names were never revealed, took medication for the next nine months.
Guillen missed the rest of the regular season, plus the first-round playoff series against the Indians. He started the first game of the American League Championship Series against the Yankees but physically wasn’t able to play every game of the series. He pinch hit in Game 3 and started Game 5, getting two hits in his eight at-bats in the series.
Postseason Disappointment
History said the Mariners should have reached the World Series in 2001.
Of the 23 other teams in baseball history that had won 105 or more regular-season games, only the 1998 Atlanta Braves failed to reach the World Series.
This, however, is the era of divisional play and two rounds of playoffs just to reach the World Series. No matter how successful the regular season was, it took a hot team to advance through the division series and league championship series.
The Mariners never found their regular-season rhythm in mid-October.
Perhaps it was the letdown after the push to win 116 games. Perhaps it was the illness to Carlos Guillen. Perhaps it was the strained oblique suffered by unsung infielder David Bell during a workout after the 9/11 attacks. Bell, who batted .260 with 15 home runs in the regular season, hit .188 in the postseason.
Indians ace Bartolo Colon shut out the Mariners on six hits in a 5–0 victory in Game 1 of the AL Division Series at Safeco Field, but the Mariners came back the next day behind left-hander Jamie Moyer, who held the Tribe to one run. The M’s scored four times in the first inning off Indians lefty Chuck Finley and held on for a crucial 5–1 victory.
Having gained a split of the two games at Safeco Field, the Indians believed they had the momentum with the best-of-five series shifting to Cleveland for Games 3 and 4.
The third game was a nightmare for the Mariners. The Indians pummeled Seattle starter Aaron Sele, who had never won a postseason game, with four runs in the first two innings and didn’t let up against three Mariners relievers. The Indians won 17–2 and celebrated afterward as though they had the series in their pockets. All they needed was one more victory to celebrate in earnest.
The next day, before Game 4, Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln sat in the dugout at Jacobs Field, on the brink of seeing his magnificent team eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. What irritated him most was how the Indians reacted to their Game 3 victory.
“Those guys were jumping around yesterday like they’d already won the series,” Lincoln said. “There’s nothing more I would like than to beat those guys.”
With their marvelous season one loss from crumbling, the Mariners rallied. They came from behind and beat the Indians 6–2 in Game 4, then clinched the series when Jamie Moyer outpitched Chuck Finley in a 3–1 victory at Safeco Field.
The Mariners, who observed their division championship with a subdued celebration three and a half weeks earlier, sprayed champagne this time. It was their last joy.
Andy Pettitte held the Mariners to three hits in eight innings, leading the Yankees to a 4–2 victory in Game 1 of the ALCS at Safeco Field. The next night Mike Mussina beat them 3–2, leaving the Mariners in a dire hole as they prepared for the next three games at Yankee Stadium.
Reporters, waiting outside the Mariners’ clubhouse before being allowed access to the players, were surprised to see Lou Piniella when the doors burst open. On his way to the required postgame press conference, he stopped and delivered a bold statement.
“Let me interject one thing,” Piniella said with fire in his eyes. “We’ll be back here to play Game 6! I’ve got confidence in my baseball club. We’ve gone to New York and beaten them five of six times. We’ll do it again! We’ve got another five games to play!”
To do that, the Mariners had to win at least two of the next three games at Yankee Stadium, where they had indeed dominated the Yankees in the six regular-season games in New York.
Returning there in October, however, was different.
The Mariners were playing a Yankees team that suddenly had gained the empathy of the nation, because they represented a city that continued to suffer from the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The Mariners had the right man pitching in Game 3, Jamie Moyer, and they played their best game of the postseason. Moyer held the Yankees to two runs in seven innings, and the Mariners broke out with seven runs in the sixth inning, rolling to a 14–3 victory.
It not only pulled them back into the series, it gave the Mariners a sense of energy they hadn’t shown in the postseason. The killer instinct that had been such an important part of the regular season finally had returned.
One day later, before the biggest game of their season, all of that energy seemed lost.
Piniella, his coaches, front-office executives, and several players took a bus to the site of the World Trade Center. They met firefighters at Firehouse 24, Ladder Co. 1, the home station of several who lost their lives on September 11. They met families of lost firefighters and police officers. Then they
toured the ruins of the World Trade Center, smoke still drifting from the pile of twisted steel and the smell of sulfur lingering in the air.
“After seeing that, how do you put baseball in the same context?” pitching coach Bryan Price wondered. “How do you make baseball the priority? It was a very, very difficult thing for us to do.”
Head athletic trainer Rick Griffin, who was on that bus, also sensed a change in the team.
“We saw first-hand the devastation,” he said. “We met relatives of people who were lost. We met people who survived. We met wives of the firefighters whose husbands had been buried alive. This was a close-knit team and they were very family-oriented, and they were really affected. It took the focus away from baseball.”
That night in Game 4, the Mariners and Yankees were scoreless through seven tense innings. Before the top of the eighth, second baseman Bret Boone did his best to instill a spark by giving his teammates a dugout lecture.
“If any of you want to make it to that postgame interview room, then you’d better do something this inning,” Boone yelled.
Boone, the third hitter up in that inning, knew the Mariners needed to score in the eighth because they’d face the Yankees’ dominating closer, Mariano Rivera, in the ninth. Ichiro Suzuki grounded out and Mark McLemore lined out, bringing Boone to the plate with two outs against right-hander Ramiro Mendoza.
Boone drove a pitch from Mendoza deep to left-center field, clearing the wall for a 1–0 Mariners lead.
With two of their best relievers ready to close out the Yankees—Arthur Rhodes in the eighth and Kazuhiro Sasaki in the ninth—the Mariners should have been in a perfect position to even the series at two victories apiece. The left-handed Rhodes would face two of the Yankees’ tough left-handed hitters, David Justice and Tino Martinez, but in between them was dangerous switch-hitting Bernie Williams.
“I thought we had it in the bag then,” Boone said. “But then, in that next inning when I went out to the field, it was like a weird thing was happening. The wind started swirling and I remember seeing hotdog wrappers flying around.”