Tales from the Seattle Mariners Dugout

by Kirby Arnold

  Vince Coleman led off the ninth with a single and reached second on Joey Cora’s sacrifice bunt. Rivera intentionally walked Griffey before Showalter went to his bullpen again, bringing in Jack McDowell, the Yankees’ starter in Game 3. The strategy worked, and McDowell got out of the ninth.

  The two starters-turned-relievers, Johnson and McDowell, made it through the 10th inning before the Yankees got to Johnson in the 11th. He walked leadoff hitter Mike Stanley, who was replaced by pinch runner Pat Kelly. Kelly reached second on Tony Fernandez’s sacrifice bunt, then scored when Randy Velarde singled, giving the Yankees a 5–4 lead. Johnson struck out Jim Leyritz and Paul O’Neill to get out of the inning, and the Mariners came to bat in the bottom of the 11th needing a run to avoid elimination.

  Joey Cora started it by dropping a perfect drag bunt, barely eluding first baseman Don Mattingly’s tag to reach with a leadoff single. That brought up Griffey, and nearly everyone in the Kingdome got to their feet and pointed to the right-field seats, where he’d hit so many home runs in his career. Griffey couldn’t end the game, but he kept it going with a single to center, sending Cora to third representing the tying run with nobody out.

  With Edgar Martinez coming to bat, the Mariners couldn’t have asked for a better situation. Martinez had thrashed the Yankees’ pitching all series, going 11-for-20 up to that at-bat. McDowell had been careful with Martinez in Game 3, getting him to ground out in his first at-bat, then walking him his next two times up.

  This time, McDowell tried to sneak a slider past Martinez and he left it up and over the plate. Martinez turned on it, driving the ball into the left-field corner. Cora scored easily and Griffey steamed around second, gaining speed with his long, powerful stride.

  Third-base coach Sam Perlozzo waved Griffey home, boldly defying baseball logic. By playing it safe and stopping Griffey there, the Mariners still would have a runner on third with nobody out, with defensive replacement Alex Rodriguez, Jay Buhner, and Chris Widger due up.

  There was no stop sign.

  “Sammy made the gamble of all gambles by sending Junior,” Elia said. “It’s going to be a bang-bang play at the plate, and if he’s out, you never know what might happen.”

  Griffey’s stride got longer and stronger, and he charged around third like a thoroughbred headed for the wire. He slid into the plate well ahead of the throw, winning the game and the series, sending the Kingdome into a frenzy and the Mariners into the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians.

  Mariners vs. Indians: One Step From the World Series

  The euphoria of the Mariners’ victory over the Yankees lasted as long as it took anyone to realize their pitching was a mess for the ALCS. Randy Johnson wouldn’t be available until Game 3 in Cleveland, and the Mariners settled on 22-year-old rookie right-hander Bob Wolcott, who wasn’t even on the roster for the series against the Yankees, to face the powerful Indians in Game 1.

  Wolcott started that game like an unsteady rookie.

  He walked the first three hitters—Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, and Carlos Baerga—then faced a pitcher’s nightmare, slugger Albert Belle with the bases loaded and nobody out. Before Belle came to the plate, Mariners manager Lou Piniella took one of his slow, meandering walks to the mound.

  Third baseman Mike Blowers, who would normally stick an ear into such a conversation, stayed away.

  “I didn’t go there because I didn’t know what Lou was going to do,” Blowers said. “I didn’t know if he would undress Bobby or pat him on the back.”

  Piniella, known to have melted struggling young pitchers with his blistering sermons on the mound, delivered a gentle message to Wolcott.

  “Son, we don’t have anybody else,” Piniella said. “You’re going to be out here if we give up 20 runs, 10 runs, or zero runs. You could be home in Oregon by now fishing, so just settle down, and let’s get these guys out.”

  In just his seventh major-league start, Wolcott did just as he was told. He struck out Belle and got Eddie Murray on a foul popup, then was saved by his defense. Jim Thome hit a hard one-hopper up the middle, but second baseman Joey Cora made a diving stop and, from his knees, threw Thome out at first base for the third out.

  Indians manager Mike Hargrove, who would become the Mariners’ manager in 2005, was asked if he had that situation 100 times—bases loaded, nobody out and the beef of that batting order coming up—how often the Indians would be held without a run.

  “Once,” Hargrove said. “That one.”

  Blowers hit a two-run homer, Luis Sojo hit an RBI double, and Wolcott held the Indians to eight hits and two runs in seven innings as the Mariners won the series opener 3–2.

  Orel Hershiser held the Mariners to four hits in eight innings, leading the Indians to a 5–2 victory in Game 2, sending the series back to Cleveland for Games 3, 4, and 5.

  Johnson, rested from his draining weekend against the Yankees, limited the Indians to one run entering the eighth inning. The Mariners led 2–1 in the eighth when right fielder Jay Buhner misplayed Alvaro Espinoza’s fly, leading to an unearned run that tied the score.

  The game progressed into the 11th when the Mariners put two runners on base and Buhner batted against right-hander Eric Plunk. Three innings after his defensive gaffe let the Indians back into the game, Buhner decided it with a three-run homer that gave the Mariners a 5–2 victory and a 2–1 lead in the series.

  The Indians pummeled the Mariners 7–0 the next night, and the M’s faced the difficult chore of trying to beat Hershiser in the critical Game 5. Hershiser was tough again, holding the Mariners to two runs in six innings, and Mariners starter Chris Bosio kept the game close by limiting the Indians to three runs.

  The Indians led 3–2 when Vince Coleman gave the Mariners an opportunity to tie the score in the eighth, walking with one out and stealing second against Plunk. That set up a sequence of subtle events, unknown to most fans, that may have determined not only who won the game, but also the series, Mariners hitting coach Lee Elia said.

  “We’ve got Coleman on second base, and we’re trying to get him to steal because their guy is slow to the plate,” Elia said.

  Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel, the former Mariner, saw Coleman’s growing lead off the bag and sensed that something was up, Elia said.

  “On the first pitch, nobody smelled a thing,” Elia said. “But on the second pitch, Omar realized this guy had too much of a lead and he shortened up about three steps.”

  Coleman didn’t run on the third pitch, either.

  “So now Omar really slides over, about five or six yards from his original spot,” Elia said.

  Sojo lashed at the fourth pitch and smoked a line drive right at Vizquel, who had positioned himself perfectly to catch the ball and trap Coleman off the bag for a double play that ended the threat.

  “If Luis hits that ball a pitch or two earlier, Omar wouldn’t have been there and that ball might have gone to the wall,” Elia said.

  If it had gone to the wall, the Mariners would have tied the score and put another runner on base in scoring position.

  “Was it game-changing? It probably was,” Hargrove said. “If they score that run, it’s a different scenario. We won that game by one run.

  Back in Seattle for Game 6 with a 3–2 series lead, the Indians still didn’t feel at ease. They had their ace, Dennis Martinez, on the mound for that one, but the Mariners were bringing back Randy Johnson on three days of rest.

  Hargrove knew that anything could happen in a game played at the Kingdome.

  “The Mariners doing what they had done all year didn’t make you feel all that good,” Hargrove said. “The Mariners had a real good team and it seemed like destiny was on their side. I swore if I ever saw another Refuse to Lose sign I was going to just die. Everywhere you looked there was a Refuse to Lose sign in everybody’s window, on the office buildings and every storefront. After a while, you get to thinking that maybe there’s something to that.”

  Martinez
was brilliant for the Indians in Game 6, pitching seven shutout innings, and Johnson held on as long as he could, clearly not as sharp as he’d been throughout the postseason.

  “We rode his back for half that season,” Blowers said. “But it looked to me like from the start Randy was out of gas. He was going up against the best lineup in the league, and you could tell he was just off.”

  The Indians took a 1–0 lead in the fifth on Kenny Lofton’s RBI single, and they made it 4–0 with three runs in the eighth. Two of those scored on a passed ball by Wilson, including the speedy Lofton from second base.

  “When Lofton scored from second base on that one play, it seemed like the air went right out of the building,” Hargrove said. “The way we added on was just a real nail in the coffin.”

  Piniella pulled Johnson, who for the first time in months couldn’t save the Mariners. They never got another baserunner and the Indians finished off a 4–0 victory that sent them to the World Series.

  After the final out, the Mariners lingered in their dugout—Joey Cora sat on the bench sobbing in the arms of rookie shortstop Alex Rodriguez—before quietly heading back to their clubhouse.

  Then something marvelous happened.

  All but a few among the crowd of 58,489 remained in the building. The Mariners’ fans had established a true love for that team, and they were reluctant to walk away a final time. They politely saluted the celebrating Indians, then began one last cheer for the Mariners with an ovation that grew louder and louder.

  Underneath the grandstands, Piniella addressed the Mariners, thanking them for the effort that resulted in such a memorable season.

  “Then somebody came in and said something quietly to Lou,” Blowers said. “He told us to get our pants and shirts back on, that the crowd was still back out there and we needed to go out and show our appreciation.”

  When the Mariners reached the field again, 15 minutes after the final out, the Kingdome remained packed.

  “We were all shocked at the amount of people who were there and how loud the ovation was when we came back out,” Blowers said. “I’d never seen anything like it before.”

  Months and years later, those who were part of the Mariners’ magnificent ride remember it as one of the best times in their careers. Many of them could only wonder what that team might have accomplished if just a few more breaks had gone their way.

  What if Omar Vizquel hadn’t turned that game-changing double play for the Indians in Game 5?

  What if the one-game playoff against the Angels hadn’t wrinkled the Mariners’ pitching rotation?

  What if Randy Johnson had been able to pitch throughout the postseason with regular rest? Could he have been a different pitcher in Game 6 against the Indians and given the Mariners a Game 7 opportunity to reach the World Series?

  “When you think about the Mariners of ’95, the only shame is that we didn’t go to the World Series,” Elia said. “If we hadn’t had that one-game playoff against the Angels, when we had to use the Unit, I still feel in my heart that the whole thing would have turned out different.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Building a Winner Without Johnson, Junior, A-Rod

  THE MARINERS TRIED TO RECAPTURE THE MAGIC OF 1995 but never came close through the remainder of the 1990s.

  They were a good team, no doubt, and after the front office made such additions as first baseman Paul Sorrento and pitchers Jamie Moyer and Jeff Fassero, the Mariners won the AL West again in 1997. The Baltimore Orioles smothered them with pitching in the first round of the playoffs, winning three of four to eliminate the Mariners.

  The Mariners, however, were a changing team as the decade went on.

  In 1998, they dealt unhappy pitcher Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros at the trade deadline. Before the 2000 season, center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. was gone, traded to the Cincinnati Reds. And a year later, shortstop Alex Rodriguez shunned the Mariners’ five-year, $95 million offer and jumped at a deal he couldn’t pass up, 10 years and $252 million from the Texas Rangers.

  Despite losing their three best players in less than four years, the Mariners remained competitive and returned to the postseason.

  Without Johnson in 1999, the Mariners built their rotation around the young pitcher they got from the Astros in return, right-hander Freddy Garcia.

  Without Griffey in 2000, they plugged the defensive void in center field with Mike Cameron, one of four players obtained from the Reds in that trade. Then they added smooth-swinging John Olerud at first base, Japanese pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki at closer and won the American League wild card.

  Without Rodriguez in 2001, the Mariners signed Japanese right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, second baseman Bret Boone, and retooled the team to fit the pitching/defense/small-ball style that was needed to win at Safeco Field. They put together the greatest season in American League history and tied baseball’s all-time record with 116 regular-season victories.

  The Mariners still had Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, and Dan Wilson, but they never achieved what they truly wanted, an appearance in the World Series.

  “You always wonder what we could have done if we’d been able to put all those components together,” said John McLaren, manager Lou Piniella’s bench coach on those 2000 and 2001 playoff teams. “What if we could have kept Randy and Junior and Alex, and put them together with Edgar and Cameron and Boone and Ichiro? I understand the financial restraints of the game and I know there’s a time when guys move on, but you wonder just what we could have accomplished with all those guys together.”

  Mike Cameron: Fan Favorite After Griffey

  Watching the trade rumors from his home in Georgia, Mike Cameron was no different than any other baseball fan during the offseason between the 1999 and 2000 seasons. The Ken Griffey Jr. saga enthralled him.

  It seemed certain that the Mariners would trade Griffey, and it was no secret that he would wind up in Cincinnati. Cameron, the Reds’ promising young center fielder, knew such a trade would dramatically change his role, if not the team he played for as well.

  Trade rumors ran wild, but the name Cameron rarely heard was his own.

  “The only person I heard being mentioned was Pokey,” Cameron said.

  Pokey Reese was the name that appeared in the Seattle newspapers more than any other. And rightfully so. The Mariners needed a second baseman, and Reese not only played the position well, he could provide the type of offense the M’s needed, having hit .285 and stolen 38 bases in 1999. Reese could provide the type of athleticism that manager Lou Piniella was seeking.

  “All I heard was Pokey, Pokey, Pokey,” Cameron said. “But all of a sudden, the trade was made and there were four of us going to Seattle.”

  Mariners general manager Pat Gillick swung a five-player trade—Griffey to the Reds for pitchers Brett Tomko and Jake Meyer, minor-league infielder Antonio Perez and, of course, Cameron.

  The trade surprised Cameron, who had played only one season in Cincinnati after beginning his career with the Chicago White Sox.

  “I was still trying to get a sense of who I was as a player at the time,” he said. “I was highly regarded with the White Sox and I thought that was going to be my team forever, but I had a bad sophomore season and got traded to the Reds. We almost got to the playoffs the last day of the season, and we were so young and had so many good young players on the team that I thought we would stay together forever.”

  In an era of free agency and frequent player movement, no team stays together long. Cameron not only had to face the difficult fact that he had been traded, but also that he was replacing a Mariners legend.

  When the trade was announced, Mariners fans were irate. They scolded Gillick on radio talk shows and roasted him in newspaper letters to the editor. They said the Reds stole the Mariners blind, that Gillick gave away the franchise in exchange for four barely known players.

  Cameron understood the fans’ lament.

  “I knew it would be a difficult task to be comfortable,” he said. �
�There was no way possible that anybody could come in and fill Junior’s shoes. He’d been here since he was 19, and he was what people here were accustomed to seeing.”

  Cameron, however, had extreme confidence in his ability to play center field, and that gave him comfort. So did the team he was coming to. The Mariners were far from a one-man team with Griffey, and without him they still had Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, Dan Wilson, and Jay Buhner, plus veteran newcomers John Olerud, Mark McLemore, and Stan Javier.

  “I knew I was coming to a good team, and if all I did was just play, the other things would take care of themselves,” Cameron said.

  Still, there was no mistaking that the spotlight was directed at Cameron. Confident in his ability to play center field, he welcomed it.

  “I didn’t really worry about it until I got to Seattle,” he said. “Everybody got a chance to see me at spring training, and that was an opportunity for me to show what I could do. I worked really hard to get to the level where I felt they wouldn’t miss anything without Griffey out there, even though I knew that wasn’t possible.”

  Cameron tiptoed through the first three games, playing well in center field and, after going 0-for-4 in the season opener against the Red Sox, warming up with the bat. In the second game, he went 2-for-5, including a triple, to help the Mariners beat the Red Sox. The following night, in the third game, he hit his first home run as a Mariner in another victory.

  The Yankees came to Seattle for the Mariners’ first weekend series of 2000, and Safeco Field was filled nearly to capacity on Friday, April 7. In the eighth inning, as the Mariners tried to protect a 6–3 lead, Cameron literally leaped into the welcoming arms of the fans who’d been so uneasy after losing Griffey.

  Derek Jeter, who had homered early in the game, launched a high fly off Mariners reliever Paul Abbott, and the ball seemed headed for the patio area beyond the center-field fence. Cameron sprinted to the warning track and leaped high against the wall. When he came down, he had the ball in the webbing of his glove, robbing Jeter of a home run.