Jay Buhner, Mike Blowers, and Dave Valle on the ’95 Mariners

February 1, 2010

On the afternoon of January 30, during the first day of the Mariners FanFest for 2010, Buhner, Blowers, and Valle participated in a discussion and question and answer session with Dave Sims and the Mariner fans. A fan asked about their best moments as a player. I took out my pen to record their answers as best as I could because I knew what was probably coming. Here’s what I jotted down as they talked.

Buhner said: “1995, it’s the season that saved baseball in the Northwest. The greatest thing was the different spirit of the team as we made the run. It was contagious. We couldn’t be surprised at winning; we found all the ways to win. And Anaheim was continuing to lose; they were finding all the ways to lose. The Kingdome was the funnest place to go. The camaraderie: we’d all go into the stadium at 1, everyone eating lunch, hanging around afternoons before the games. We were a family. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. It was like a first love.”

Blowers: “Going off what Jay said, yeah, that ‘95 season was the funnest. Watching Junior fly around 3rd base; in the Kingdome the dugout was at field level, so we could see it clearly, and just roared out onto the field when he slid into home. Any of the personal accomplishments I had; they don’t top that moment.”

Valle: “I’d spent 14 years with the Mariners, but in ‘95, it was the first season I was with the Rangers. And we came into town [in mid-September] and got swept 3 games in that series in Seattle. In the visitor’s clubhouse that series, we heard the screams of fans coming down the ramps, banging on concrete. They were so excited. I never heard that as a Mariner. That excitement, unabashed love.”

Buhner: “All that you see here now is because of that ’95 team. I’ll always be in contact with those guys. It was pretty special, no doubt about that.”

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David Cone on the Doug Strange Walk and Randy Johnson in Game Five

January 22, 2010

David Cone’s performance in game five of the ‘95 ALDS gets some extended discussion in A Pitcher’s Story, the 2001 book he collaborated on with Roger Angell. In the book, Angell describes the Mariners’ run as “a populist triumph that kept the Seattle franchise in town” as well as “a huge boost for the new and widely disparaged extra tier of playoff games . . .  and a television godsend for baseball itself at the end of two unhappy, strike-shortened seasons.”

Cone reflects on his split-finger fastball to Doug Strange for ball four, a bases-loaded walk that let in the tying run in the eighth inning of game 5.  He says: “It took me forever to get over that. I couldn’t sleep. I almost didn’t go out of my house for a couple of weeks after. I’d thrown a hundred and forty-six pitches in the game up to that point, and I had nothing left, but I was still sure that was the right call. I just didn’t execute. Maybe I’m stubborn, but I have this conviction that I should be able to deliver any pitch in any situation.

“I’ll never forget that flight home. My catcher, Mike Stanley, kept telling me it was his fault for calling the pitch, but I wouldn’t let him get away with it. Buck Showalter, the manager, must have known that he was finished with the Yankees after the loss, and Donnie Mattingly is somewhere else in the plane, going home for good and knowing that he’s never going to play in a World Series. I’d let them all down.”

A little bit later in A Pitcher’s Story, Cone talks about Randy Johnson’s performance in the ALDS, specifically Randy coming in to relieve in game 5. Cone:  “I can’t say enough good things about the man who can perform like that when the price is so high.”

Cone adds: “This was the game I’d come out of, after that base on balls. I’m in the dugout, thinking how I’d let the team down, but when Randy Johnson comes in I stopped being an opponent. What Randy did-that disregard for long-term effects-is what real players do. I was proud of him. He had back trouble the next year and had to go on the D.L., and there may be a connection, but you don’t think of that at the time. What we knew, watching him, was that he’d already beat us on a four-hitter and here he is back again after only one day of rest, ready to pitch some more, because he was their best. I was in awe, watching.

“Here’s a man about to become a free agent who could name his own price anywhere, and he pitches on like that, regardless of the risk to his career. This came on the heels of a bitter strike, when the players had been hammered in public opinion. I think America began to change its mind about players right there. Sitting in the dugout, I applauded him as a fan.”

As for Cone’s 147 pitches in game 5, he says: “I’d have thrown two hundred and forty-seven to win that game.”

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Bill James’ Opinions of the 1995 Mariners

January 11, 2010
For no reason other than because I was interested, I recently poked around the Seattle Times archives and found a few articles from 1995 that feature Bill James. For the more sabermetric-oriented readers who happen by this site, I thought I’d string together some excerpts and give a sense of what the leading “baseball guru,” as one Times reporter called him, thought of the Mariners at the start, in the middle, and at the end of 1995.

Early in 1995, the Times ran some excerpts from Bill James’ player-ratings book. He said this about Ken Griffey Jr.: “In my humble opinion, not extremely fast, and not a Gold Glove outfielder.”

This about Randy Johnson: “You need to appreciate this man, if you’re a baseball fan, because you’re never going to see another one like him. . . . He’s now 31 and missed a couple of starts with a tired arm, but I expect him to be an effective pitcher for another 10 years. He needs to win 20 (in a season) to be a Hall of Fame candidate.”

This about Dave Fleming: “It is almost impossible to sustain success on 4.5 strikeouts per game. He might occasionally have a good season, but I doubt that 1995 will be one of them.”

And this about Dan Wilson: “Threw out 32 percent (22 of 69) of runners attempting to steal, ranking him fifth in the league. That is basically all that he does well.”

Then, after Junior suffered his injury jumping into the Kingdome wall in late May, Bob Sherwin talked to James, who said: “It’s astonishing how little it changes a team when it loses its best player. Not to deny Griffey’s greatness as a player, but no matter who it is, on the average, a team will have a normal decline of three to seven games.

“Every eight runs translate into one extra game in the standings. So if you take away Griffey’s 100 RBI, that’s about 12 games. Of course, his replacement is not going to drive in zero runs. He might drive in 50. That means you could possibly lose six games in the standings.

“The best way to put it is that no one player is a team. You’re not going to win if you’re a lousy team.”

Finally, after the season ended, the Times reported that ”Bill James, baseball’s premier statistical analyst,” was warning fans bathing in the afterglow about what he called “regression to the mean. It’s a widely known and commonly studied phenomenon in statistics, and I’ve written about something similar in baseball players. Whereas people tend to project in terms of momentum, the far more important thing to consider is resistance.”

He added: “I think that when Edgar Martinez retires and you look back on his career, you’re probably going to say 1995 was his best year, but you won’t say, ‘Wow, wasn’t that something? He must have gotten every break that year.’ “

James had this to say about Jay Buhner:  ”I’ve always thought of Buhner as a 30-homer, 100-RBI type of guy. Maybe he’ll drive in 20 less runs next year, but that’s not a big deal.”

And this about Tino Martinez: “I’ve never expected him to have this kind of year, and I really question that he is that good. And a very large percentage of fluke years are at the age of 27.”

This was his summary prediction about the two Martinezes, Griffey, and Buhner: “Let’s assume all three of those guys go back to normal years next year, but you have Ken Griffey Jr. healthy. Do you come out ahead or behind? You probably come out ahead.”

The Times asked James, “What about all those other career years Mariner hitters had? Nine reached career highs in homers. Six in RBI. Seven in runs scored. Five regulars had career-best averages.”

James’ response: “I don’t see the Mariners as a team that won because a lot of guys had career years. Maybe Dan Wilson had a career year.”

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Edgar At The Bat

December 30, 2009

Edgar at the Bat: A Tale of Salvation

With Apologies to Ernest L. Thayer and Casey At The Bat

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mariner Nine that day;
The score stood 4 to 4 as the eleventh inning began its play.
And when Kelley scored for the Yankees, and the Unit was to blame
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to wail in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope that springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only Joey or Junior could get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money then with Edgar at the bat.

So Joey preceded Edgar, as did Junior and his Rake,
And the former was a banjo and the latter had had a break;
So upon that stricken multitude the rally cap was the hat
For there was a chance of runners on with Edgar coming to the bat.

And Joey laid down a bunt single, to the wonderment of all,
And Griffey, kept hopes alive and tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the fans saw what had occurred,
Hysteria reigned across the Dome, and many an eye was blurred.

Then from sixty thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through Snoqualmie Valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon THE mountain and it recoiled upon the flat,
For Edgar, mighty Edgar was advancing to the bat.

There was an ease in Edgar’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was a pride in Edgar’s bearing and a smile on Edgar’s face.
And when responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Edgar at the bat.

A hundred thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Many thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Edgar’s eye, a smile curled Edgar’s lip.

And now the leather covered sphere came hurling through the air,
And Edgar stood a watching it in coiled readiness there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my pitch,” said Edgar. “Strike one.” the umpire said.

From the Dome seats black with people, went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted someone in the stand;
And it’s likely they have killed him had not Sweet Lou raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity Pinella’s visage shown;
He stilled the raising tumult; he bade the game go on.
He signaled to the umpire, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Edgar saw, read, and swung before the umpire could say “Strike two!”

Oh, somewhere in this favored town the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing at Safeco, and Seattle hearts are light.
And everywhere folks are laughing, and everywhere children shout;
For there still is joy in Marinerville—cause mighty Edgar did NOT strike out.

Bud Orr
Baseball Boyz Banquet 2003

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Our story for 1995

December 29, 2009

We were living in Leavenworth and I can remember that entire fall like it was yesterday. I think the first thing I remember was driving south to teach a seminar in the Tri-Cities and coming home in the afternoon with one of those mid-week Mariner matinees on the radio and Dave and Rick talking about Refuse to Lose. It was mid-September and they were putting the post-season tickets on sale the next day. Unfortunately, I had another another seminar to teach–this one in Wenatchee. My kids (at that time my son was 16 and my daughter 14) were in school so there was no way for them to buy tickets. My wife (at the time) hated baseball with a passion but it has always been a way for me and my kids to connect. Even today, 14 years later, my son and I e-mail about the Mariners on a daily basis. We still do games together. My daughter a little less, but it’s one of the few things we have in common and we still find the time to do at least one game each year.

So how was I going to get tickets. We had made the trip over from Leavenworth six or seven times that summer. We had grown totally distraught early in the year when Junior broke his wrist and we had watched unbelieving as the rest of the team sucked it up and played better than they ever had. I knew that we just had to be in the stands if they went to the playoffs.

So, I was standing in front of about 200 people in an East Wenatchee auditorium when tickets went on sale at 10:00 am. I told my audience we would take a short break while I made a phone call. I dialed and prayed. Ten minutes came and went and I was still on hold, 20 minutes and the crowd I was teaching had filed back in. I was still on hold but I had to start speaking again. So I handed my cell phone (it was huge compared to what we all use today) to someone in the first row and I told them to let me know if anyone picked up. About 10 minutes later someone did. I excused myself and told the crowd I had to take a phone call again and I was sorry, got on with the ticket agent and scored three tickets in the 2nd deck right over Junior in centerfield.

When I got off the phone no one in the audience of 200+ could figure out why I was jumping up and down and screaming until someone said, “You just got playoff tickets? Didn’t you?” I admitted that I had and the crowd started applauding. It was beyond cool.

Jump forward a few weeks to the night of the one game playoff against California. I wasn’t able to get tickets to that game. I was sure we would have it won long before that (because I was a total believer) but a good friend went and we sat in the pizza parlor he owned in Leavenworth (me and my kids) and watched that game. When they finally won we went nuts.

But the next two games were two of the worst of my life. Watching the games from Yankee Stadium with my kids as we lost both of them and knowing that if you couldn’t get Jay (still my all-time favorite baseball player) to win for you in Yankee Stadium then maybe things were over. It made me hate the Yankees and that bastard Jim Leyritz more than any group of people before or since. I still hate the Yankees. Maybe the Mariners were just too tired. Maybe my kids and I would only get to use one of those precious tickets I had bought in front of 200 audience members.

So two days later, I went to my kids schools and picked them up around noon and we made the drive to the Dome (sorry, I have always capitalized it–it was kind of shrine to me) and watched them win. OMG! It was incredible. We did Refuse to Lose. We got lost leaving the Dome that night but we didn’t care–we had won. Did I mention I had one of the worst colds of my life. So here I am driving over Snoqualmie Pass twice a day for three days and not able to take any cold medication. My kids and I talked more in those three days of traveling than we ever had before. (I guess five days if you count the Cleveland games).

The next day my kids went to school and I went to work. Thankfully I work for myself so I could go in at 4:30 am and get my days work done and then I picked them up again at noon and we headed west. The second night was even more unbelievable than the first. When Edgar makes the Hall, it should be more about that game than about The Double. A three run homer and a grand salami. Our seats were just above where that ball (the salami) went out and we couldn’t see it go. (Remember how bad the sight lines were in the Dome looking down from the upper decks.) We had to wait for the rest of the Dome to go NUTS when the ball went out to know he had done it.

That third night. Oh geez! I still get tears in my eyes when I think of it. Nothing makes me emotional like that game. Up and down, up and down. The whole night. Still today, I count it as one of the five best days in my life, maybe top three. I remember so much of it. And when Joey pulled off that wonderful bunt and then Griff pushed him on to third we just knew that there was no way we were going to lose. It wasn’t possible. I don’t care if Babe Ruth (or any other of the Yankee legends of the past) had come back from the dead and pitched that inning or got to bat first in the next one, we knew there was no way we could lose. If you were there when you saw Edgar come up, you knew too. There was no way for us to lose. We didn’t even have to refuse at that point. It was destiny.

I can still see that swing in my mind. It was so sweet. That ball bounding into left field. It didn’t even look like it was hit that hard. But we knew we were tied. I was watching the ball and my son grabbed my arm and screamed that Junior was going for it. OMG! I had never, NOT EVER, seen him run that fast. Even after a fly ball in centerfield. When he scored—pandemonium.

If you were there and as into the Mariners as we were you will understand when I say that I am sitting here in my kitchen right now, typing this, with tears streaming down my face. That was it. I could die happy. Now don’t get me wrong. I lead a GREAT life. I have remarried (to a woman who likes baseball) and I have moved to Redmond so I don’t have the Leavenworth drive to get to Safeco and my kids have grown and are two of the best people you could ever want to meet but that night was beyond special. That night stands out. It is perhaps my most vivid memory. And not just the game. The exhilarating drive home with my kids. I look back now at those five games (the three with the Yankees and the two with Cleveland) and the trips to and from the Dome and I think that’s when we truly connected. We had been close before but my son and I found a common ground that we have kept going for all these years. And it’s a memory that I can replay over and over again of the best of times with my kids. For that I am truly thankful.

I want to mention the other two games. Well, really only one. For the life of me, I can’t remember the first game with Cleveland. I remember that Hershiser pitched for them and that we had a young kid on the mound who loaded the bases in the first and then got out of the jam but I can’t remember his name. Was it Dave Fleming? (My son would know but it’s too early to call him.) [It was Bob Wolcott.] I do remember that, of course, Cleveland won. And I remember they won the next night too. And that we were done. But you know what? If you are like me, that last night…when it was over…that was the second best night of the playoffs. Sure Joey cried in the dugout while Alex comforted him but if you were there you remember that we in the stands didn’t Refuse to Lose, we refused to leave. We screamed, cheered, applauded and just kept going until the team came out. My kids and I had a two and a half hour drive to go home after a loss but we stayed for almost an hour until they came out and we thanked them for what was perhaps the best month of baseball in the history of the game.

I grew up in Southern Cal. I learned baseball from Vin Scully listening to Dodger games on my bedside radio after my parents had told me to go to bed. Before 1995, the best game in baseball history had been the night Gibson hit the home run off Eckersley to win the first game of the World Series in 1988. And then my boys in blue going on to win in just five games from the Mighty A’s. Well September and October of 1995 made that look like little league. It was magic. Truly magic. Thank you so much for putting this site together. It made me write this down which I have never done before.

By DrKoob

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A Few Stories From the Aftermath of ‘95

December 21, 2009

In the aftermath of the Mariners playoff run, the Seattle Times solicited stories from people about how the ‘95 team had impacted them. I noticed the stories while looking the collection of newspapers from the run that I have, and they’re also available through the Times’ archives. Here are a few of the stories people sent in:

Romance in the stands
Unbeknownst to me, my boyfriend had been wanting to ask me to marry him, but wanted the occasion to be very special. He was trying to decide how to pull this off when the Mariners did it for him. It happened on Oct. 8, the final game with the Yankees. It was that fabulous and magical moment when Edgar, with Griffey on base, hit that sweet line drive into the left-field corner, which scored Griffey from first to win the game. In the midst of 57,411 screaming, over-the-edge Mariner fans, Daniel turned to me, told me to take my earplugs out, and proposed to me. I am a huge Mariner fan, and he knew how special that moment was to me. I want to thank the Mariners for giving me the most exciting, magical and romantic moment of my life. – Mary Ogdon & Daniel Clark

Angel on her shoulder
I inherited my season tickets from my friend, Kathy Walsh, after I found her unexplainably dead on her dining room floor Memorial Day weekend. We had attended many games together, and her family gave me a set of season tickets. I attended all the rest of the games, and Kathy was sitting on my shoulder. This was my grief therapy. – Sandi Meggert

Brightened our home
My dad took me to my first Mariner game in 1979 when I was 10 years old. Last Christmas, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He has spent the last nine months confined to the house, but we have still enjoyed watching the games on TV. I know that even while his health is deteriorating, it has been a joy to him to watch the games. Thanks for bringing a little light into our lives for the past 16 years, and especially in the past month. – Betsy Coffey

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Ghosts of the ‘95 Mariners

October 10, 2009

A couple days ago I came across a post on Crosscut by Feliks Banel with the above title, talking about the division playoff game with the Angels and the ensuing ALDS, and how Griffey being with Seattle in 2009 revitalized those memories. Feliks is a communications and radio/TV specialist with a blog, I Still Love Radio. I clipped the following excerpts from his Crosscut post and got permission from him to post the resulting story here:

You had to be there. To really understand how much this city responded when the Mariners made it into the playoffs for the first time in 1995, you had to have been here to feel the palpable shift after 18 years of bad baseball.

The Mariners’ late season ascent that August and September is a fond memory for many people who, like me, don’t even consider themselves sports fans.

The business and culture around Seattle baseball — from the romance of Emil Sick’s Pacific Coast League Rainiers, to the single-season backroom shenanigans of the Pilots, to the years of anonymous struggles and threatened sales of the pre-1995 Mariners — had always been far more fascinating to me than anything happening on the field.

But all that changed, officially, on October 2, 1995 when the Mariners played the Angels in a one-game tiebreaker to decide which team would go on to the division series. A win for the home team would send the Mariners to their first post-season play in franchise history.

On that particular day, I was working for the Business Volunteers for the Arts (BVA) program of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The game took place right in the middle of “The Art & Technology Symposium” that BVA was producing at Intiman Theatre. My memories of the crude “technology” on display that day may as well be in sepia toned prints — it seems like a century ago. That the game was taking place at the same time was also pretty distracting, and only a few people carried cellphones in 1995, and the cellphones were only, well, phones. I remember stepping out into the Intiman courtyard several times during the program to get updates from a now-forgotten attendee who was in touch by cellphone with someone attending the game at the Kingdome.

There are legends in many cities about how you could walk through town on a summer night in the 1930s and 1940s and not miss a word of the local baseball broadcast as radios played from each house. While taking a walk through Wallingford during game five of the Mariners-Yankees division series, my wife and I couldn’t hear any of the play-by-play (it was October in Seattle, after all, and windows were closed), but we did hear simultaneous whoops coming from houses in all directions each time the Mariners did something good. It’s one of my most vivid memories of feeling like a Seattleite, feeling really connected to the city.

Though they would ultimately lose to Cleveland in the American League championship series, the ’95 Mariners had erased years of scorn and derision, and had set the city afire.

By Feliks Banel

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THE BEST SIX WEEKS OF MY LIFE

October 8, 2009

“I’m sitting here in Pioneer Square, and I’m eating a Luis Sojo Burger. This is unbelievable. I think I’m going to cry. And I better take it all in, because I know this will never happen again in my lifetime.”

For those of you who weren’t there in 1995, you will never understand what that season meant to the city of Seattle and to the people who grew up following the Mariners. Because I’m not exaggerating when I say this. That season changed everything. EVERYTHING. Everything that is good or bad about Mariners baseball all came about because of those epic six weeks in 1995. If the Mariners hadn’t made that playoff run, in the manner that they did, at the time that they did, I doubt they would even still be here today.

My backstory as a Mariner fan is a little bit more personal than most. You see, I wasn’t one of those “The New M’s!” fans who jumped on the bandwagon when Ken Griffey Jr. showed up in 1989. Nor was I was one of the “Refuse to Lose” fans who suddenly showed up in 1995. No way, sir. I was a diehard. My brother and I were Junior Mariners going all the way back to 1981.

I was 7 years old in 1981. And that was the first summer that my parents signed me up to be a “Junior Mariner.” Have you ever heard of the Junior Mariner program? Of course you haven’t. The Mariners only had about 7,000 fans a game back then. They were the most ridiculous franchise on the face of the Earth. But my mom signed me up to be a Junior Mariner in 1981, which meant I got a package in the mail containing a crappy plastic batting helmet, a 99 cent batting glove, and free tickets to 8 games during the 1981 season.

Oh, and they weren’t the good games, mind you.

No way.

The Junior Mariner (aka free) games were the ones against the A’s, the Rangers, the Indians, and the Twins. Good lord. Did you ever watch a game between the 1981 Mariners and the 1981 Twins? Of course you didn’t, no one did. I swear, they had so few fans in the stands those nights that they probably would have let me pitch.

So anyway, that’s my backstory. I grew up as a Junior Mariner, my family attended between 20-30 games in the Kingdome every year of the 80’s, and I grew up learning to love a team that in no way was ever going to amount to anything. Seriously, do you know what the highlight of my childhood was as a Mariners fan? The fact that one time we scored 7 runs in an inning against the Yankees. I had never seen this before. Seven runs in an inning? By the Mariners? This feat boggled my mind.

Remember, Al Cowens was considered our “cleanup” hitter back then. As an 80’s Mariner fan, you learned not to expect much.

Through it all– good and bad– I was there in the Kingdome for everything. I sat behind the stupid plexiglass in left field. I fell in love with players like Todd Cruz. I thought Mickey Brantley was going to end up in the Hall of Fame. I convinced myself that you could field a contender with players like Greg “Pee Wee” Briley. Heck, I still say that 1989-90 Erik Hanson was one of the best pitchers of all time.

Year in and year out, I was there, and I loved my Mariners. I followed them with a passion. I was so passionate about them, in fact, that after a particularly frustrating loss in 1989– followed by me smashing a bat into a wall– my mom suggested I might want to attend some sort of anger counseling class. She said my life depended far too much on if the Mariners won or lost that night. And do you know what? She was right. I literally had days of my life where I was pissed off just because Mike Schooler blew a save in the 9th the night before. The Mariners were all I ever thought about when I was a teenager.

As you can guess, I had an unhappy childhood.
Read the rest of this entry »

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A Non-Fan’s Memory

September 16, 2009

I am not a sports fan, not of any sport, not in any way. I suppose 1995 made me a fair-weather fan of Mariner’s baseball, though. My fondest memory of that fall was being in the Fred Meyer’s store in Lynnwood during one of the playoff games, and instead of the normal Muzak on their PA system, they had placed an open mike next to a radio and the entire store boomed with the Mariner’s announcer’s voice. It was a surreal experience, in that one felt very connected to everyone else in the store, connected by the common experience we were sharing.

By Mark L. Norton

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Bad Planning, but in the End a Good Time…

August 30, 2009

My wife and I were on an anniversary cruise to the Bahamas during the Yankee series, due to travel on the water we were only able to catch game two and game five on the TV. We were a very small majority on this boat. Other than me, my wife, her cousin from Minnesota (converted for the trip from a Twins fan) and a family of 5 from Walla Walla, the rest of the cruisers were Yankee fans.

When the Yankees went ahead in the top of the inning, I got very mad and left our room for the fantail of the ship. At the bar a Yankee fan commented that the M’s had two runners on and Edgar coming up. I ran into the inside bar and joined my little band of M’s fans in front of the TV. When Edgar lined the ball down the left field line I turned to the gang and said, “At least we’re tied again.” When I looked again, Junior was rounding third and I knew we had won.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to hear Dave Niehaus do the call live (National TV), but every time I hear it now I get goosebumps…

(To make matters worse for me, I had a chance to go to the Angels playoff game (co-worker had seats 4 rows behind homeplate), but since I left on my vacation the next day, my boss was a little unwilling to let me go.  To add insult to injury, radio reception in our building sucked.  Once again I never got to hear a classic M’s call (Everybody Scores!!!!!).

By Grant Kenn

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