1995 Mariners

For most people, the end of childhood comes gradually. The final stroke of this elemental phase of your life usually takes time to develop, and most people are often unaware of the measured, miniscule changes taking place that land them in the throes of adulthood. There is rarely a defining point, a singular moment where you can pinpoint the conclusion of this primordial stage of your life.

For most people.

For me, childhood ended February 10, 2000. Well, that’s technically when those last vestiges of my early days were snuffed out. The beginning of the end came a couple weeks before, when Ken Griffey Jr., one of the greatest outfielders the game of baseball has ever seen, officially demanded a trade from the Seattle Mariners. It was in this instant that the meaning of tragedy became painfully apparent. Granted, tragedy is relative. You see, I’m blessed enough to not know the loss of a parent, or a precarious life on the streets, or even the failure of being rejected from a college. Regardless, for one reason or another, I have been fortunate through the entirety of my life.

The sports teams I followed were no different. My Mariners of the mid-1990s played superbly–unlike their modern counterparts–and were anchored by my childhood hero: Ken Griffey Jr. He embodied everything my pre-teen self strived to be. He was a comic book hero come to life: The Batman of batsmen, so to speak. His lithe stature and Ruthian aura made my seven-year old eyes sparkle with wonder and amazement whenever the lefty scaled the padded, sky-blue outfield wall to bring the ball back from the land of home runs, or when his swing combined with the speeding white sphere to create a majestic arc that air-mailed the ball from whence it came.

Ah, his swing. If beauty were to ever die, its tombstone would contain only three words: Ken Griffey’s swing. That swing, the astounding perfection of shoulders, elbows, wrists, torso, hips, knees, ankles, and feet, could make women swoon and men renounce their masculinity. Babies would cease crying, kings would offer their daughters, and wars would instantly end merely through seeing Ken Griffey Jr. slice the air with his redwood rapier.

But February 10^th came, and just like that, it was all gone. The newspaper ink, reading “GRIFFEY SENT TO CINCINNATI,” acted as judge, jury, and executioner, officially confining my childhood to the realm of memory. He was my hero. And he had abandoned us. Nothing could ever be done to change the weight or depth of his exodus.

Thus, the lean years began.

Yet in an odd twist of fate, I was not the only one who began suffering after that infamous swap. Griffey, who I once thought could outrun a cheetah–or at least a Randy Johnson fastball–was soon hampered by injury and fatigue. The free-wheeling, balls-to-the-wall days of his youth had caught up to him, and his body, once nimble and graceful, was forced to pay the toll of time. After six seasons in Cincinnati, injuries deprived Griffey of over half of the games. Karma was truly a cruel mistress.

But as fate–in the guise of Bud Selig, the commissioner of the MLB–would have it, Griffey’s days in Seattle were not quite over. With the advent of interleague play, the great barrier of league membership was beaten down and teams from both National and American Leagues could face one another during the regular season. Rivalries once sequestered solely for the World Series could flourish under the gentle May sun, and teams that had never seen the lush ivy at Wrigley Field or the, um, catwalks of Tropicana Stadium in Tampa Bay now had the chance. And at long last, I would have the chance to see my hero return with all the gusto and fervor of his youth. I would have the chance to see Griffey play in Seattle once again.

This return did not come about immediately. Patience, as with anything that is worth waiting for, would be required. Years came and went, but–since the thick-skulled Mr. Selig failed to realize what the gravitas of Griffey’s return would be–there was no sign of my hero’s arrival on the horizon. And while my love for the Mariners matured, a dearth of World Series appearances had me longing for the glory days of yesteryear.

At long last, my patience was rewarded in early 2007. As I sat at my hardwood desk, barricaded from the harsh February winds by the windows on my right, I saw on my glowing laptop screen what I had been longing to see since the day that I stopped watching Nickelodeon: June 22-24, 2007, Cincinnati at Seattle.

Griffey would be returning.

I immediately began singing–I think it was “Oh Happy Day”–and skipping down the carpeted hallway in nothing but a pair of shimmering athletic shorts. Weird looks ensued, although my neighbors really should have been used to my antics by now. Once the skipping had worn me out, I quickly called my dad, since he is my comrade in attending baseball games–and ticket-purchaser. And, after a couple minutes of reveling in the imminent return of my hero, we cemented our agreement to buy the tickets to those games.

The next few months flew by and before I knew it, June 21^st had arrived. Christmas Eve had nothing on this Thursday. Unfortunately, my dad was–to use a cheap sports analogy–temporarily on the disabled list, so I had to scrounge up some replacements. I found two to join me on the drive up: Mike, a fair-weather fan if there ever was one, and Clement, who, although more sheltered than most home-schooled students, enjoyed nothing more than a heated sports argument.

The uneventful drive to the Emerald City took place in my clunky, fire-engine-red 1990 Volvo station wagon, complete with the years-old GoGurt stain above the passenger seat. Plodding shrubbery and pale green plains marked the tedious, uneventful trip. But as we finally crested the last hill to Seattle, seeing the aptly named Space Needle sitting alongside the skyscrapered downtown, I could feel the anticipation building. I’d taken this drive, passed the green and white metal sign pointing to Safeco Field innumerable times before, but never before had I felt this yearning in my chest, this warmth in my gut as I imagined what was to come. As we drove up, the home of the M’s came into full view–affectionately called The Safe, this mass of evergreen girders and guttered metal looked more like a Boeing airplane hangar than a ballpark, but I loved it nonetheless. It had replaced the dour Kingdome, a pile of concrete that was more an eyesore than the oft-maligned Minneapolis Metrodome. The one aspect that The Safe had kept was a short right field porch, built in the hopes of retaining a certain left-handed slugger . . . ah, what could have been.

Since the summer sun had burned off the damp Puget Sound fog, the retractable roof had opened and cast a shadow over us as we walked through the empty, weed-filled lot on the west side of The Safe. After giving the ticket to the teal-colored geriatric attendant, I ascended the stairs behind left field. As I finished my climb I looked to my right to glimpse the shimmering green, the deep brown dirt, and the stark white chalk-lines meshing to create a magnificent spectacle, one that I could never tire of seeing. And all around me, people donned Griffey shirts, jerseys, caps–both Reds and Mariners. Everyone was here for him.

Bumping my way through the packed concourse, I finally made it to my seat, 40 rows directly behind home plate. Looking out, I could see the swath of every color of the palette filling the 45,000-plus seats. Sprinkled throughout the wave of fans were signs, painted in red and blue marker, reading “No ‘Roids in Griffey” or “Welcome Back Junior, We’ve Missed You.” It seemed wherever my gaze fell, I found someone who reveled in this day just as much as me. Like a much-praised war hero returning from years of fighting abroad, Griffey’s fans had gathered en masse to offer him the warmest welcome the Evergreen State had ever seen.

Sitting down, I overheard someone mutter that batting practice had ended 15 minutes early for a “proceeding,” and a knowing sensation spread throughout my body. I quickly pulled out my camera and prepared for whatever was to come, but my patience would not be tested long. A hush quickly fell over the crowd as images of Griffey appeared on the giant video monitor. There was his first at bat in a Seattle uniform, his slender frame looking lost in the white Mariners garb. There were the towering back-to-back home runs he and his father hit in 1990, a feat no one could–hell, should–have ever predicted. There was Game 5, the deciding game, of the 1995 American League Division Series. And instantly, I am transported into my seven-year old self again.

I am sitting in my dank, musty, carpeted basement alongside my dad as my mom rocks back and forth in the ratty armchair to my left. The yellowed walls are starting to peel, and the wooden shelves of Legos are, as usual, a mess. But we’re not noticing this right now. All eyes are on the TV in front of us. The Mariners have made the playoffs for the first time in their 18-year existence and face none other than the pinstriped poster children of pompousness, the New York Yankees, in the best-of-five American League Division Series. Having dropped the first two games in New York, the M’s had returned to Seattle with their backs to the walls. They somehow took the next two games to even the series, but right now, the Mariners find themselves down a run in the bottom of the 11^th inning.

Facing the Paul Bunyan look-alike Jack McDowell, the Mariners sent their diminutive fireplug Joey Cora to the plate, whose bunt promptly carved a nice little resting spot on the first-base. With Cora on first, Griffey then sent a bullet through the hole at second, pushing Cora to third and bringing Edgar Martinez to the plate. Martinez, with the look of the grizzled veteran he would eventually become, laced a fastball down the left field line, scoring Cora easily to tie the game. The crowd, hoisting “Refuse to Lose” signs, rose out of their seats to cheer, but, as we immediately realized, the play was not yet over. A streaking blur was rounding second–it was as if Griffey was about to run out of his uniform–and it didn’t take long to see that there was no way the relay throw would reach its destination in time. As Griffey slid into home plate, the horde of Mariners fans erupted in a cheer I thought would blow out my TV speakers. And as he was being dog-piled by his exuberant teammates, Griffey’s face broke into the childlike smile he had become known for–the carefree smile that made you think, yeah, everything would be all right.

And that night, everything was more than all right. Everything was perfect. And it was that perfection that people from all over had now traveled to Safeco to remember. So twelve years later, when Griffey finally emerged from the visitor’s dugout, the accumulated weight of all those years without him was lifted.

In the foreign colors of red and black, Griffey approached the microphone stand, hands held behind his back as he gathered his thoughts. But we wouldn’t let him. For three straight minutes, we cheered for him. We cheered because of all he had done for us; we cheered for his honesty in an era of steroid-induced deception; we cheered because of the nasty fortune he had been dealt. I cheered for my childhood hero, whose arms soon extended in thanks to the fans who will always consider him one of their own.

As soon as he managed, “I never knew how much I missed this place,” I felt the first tear sneak its way out and onto the back of my hand. Tears found their way to Griffey too, namely when he was greeted by former teammates Edgar and the bald-pated, recently-retired Jay Buhner.

Although the Mariners would go on to lose that game by the astounding score of 16-1, the worst loss in Safeco Field history, it didn’t matter. My hero had returned, and, for the weekend, I was a kid again.

By Casey Michel