A 2005 Grand Salami Interview With Norm Charlton and Mike Blowers

July 8, 2010

When I reprinted my interview of Tom Hutyler in the Grand Salami magazine in May, Jon Wells, who runs the magazine, offered for me to reprint an interview Conor Glassey did for it in 2005. Glassey talked with Norm Charlton and Mike Blowers, looking back at ’95 from a 10-year perspective. Here’s the interview, from the June 2005 issue of Grand Salami:

Norm Charlton and Mike Blowers were two integral pieces of the 1995 Mariners team that came from 13 1/2 games out to beat out the California Angels for the AL West title. Blowers had the best season of his career that year, belting 23 home runs and knocking in 96 runs. Charlton, aka “The Sheriff,” was signed as a free agent that July after being released by the Phillies and saved 14 games in 15 chances down the stretch, posting a 1.51 ERA. Charlton (1993, 1995-97, 2001) and Blowers (1992-95, 1997, 1999) are two of the three players to have had three stints with the M’s (Jeff Nelson is the other). Blowers and Charlton are now radio reporters covering the M’s, Blowers for KOMO-1000 and Charlton with KJR-950. To honor the 10th anniversary of the ’95 M’s, The Grand Salami sat down with the pair in June for a dual interview.

GS: It’s been ten years since that magical 1995 season. Can you guys talk about what that ’95 season was like?

BLOWERS: It was a blast! It was a great group of guys. That’s why it was the most fun for me. We played some great baseball in the second half of the season but, for the most part, it was just a great group of guys to run around with. When you’re playing a Major League schedule, you’re with these guys every single day. It just made it fun. For me, I looked forward to coming to the park every day.

CHARLTON: It was easy to come to the ballpark. The playing part drags on and gets hard, because the season is long. Farther and deeper into the season, it gets harder and harder to go out there every day. But, like Mike said, we had a great group of guys. We had guys that kidded with each other, and we did all sorts of fun things together. And, I think that’s what made it so good, and I think that’s why we won. We had a great group of guys that picked each other up and played good ball together.

GS: What are some of your best memories from the ’95 season?

BLOWERS: Of course Edgar’s double. The job that Randy (Johnson) did, coming down the stretch, was unbelievable. But, because it was a good group of guys, we all knew that we needed everybody on that club. That’s why you saw Doug Strange, Alex Diaz and Richie Amaral winning games for us. Even though they weren’t regular players, they knew we needed them. Those guys didn’t play every day but they were as important as anybody on the club.

Another thing I remember is just how relentless Lou (Piniella) was. It’s a 162 game season, and I don’t think guys ever take a day off, but it’s a grind. And, I think at times, you can lose a ballgame and just think, “Well, that’s just one loss out of 162 games we’re going to play” But, the thing that I got from playing for Lou for four years was that every loss means something. I mean, this guy would lose a game in May, and it would drive him crazy. And, that’s infectious on everybody and you get to a point where you don’t accept losing at all, even though you know you’re going to lose games. I remember Lou, early in the season when we weren’t playing particularly well, saying that to us.

And it took a while for us to really get it, but I think that’s one of the reasons that we had the success that we did. And as it turned out, we did need every win that year, because we tied for the division and had to win the one-game playoff against the Angels just to make the post-season.

CHARLTON: The thing I remember most about it was that we had a great time, and we were a good team. Like Mike said, every night we got a contribution from somebody different, whether it be the best guy on the team, or a guy that you would consider to be the worst guy on the team. It wasn’t just Mike or Jay or Edgar or Randy doing a great job. Everybody in our lineup did their job every night, and did it well.

GS: Now I know it was certainly fun to watch, but was playing on that ’95 team the most fun you had playing baseball?

BLOWERS: For me it was. I played on three playoff teams, but that was by far the most fun. I’m not sure if it was because it was the first time I’d ever gone to the post-season, or because I’m from this area originally, or because of the group of guys, or how we started the season drawing about eight or nine thousand people, and at the end, we had about 50,000 in the Kingdome and I couldn’t hear the shortstop standing next to me. So, yeah, it was a blast. It was an absolute blast. I had fun.

Typically, guys will come to the clubhouse at around 2:30 or 3:00. Heck, we were there at 1:00, just to hang out. And then, after the game, nobody was in a hurry to get out of there. We hung out together, and that part of it was fun.

CHARLTON: I was on the Cincinnati team that won a World Championship in 1990 and I was on the Seattle team that won 116 games. But, by far, the ’95 season was the most enjoyable, for the same reasons Mike said. We all had fun together.

GS: How much of a role do you guys think “chemistry” plays on a team’s success?

CHARLTON: Huge. It’s huge. You can see some of the teams Baltimore’s put together when they had huge payrolls (Charlton played with the Orioles in 1998) and you can look at other teams that have had huge payrolls, but the guys don’t mesh together, and they don’t win. But then you get a team like Minnesota, or a team like we had in ’95, and the guys like each other and they get contributions from everybody, and they all enjoy being around each other, they win.

BLOWERS: I agree. I think, in the end, you have to. I think if you get to a point, in your clubhouse, where you look around and you have respect for the people and know that’s an automatic, then you can form friendships that last and enjoy the people you’re around, that’s huge. It makes things so much easier, especially with the amount of time we travel and are on the road. That’s when you’re really going to test it, and I think if you have it, it makes everything else that much easier.

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Some Players’ Memories on the 10-Year Anniversary of 1995

June 21, 2010

Back in spring training 2005, the Seattle Times’ Larry Stone put together a long oral history of the ’95 season by talking with a host of players from that year. You can read all of it on the Times’ site, but I’m going to present a few excerpts below, with a focus on perspectives that are unique and probably neglected by Mariners fans as they remember the season.

REX HUDLER, ANGELS INFIELDER: “What happened was, Lach (manager Marcel Lachemann) was not skilled on the motivational side of things. He didn’t have a way of rallying us verbally. He was a hard worker, a very prepared manager — I loved Lach — but he didn’t have the motivational skills, and looking back all these years later, that’s what we missed, someone to say, ‘Don’t worry, guys. We’ll be OK.’ We couldn’t get out of it. It was the nastiest funk I’ve ever seen in baseball. Just my opinion, but we needed our manager to step up, and Lach couldn’t do it. He went into his shell, went into withdrawal. He let us figure it out ourselves. They had Lou, who had been through this before, and he had the intangibles. He knew how to handle his boys. We had a manager who had never been there before.”

LUIS SOJO: “Bases loaded with one out (actually two). The first thing I said, ‘You have to put the ball in play.’ Langston had pitched an unbelievable game, him and Randy Johnson going at it. I said to myself, ‘This is your moment. Concentrate on what you’re doing.’ It was kind of a lucky shot, but it worked. I’ve never heard a place as loud as the Kingdome after that play. We weren’t able to talk for the next 20 minutes.”

REX HUDLER: “That’s the only nightmare that had a hard time going away — that ugly bleeder Sojo hit to clear the bases.”

DOUG STRANGE, INFIELDER: “I still can’t believe I didn’t swing at the pitch. First, I can’t believe he threw a forkball. If it had been one inch higher, I would have swung for sure. … As a player, we were used to tons of people watching us. It’s part of the gig. You’re in the spotlight. But during that at-bat, I remember stepping out of the batter’s box and saying, ‘I can’t believe how loud it is.’ “

DON MATTINGLY, YANKEES FIRST BASEMAN: “The bunt by Cora, that’s the play that stands out for me when I look back. I didn’t get him, but I thought he was out of the (base) line. It was one of those things. He got the bunt down.”

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: “I was so nervous, being on deck, trying to think about every scenario in my mind — months removed from high school. It was crazy. All that stuff was humbling and a great experience.”

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Randy Johnson Looking Back at 1995

May 20, 2010

These are excerpts from two interviews Johnson gave in 1996 and 2010 that touched on the ’95 season. The first originally appeared in Nolan Ryan’s Pro Baseball Yearbook 1996 and was reprinted with permission in the Mariners Magazine for the start of the ’96 season, which is where I found it.

Johnson: It was a year that any ballplayer would dream of having, in terms of being part of something so successful and also to be counted on so much. I’m used to being counted on to go out and do my job every fifth day during the regular season. But as a competitor, I always wondered what it would be like to be counted on in the postseason.

So it was great last season to get to the postseason and to pitch in games that were all do-or-die in nature-the one-game playoff against California, then being down two games to the Yankees and then the games against Cleveland. Any competitor loves to be in that situation, and it’s a level that I’ve never been to. I hope I can grow from having experienced it and can go into this season with more confidence than I’ve ever had. . . .

You all know the history of the Mariners. I’ve been there seven years, and we’ve only finished over .500 three times now. As a competitor or a fan of the team, you try not to think about the lack of success, but it’s there. That’s what made it so magical to watch one guy after another come off the bench and deliver a game-winning pinch hit or a clutch performance in relief. We had chemistry last year more so than in the past. That type of chemistry sometimes is more important than going out and signing the most expensive players, because it all comes down to how well the players play together, not what they make. . . .

I now realize that after having some successful years and pitching well when I needed to pitch well, that the expectations are going to be there. For example, when I pitched well during the regular season and in the one-game playoff against the Angels, it got to the point against the Yankees and Cleveland in do-or-die situations that people would say, ‘Don’t worry, we have Randy on the mound.’ So you go to the mound with a little extra weight on your shoulders because of other people’s expectations. And in the back of your head you think, ‘Well, I’ve done it before, but I am only human as well.’ . . .

The Cy Young means the reward for all my hard work and the dedication that I put forth even before the 1995 season started. There were other people who were deserving, but it felt great to get it because I had worked so hard to become a pitcher, not just a thrower.

It was a nice honor. It’s something I never thought about. My main objective was to become the best pitcher that I could be, so I could fulfill the promise I made to my dad and to myself. If winning the Cy Young means that I was the best pitcher in the American League last year, then I want to continue to be that.

You asked me a question earlier about whether I thought I was at my peak or could I get better. That’s a tough question, because you never know. The most games I ever won was 19, when I went 19-8 (1993). Last year, I was 18-2, which was much better percentage-wise. But was I a better pitcher?

And, Johnson speaking at a press conference before throwing out the first pitch of the 2010 season at Safeco Field (as transcribed by Seattle Times reporter Larry Stone and printed on his blog):

Who would have known…some of the reporters who covered me, would you have ever thought I was a candidate for 300 games? When it was in front of me, I felt I owed it to myself and everywhere I’ve been to try to do that. . . .

Seattle, obviously, professionally and personally, has always had a great deal of meaning. To be part of the history of this franchise at probably the biggest time of the franchise, when the team was floundering and possibly on its way out. Remember back to ’95, this team was looking at maybe being relocated to Florida. The team doing what it did, and the fans supporting us the way they did. That’s one reason this new stadium is here. To be a part of that, I look back and see all the memories. Some of the players I played with, I stayed in touch with a few. Scott Bradley, I just ran into Jay, had a few battles along the way with Junior. Edgar, I congratulated him with his name being on the ballot for Hall of Fame. It really says a lot about the players that were here at that time. It’s really unheard of to have that many talented players, like Omar Vizquel. I have a lot of positive memories, myself developing and being able to watch those players develop.

From a professional standpoint, I learned how to pitch (in Seattle). I was given the opportunity. This was a team until ’95 hadn’t finished .500. So they had the flexibility to be able to let myself go out there and all the other pitchers win, lose or draw, and get back out there five days later.

Back then, that was acceptable. Now, it’s like, the team’s gotta win now. There is not a lot of time to develop a pitcher at the major league level because everybody wants to win. So I kind of learned, as we all did, kind of on the fly. I learned how to pitch here essentially. I got the foundation of that and a lot of other teams got to benefit from that. I continued to go on and learn more in other areas, but for nine years or however long I was here, I really kind of learned how to pitch and came into my own. . . .

That [1995] was the first opportunity to be in the postseason. That ranks right up there. I mean, not knowing what to expect. Obviously, I do vividly kind of remember the last game of the ’95 season, we were in Arlington and we were boarding the plane and we were told that the California Angels had lost and we had the won that game. We had the same record and there was going to be a one game playoff in the Kingdome. The opportunity to pitch that game. I remember pitching against Mark. There’s a lot of memories here. Now I’m pitching against Mark Langston, the player I got traded for. This stuff is all pretty book-worthy or real bad movie worthy. If you think about it, to pitch a one-game playoff against Mark, and the team goes on win the division and then we go the playoffs. No one in this franchise nor I had ever experienced that. That was great stuff.

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Dan Wilson, Jay Buhner, and Norm Charlton on ’95

May 7, 2010

On August 25, 2009, Mitch Levy of the KJR sports talk radio station interviewed Wilson, Buhner, and Charlton about the ’95 experience. About a week ago I contacted the Mariners’ front office, and they sent me a cd recording of the interview. Here, from the interview, are some key excerpts of the three players talking about different elements of ’95:

When asked “What’s your favorite year?,” Charlton replied: ’95 is the season. In ’95 we weren’t supposed to do it in the fashion in which we did it. It was a whole lot of fun. The underdog. . . and I was only here for half a season. It was a pretty good half, for everyone involved, because of the way it came about, . . . the things John Ellis did behind the scenes to keep baseball in Seattle.

Wilson: ’95 had such an impact. Not just here in Seattle, but in baseball generally, because we were coming back from the strike, and we really put baseball on the map here. I get people all the time telling me, “I wasn’t a fan until the ’95 season.” When you have that kind of impact, it’s a powerful thing.

Charlton: Everybody mixed together, everybody matched. I don’t think there was one time during that season when someone sitting on the bench was saying, “I hope Jay strikes out so I can get a chance.”

Dan Wilson on Griffey’s injury in May: Immediately when you saw Rick Griffin and Junior walking in, you knew something was wrong… his bone was almost out of his skin. But that’s when our strength came in. . . guys like Amaral holding onto his position until he came back.

Buhner: Confidence bred confidence. It didn’t matter who it was. It seemed like every night there was a new hero. You couldn’t script games to win the way we were doing.

Junior always loved to hold court, especially with the media. But he was still around, still going to do that part of it. I think he took it on himself to continue to do that.

Lou knew who he was going to count on, who he could lean on to pick up for Junior.

In response to the question of what lit a fire for the ’95 Mariners, Charlton said: I think it was the way the guys who replaced him [Griffey] picked it up, the team gelled into an actual team. Nobody really gives a damn about what they do tonight, as long as we win this game.

Wilson: I remember having a conversation with Lee Elia one of those days. I remember Lee saying, “We’re only eight games back in the wild card.” We still had a chance at that, we really do have some hope.

Buhner: There was extra hope, no doubt about it. I don’t know what it was that clicked, but we kept producing, and Anaheim kept losing.

I think our mentality whenever we lost a game was we didn’t lose tonight, we just ran out of outs.

Charlton: The wild card saved baseball in this city. We were basically out of the division race. Without it, we wouldn’t have gone out and gotten the pieces we needed to get back in the wild card race. If we wouldn’t have done that, done a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes, we were going to Tampa.

Wilson, talking about the distraction of that rumored move to Tampa: There were a lot of questions. I mean, we were in Tampa, they had a stadium down there ready for us. There were occasions when they’d bring a city, a state official into the clubhouse, and we’d shake hands. So it was there, no question. Occasionally they’d ask us to go down to Olympia and rally a little bit. But no question, we were there to play baseball.

Buhner: The only thing we could control was what we were doing on the field. We were willing to do whatever it took to save baseball. On flights we had house, apartment locaters from Tampa, wondering where are we going to live next year, where’s spring training going to be.

Buhner on the home field advantage: The Kingdome, Bill the Beer Man, that crowd noise, that played so much to our favor, that place was so loud. We were talking to other guys, they’d say holy crap, it was crazy. You throw in the fireworks, everything else.

Charlton: I came from an open air stadium in Cincinnati, the crowd was more business like, expecting you’re going to win. Here it was nuts, like a college frat party, the enclosed place, all that noise. Other guys [on other teams] would come in and say, “We’ve got no chance.”

Buhner on the atmosphere on the team during the run: We made a pact, who’s going to be the first one in the ballpark. We had so much fun. Every day, 1:00 we’re going to meet, have lunch at the ballpark. By the middle of August it was the entire team meeting at 1. Normally, you stretch at 4:15, 4:20, get to the ballpark at 3 for the most part. We had lunch, talked baseball, went out for early bp. It was just real togetherness.

Buhner on the playoff vs. the Angels: I remember, the Kingdome parking lot, it’s packed at 1:00.  We had that trump card [Randy Johnson].

If you’re not nervous, something’s wrong with you. The biggest celebration I’d ever had was when Jimmy Lefebvre was the manager, the year [1991] we first finished above .500. There was a champagne toast. I’m thinking, “You’re crapping me, we’re celebrating finishing above .500?”

Wilson: We had Randy on the hill, we were very confident in his abilities. Lou, before the ballgame, giving a pretty good speech, the playoff he’d been through [in 1978 with the Yankees], it put us at ease, to know we’re not the first.

Buhner: Piniella, normally he didn’t say a whole lot. He’d let his veterans police the clubhouse, he was real great about that. When he did say something it got everyone’s attention.

When I saw Mark Langston, at home plate, slamming the barrel of Sojo’s bat down, we knew we’d pretty much beat them mentally. That was the nail in the coffin.

On the Yankees series, Charlton said: It would’ve been nice to not have to play a playoff. We would have had set up Randy in New York, for game 1. That crippled us, in terms of the rotation.

Buhner said: We were still riding so high, had that adrenaline rush [coming into the Yankees series]. I know I was tired when the third game happened. Once I came off that cloud a little bit, I was exhausted [for the third game].

Wilson I think coming home, everyone knew we had Randy, we were going to come back. We had the dome.

Buhner: The Yankees knew Randy was coming, they had a big task on their hands. We still believed we were going to win it.

Wilson: Johnson, he was a guy that could dominate a ballgame. In ’95 he had the physical tools, intimidation, he was in it mentally, locked in. He stayed mentally strong, then again in the playoffs, mentally was so tough.

It was his mental concentration, he was intimidating to catch, let alone hit; he’d throw it by you, or he was going to throw a slider at your back foot.

And on game 5, Buhner said: When he [Randy] walked down to the bullpen, the whole place went absolutely nuts.

I was nervous [before game 5], so many things are going through your head, don’t want this to end, you’re thinking this is the greatest time of my life. The game was such a blur, get myself ready, get to the ballpark, get going.

Wilson: I do remember Randy’s entrance, what that meant for the guys, to see him come in.

Buhner on Edgar’s double: I think they [the Yankees] were scared to death about that. They knew Edgar was going to put the play in play, hit the ball hard, it was just a question of where.

I’ve never seen, I mean it’s a ball down the line, goodness gracious, to watch him, on a ball down the line that was a smoker, and it comes right to the left fielder, it comes right up to Gerald Williams, who had a great arm, and Junior’s still safe, by four-five steps, it’s unbelievable.

Wilson: Wolcott being 17 feet off the ground, and the guys kind of split off, some going out to second, to Edgar, peeling off from Junior.

And Charlton on the Cleveland series: They were a pretty good ballclub, and we were pretty spent, our rotation, the pitching, that Yankees series, it did a lot of damage to our club.

Then one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen happened: we go into the locker room, nobody’s left. Piniella gave a little speech, we hear the crowd, and we all came back out onto the field, nobody gone. It was like a rock concert, the fans, like they kept their lighters going, for one last song.

And finally, a few miscellaneous comments from these three.

Buhner on Piniella’s impact on the Mariners: Lou brought credibility, accountability. Lou was not afraid to pull the trigger. He challenged everyone.

Charlton on how he felt about relieving for Randy Johnson: It was more of a challenge coming in after Randy, because hitters were facing that same kind of velocity [from me]; they didn’t have to adjust. It was much easier coming in after Bosio, Benes: guys changing speed, right handers.

Buhner: After the season ended, my thought was, “Let’s get back out there, I want to get right up to the buildup immediately.” That experience, the playoffs, that’s why you bust your butt so hard all winter, to get back to that moment.

Wilson on the years after ‘95: What had happened that season lessened the blow when those guys [Johnson, Griffey, Rodriguez] left. We understood that we can still win. All of us realized the winning wasn’t necessarily over just because those guys left.

Buhner: Baseball, it’s a business, even if you don’t want to see it that way. Sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do [trade players]. Randy, he was my roommate the first couple of years with the Mariners, and you never want to see your buds leave, but that’s what you’ve gotta do, it’s a business.

Buhner on Edgar Martinez: He spoke with his bat. Edgar, he never wanted the spotlight, ever; he was always very uncomfortable being there, being involved, being around the spotlight.

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An Interview With “Baseball’s Greatest Series” Author Chris Donnelly

February 17, 2010

After receiving word of Chris Donnelly’s book on the 1995 ALDS, Baseball’s Greatest Series: Yankees, Mariners, and the 1995 Matchup That Changed History, I wrote a quick summary of his book and printed an excerpt describing Edgar Martinez’s grand slam in game 4. I’ve followed up by asking Chris some questions about his project of researching the ALDS and writing the book on it. Here’s our exchange:

Arne: You came to this project as a Yankees fan, right? I’ve always assumed this ALDS was the province of Mariner fans, so I’m curious to find out why you decided to write about it from over in New Jersey.

Chris: I was born in 1981 so the ’95 series was the first time I had seen the Yankees make the playoffs. They have seemingly made it to the postseason every year since, but back in ’95, this was a huge deal in NYC. Plus, like many Yankee fans, Don Mattingly was by far my favorite player, so there was an overwhelming sense of relief that he finally made the postseason. The games were beyond anything baseball fans could have hoped for and despite the outcome, I often thought back upon the series and how exciting it all was. As I got older, I learned more and more about it and found there was more to the story than just the five games, so I thought it would make for a good book.

Arne: Your book’s to a large extent about the swan song of Don Mattingly. Could you talk a little bit about how he figured in the ALDS. It seems that him striking out three times against Randy Johnson in game 3 was an emotional turning point in the series.

Chris: I think for many Yankee fans, it was almost more about Don Mattingly making the playoffs and winning the World Series than about the Yankees doing so. Very few people knew for certain if he was returning after that season, so for fans, it became crucial that the Yankees win it then and there. Additionally, his performance during the series (10 hits, 6 RBI and a home run) reminded many of the dominating player he had been during the 1980s. Mattingly was the only left handed batter in the lineup against Johnson, showing Showalter’s faith in him. Unfortunately, it did not work out well for Mattingly and even Seattle fans, who had been mostly cordial to him, began taunting him after the three strikeout performance.

Arne: The N.Y. vs. Seattle baseball dynamic really got going in ’95, then it became a recurring rivalry for the next six years. And of course a lot of Mariner fans are still disgusted by Alex Rodriguez leaving town, so he’s helped make the Yankees a continuing object of dislike in the Northwest. It’s somewhat well known here that Seattle’s first name was “New York Alki,” or “New York by and by,” and Seattle still seems to emulate itself on New York City in some ways. What are your thoughts on the sports rivalry between the two cities?

Chris: From 1995 to 2001, the Yankees-Mariners was possibly the best rivalry in baseball. Most of that was driven by the Division Series, but you had dynamic players on both sides and there were always NY/Seattle connections, whether it be Lou Piniella, Tino Martinez, Jay Buhner, or Luis Sojo. I think just about every city takes pride in defeating the Yankees, but especially Seattle because they had a one up on everyone because of what happened in ’95.

Arne: What take does the average Yankee fan have on the ’95 ALDS?

Chris: I don’t want to speak for all fans, but for me it’s mostly bittersweet. I think the Yankees had an excellent chance of beating the Indians in the ALCS that year and getting to the World Series. Had they done so, it would have been very difficult for Steinbrenner not to have brought back Buck Showalter and other members of the team. It was disappointing for fans that off season to slowly see their favorite players start leaving for other teams, and then to not have Mattingly return was almost unthinkable. Yet the Yankee dynasty of ’96-’01 does not happen if the Yankees don’t lose that series, so in a twisted way, you almost seem grateful that Edgar hit that double (although the pain of watching that and reliving the moment, as a Yankee fan, never goes away).

Arne: What do you think was the biggest mistake the Yankees made during ALDS to help the Mariners come back?

Chris: I wouldn’t call it a mistake, but not utilizing Mariano Rivera. It’s not a mistake because no one knew just what Rivera brought to the table. He hadn’t pitched well during the regular season, and yet he dominated Seattle in the playoffs. Had Showalter known then what we all know now (a fact Buck admits), Rivera would have been brought in sooner in Game 5, possibly pitched out of that 8th inning jam without letting the Mariners tie the game, and today we would be talking about the Tampa Bay Mariners. But it would be unfair to blame Showalter for that because no one had a clue and anyone who says otherwise is simply not telling the truth.

Arne: I’ve always thought Yankee fans have a grudge against Randy Johnson because of his feats in the ALDS and the ’01 World Series, and because he then didn’t do too well in New York. Do you agree?

Chris: Again, I don’t want to speak for all fans, but I think that is probably fair. What is odd about that is that the Yankees actually performed very well historically against Johnson during the regular season. I don’t have the exact stats, but I believe few teams did better. But when it came playoff time, he simply dominated them in two separate years. Johnson came to NY with high expectations and, in the minds of fans anyway, never lived up to them.

Arne: How did the interviews for the book go? Who did you talk to, what did they say, and what were your impressions of them?

Chris: I spoke to approximately 70 people for the book. They ranged from umpires, to team personnel, people who had been on the teams in the ’80s, and of course, the coaches, managers and players who were there in ’95. Just about everyone was very supportive of the concept and for those who took part in the series, they all loved talking about the experience (even the Yankees). On the NY side, many of those guys had great memories of their teammates and coaches, many of whom they never played with again after the Game 5 loss. For Seattle, most of the players simply couldn’t stop talking about what a great experience it was and how Seattle baseball really came to life that year.

Arne: Along the same lines, which Mariner players and/or officials were the most interesting to research and to interview?

Chris: Researching the Mariners’ early history was fun because, frankly, the team was so bad. They were just so many oddities that I kept discovering, like Wills trying to make the batter’s box bigger, or a guy who gave up a home run on the first pitch he threw in the majors. Everyone I interviewed, and I sincerely mean this, was fantastic. No one hesitated to share stories or memories. Jay Buhner and Chris Bosio stick out most of all because I spent the most time with them. They are both open and frank guys who not only shared stories of the series, but also gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for little aspects of the game (how to pitch certain hitters, what to do against a David Cone slider, etc.).

Arne: The trade of Tino Martinez and Jeff Nelson after the ’95 season was, along with the trade of Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe two years later, one of the great Mariner missteps that kept the team from doing more with its amazing talent in the ’90s. Did you have the chance to talk with Nelson and/or Martinez about the trade? Also, did any of the Mariners officials you talked with describe the reasoning behind it?

Chris: While I was able to interview more than half of the players who took part in the series, unfortunately, Tino and Jeff Nelson were not among them. Obviously, from the Yankees side, the trade became necessary once Don Mattingly made clear he was not returning for 1996.

Arne: There were so many themes and subtexts to the Mariners/Yankees rivalry in the ’90s and early ’00s, with all the players, and Piniella, having experience with both teams in their careers, and the re-emergence of the Yankees as a team good enough to be worthy of rooting against even if you were three thousand miles away. What was the attitude toward those Mariner teams in and around New York City?

Chris: I think Yankee fans always held a resentment against the Mariners for what happened in ’95, at least until the 2000 and or 2001 seasons. The Kingdome always seemed to be a nightmare for the Yankees, and players like Junior, Edgar and Randy Johnson were easy for New Yorkers to pick out as villains because they handled the Yankees well. After the 2000 and ’01 ALCS, I think that bitterness died away, not just because the Yankees won those series, but because so many of the key players were gone from both teams.

Arne: Stepping away from the ’95 ALDS for a final question, how do you remember the ’01 ALCS? It’s obviously overshadowed by that year’s World Series, but that was such a uniquely important and moving time, to have playoff baseball about 10 miles north of the World Trade Center site.

Chris: That entire playoff run for the Yankees was obviously a special moment in New York. It seemed like the one time when people, at least not collectively for a change, weren’t praying for the Yankees not to win again. The Yankees played many fantastic games that postseason, including Game 4 against Seattle, and to be able to clinch the League Championship at home meant a lot to the city that year. Additionally, at least from the fans’ perspective, the Yankees were trying to prevent the 116-win Mariners from eclipsing the ’98 Yankees as perhaps the greatest single season team in history, so to beat them and maintain that aura was especially satisfying.

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Talking About 1995 With Dave Grosby

May 2, 2009

KJR talk show host Dave Grosby hosted the Mariners’ pre-game and post-game shows in 1995 for KIRO. Last week I talked with him about that year, beginning with the strike that was resolved just a few weeks before the 1995 season started.

Arne: As the season started, were you frustrated or bitter over the strike?

Dave: Pretty bitter. It looked like they had a chance in ’94, but you knew the strike was coming. The team was very close [in the Western Division], and it was not like they were having a great year. 51-63, I think, was their record when the strike happened, but they still would have had a chance. It was ’94 that had been disappointing. They just weren’t winning that year. Griffey had shown what he could do, but it was the pitching in the Kingdome that wasn’t doing it. Piniella had Johnson, Bosio, Ayala as his closer, there was the sense that they had a chance, but it just didn’t happen for them. The Montreal Expos that year, they were superb, and the strike just killed that team, took away their best shot at a pennant, and a decade later they were gone.

Arne: I’ve talked to a few people, and they’ve all said Griffey’s homer against the Yankees in late August was the start of the run.

Dave: Yeah, that was the first game, the homer off their new pitching coach, Wetteland, on August 25 I think, that happened and people went back to the Kingdome. But it wasn’t really until the first week of September, a three- or four week-long stretch where they were winning every day, that the run really happened. They came from 12, 13 games back, and the other moves [trading for Andy Benes and Vince Coleman and signing Norm Charlton] started paying off. They brought in Benes, that was a big deal, the first time they showed they were willing to make a trade for someone to compete. It was funny, it took until mid-September for the fans to take interest.

Arne: Yeah, the run was 18-2, I think.

Dave: They had all these flashy moments, and they [the fans] started realizing all these good things were happening. The O.J. verdict came down the same day as the playoff against the Angels. And then the playoffs started.

Arne: It sounds like Buhner was the player who really pushed the team to make that push for the division title.

Dave: The Mariners decided to put up flags for the wild card standings, and Buhner was furious, he tore them down. It was a rallying cry for the team. It was amazing to see how close the team got. The whole thing happened so fast.

Arne: Was there any sense of a chance the Mariners would come back from the 2-0 deficit against the Yankees?

Dave: Game 2 was a real blow to the team. Griffey hit the homer to give them the win it looked like, then the Yankees came back to tie in the 12th. Leyritz hit the homer to win it in the 15th, that incredibly long game, it must’ve gone on until 2 a.m. in the Bronx. You figured that was their best chance; if it didn’t happen there, in game 2, it wasn’t going to happen. Charlton pitched five innings, it was by far his longest outing, but it winds up a loss.

Arne: Did Piniella help the team get ready for that Yankees series? He’d spent so many years with the Yankees, been in some World Series, he was used to that New York media.

Dave: I think he might have said something. Piniella was talking at the point when there were 4 or 5 weeks to go in the season, and he said now is the time to bear down. But Piniella said it actually works the other way around, it’s up to the players now, we’ve taught them, done what we could. They have to figure out how to respond now. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to calm them down, but they already felt that they were ready, they’d be prepared for what they needed to do. And the funny thing about Piniella, he was right, they were ready. And him not talking about it kept them from getting too aware of the circumstances.

Arne: The Mariners actually had a three game lead, I think, with four games to play against Texas, and then they lost it.

Dave: I went down with them [to Texas], and in the first game, Griffey hits a grand slam, they clinch a tie for the division title, and you figured they were going to do it. I flew to Lincoln, I was doing the Cougar games at the time, and they were playing Nebraska [that weekend], but the Mariners couldn’t get it done. It’s happened so many times, the team coming back gives back the lead at the end of the season. That was the situation with Boston and New York in ’78. You’d think it shouldn’t have happened, but it did.

Arne: There were all those rumors about the team probably moving to Florida after the season. Was that something the players were aware of, or did they not really pay much attention?

Dave: That was the backdrop to the whole season, but no, the players weren’t that aware of it. I remember the election night thing, how the game went on and the stadium yes vote was ahead during the game, then it slipped back, and the homer by Strange to have them go ahead. The no vote just barely won; that vote was so close. I think the Mariners wouldn’t have gotten even 40 percent of the vote if the election was held a couple weeks earlier. Later Mike Lowry got the legislature together, and they put a funding package together; it absolutely wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

The funny thing about it is, the argument was that they needed a new stadium to survive in Seattle. They only had a few more years in the Dome, but they were drawing 3 million people there in ’98. And Safeco’s a gorgeous park, but it turned out they didn’t have to have the new stadium to draw people in. It was just winning.

Arne: What do you remember about the celebration after beating the Yankees?

Dave: I had a post game show to do at Umberto’s which was the name of the restaurant at the time next to FX McRory’s. I had lucked into 2nd row sets so when Griffey scored I jumped around like a maniac hugging complete strangers then went across the parking lot to the restaurant for the post game show. Never a wilder or more raucous night. Players like Wolcott came by, all the broadcasters came by. . . the first call was from New York and the second call from Boston. We were supposed to do a 1 and a half hour show and wound up doing 4 hours till 3 in the morning. The wildest night in Seattle sports history.

Arne: I talked with Rick Rizzs last month about the Cleveland series, and he said the Mariners were just too exhausted, physically, and maybe emotionally too, to have much of a chance.

Dave: There’s no question they were messed up, especially the rotation. They brought in Johnson to win game 5, they had to have that game. But they had Wolcott for game 1, the 22-year old from Oregon, he’d started 3 games all year, and if I remember right, he walked three in the first inning. Then he pitched a shutout, I believe. Cleveland was sensational that year, 100-44, they were the best team [by winning percentage] since 1954, along with the Mariners in ’01.

Arne: A-Rod that year, was he up and down with the team, going from Tacoma to Seattle and back a lot?

Dave: He was a September call-up. It was part of his contract when he was drafted that he’d be brought up to the major leagues that year. I’m pretty sure he was on deck when Edgar Martinez hit that double. You think about how things change in his career and for the Mariners if A-Rod comes up and gets a hit to win that game.

Arne: There’s that one picture of A-Rod consoling Cora after the Indians series ended.

Dave: I know exactly the picture you’re talking about. I’ve always said, that picture was worth $100 million to the Mariners. It really turned women on to the team, They came up with that “you gotta love these guys” slogan the next year, which was really directed at women, and it brought in a whole new fan base. Cora crying, being a baby, and the 18-year-old kid with his arms around Cora’s shoulder.

Arne: You look back on those late ’90s Mariners teams, and it’s just so hard to figure out why they didn’t have more success, with Griffey, Rodriguez, Johnson, Buhner, Martinez.

Dave: You sure do wonder: why didn’t they repeat that performance a few more times? I’ve talked to those guys, and they can’t really understand it either. They’ll wonder what happened. That’s what you hear those guys say, why didn’t we do more with that talent? In ’97 there was Mussina [in the ALDS for the Orioles].

Arne: Was it mainly the bullpen, just letting too many runs score?

Dave: The problem wasn’t really the bullpen, it was the starting pitching. Bosio couldn’t pivot [on the mound], but he was such a gamer for Piniella [in 1996]. They had Charlton; it wasn’t so much the relief, they just didn’t have the starters.

Arne: Do you think fans dwell too much on ’95 and don’t pressure the Mariners to at least get to the World Series and improve on ’95 and ’01?

Dave: I’ve heard that and think its bullbleep. Pressure them how? DO what? Since ’01 attendance has gone down as they haven’t won and last year’s was the worst ever at Safeco Field. Should they throw shit at players? Never watch or listen to games and take away the income that provides players? I’ve always thought that was a crock and utter nonsense, as you can tell. Fans don’t create winning teams, in fact they have nothing to do with it. Now if the Mariners were hoarding money and not paying players and living with a tiny payroll so the owners could make huge profits you might have something. But they aren’t and you don’t.

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The ’95 Mariners and the Tacoma Rainiers (Part III)

March 16, 2009

This is part III of an interview with Kevin Kalal, a long-time member of the Tacoma Rainiers’ front office, about the ’95 Mariners and that year’s Tacoma Rainiers. Parts I and II of this interview can be seen here and here.

Arne: Do you have any particular memory of the Mariners’ ’95 run?

Kevin: There is one thing, a game I guess no one remembers, but it was one of those wins crucial to getting the Mariners in that playoff.

Bill Krueger pitched 10 games with us, and then one day someone got injured or maybe a starter got blown out of a game early [it was Randy Johnson missing a start because of a shoulder injury]. And the Mariners called to have him come down as a spot starter, and he had a huge game against the A’s down in Oakland. I remember I always thought that win, so unexpected, that it was such a huge game to getting the Mariners the tie with the Angels, but it never got played up in the media. The Mariners’ thought well, he’s 37, let’s run him out here, see what happens. And he threw a lights out game, so it was an unexpected win. I always think about that stuff, but nobody really remembers the game. It was on August 6, a 15-8 win, it was a Sunday afternoon getaway game. They were 11 games back. He pitched 5 2/3rds innings, gave up two runs and beat Todd Stottlemyre who was having a strong year.

Arne: Did you go to any of the playoff games?

Kevin: I didn’t go to the Yankees games. I went over to Washington State to visit friends and watch a football game. During game 3 I was watching a volleyball game. Then there was game 4, Edgar’s grand slam after the football game. For game 5, I was driving home, on a Sunday afternoon, and as I hit Snoqualmie Pass the radio signal went out. It was the seventh inning, and I thought “I won’t check again until I get home.” I figured it would be over by then. So I got home and it’s the 8th inning. Then I went out to pay my rent at the front office before it closed on Sunday evening and as I was walking back I hear a bunch of yelling and screaming. The Double, and I missed it. I went to two of the Indians games. I have champagne bottles from the celebrations after the Angels playoff and the Yankees series.

You know, in ’01 it was the same thing, the same excitement. What are the M’s doing? Everyone wanted to know, even after they’d clinched the division. And we were really good too, we tied for the PCL title, an 85-65 record. It was still a split season then, but they didn’t have a playoff because of 9/11. That year was the pinnacle of a collective effort throughout the organization. We had all worked together for years and years and years, everyone at all levels of the team, and it came to that point. When Bill Bavazi came in as the general manager the organization started to change fairly dramatically. A lot of the key front office personnel and player development staff started leaving the organization.

(go to part one of this interview)

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The ’95 Mariners and the Tacoma Rainiers (Part II)

March 16, 2009

This is part II of an interview with Kevin Kalal, a long-time member of the Tacoma Rainiers’ front office, about the ’95 Mariners and that year’s Tacoma Rainiers. Parts I and III of the interview can be seen here and here.

Arne: What impact did the Mariners’ run have on the Rainiers?

Kevin: The comeback really started in September. By that time the Rainiers’ season was pretty much done, so we didn’t feed off the Mariners success.

I was at Ripken’s game against the Angels, where he broke the record for consecutive games played. The O’s beat them three straight games, and you looked up and the M’s were 8, 7.5 games back, so that was kind of interesting. And then they were right back in it. The Mariners organization was so unprepared for the playoffs, in terms of tickets, figuring out how to handle the logistics of the process. For the 1-game playoff they called our staff and we went up to their offices and were bundling tickets together. There were some great disasters along the way, but we got our tickets done, then went to the game. I remember Sojo’s line drive, seeing the ball skip past J.T. Snow. Then being down in the clubhouse. We got prepared for the Yankees series.

Anyway, the impact on us was 100% positive. It created a lot of interest in baseball, a front page story, the first story of the day on tv. It generated buzz for us. We sell baseball, not really stars or victory, the race for the pennant. It’s a brand-affordable family entertainment-and the Mariners created excitement, a new reason for people to check out our game. The comeback got baseball to take off, there was so much more energy. Some people said, “Doesn’t it take away attention for the Rainiers?” but no, it just expanded awareness of us. And we were selling tickets at different price points, so people who didn’t want to spend the money for the Kingdome could go to Cheney. It hurt us more when the Sonics were playing the Bulls, say, in the playoffs in spring. Then everybody’d stay home and watch the game.

Arne: And I saw Griffey came down to Tacoma for a rehab game in August, right before the comeback started.

Kevin: There was a big power struggle between Griffey and the M’s management. Woody Woodward. Griffey wanted to go to AA, the Port City team. His brother Craig was playing there, but the Mariners said no, you’re going to be in Seattle with our trainers to rehab and play in Tacoma. We’re not going to have you play until you’re ready.

He came down to Tacoma for a few days, but just took batting practice, fielding, throwing and therapy on his wrist. The media saw him leave. The next day he came down, did his treatment, left, snubbed the reporters. They weren’t happy about it. On Sunday morning he did therapy on his wrist. Griffey talked to our manager, Steve Smith, about playing. He said, “If I play today can I just be the designated hitter,” Steve said he should talk to Woody and make sure. Junior said, “Don’t worry about Woody, just put me in at DH.”  Steve wasn’t sure, he thought he should call up the Mariners. Junior just said, “They can talk to me about it.” He had his bodyguard go up to the Kingdome and get his stuff.

It was 11:00 Sunday morning, and we’re saying hmm., we need to get some people aware of this. The Mariners were in Kansas City, it was a day game. So we called the press box and talked to Kevin Cremin, the producer. They said, “Griffey’s in the lineup” on radio, TV, and the phones just go off the hook. He was the biggest thing around, and all the media were calling, trying to cover the game. There wasn’t any bigger, more surreal moment. The game wasn’t quite a sell-out. Griffey had three pretty bad at bats, he struck out, popped up to the pitcher, grounded out.

Now, 50,000 people say they saw the first Tacoma game, and 50,000 people say they saw Griffey play for the Rainiers. He could come back this year, pull a hamstring or something, play for the Rainiers. Later on it was a highlight for Tacoma baseball: we could say we were the team for players like Griffey, Martinez, Buhner. It wasn’t just the same old AAA baseball. We probably could’ve benefitted more from the Mariners.

The people in Everett say the same thing about the ’95 season. They were cultivating brand new fans too. That offseason, at Thanksgiving, my grandma, my mom, they were asking me about the Mariners for the first time. Young kids were talking about the Mariners. It was fun to be a Mariners fans, and there hadn’t been much of a product to create interest before.

Arne: Alex Rodriguez must have been the best offensive player on the team. You probably could see that he was going to be a star even then.

Kevin: He was a real phenom. The first time you saw A-Rod he was 17, playing for Calgary, and I said, “That’s something special.” You could see he was in the league of a lot of big-time guys. There’s a high school next to the stadium and we’d joke in the pressbox that he should be in high school and playing against Shelton not Edmonton. Neither team could get him out.

He was such a special player. It’s so hard to understand all this stuff about the performance enhancing drugs, knowing how hard he worked. He was a great player, but he really, really, really worked hard at it. He was very likeable, not phony, not saying look at me. Level-headed. I think Scott Boras was a great guiding influence.

The pattern was for a player to use the drugs to get him over the top, or if he injured to help him recover, or as a short cut. I’m inclined to give Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt. At the time, steroids policy was very loose, relaxed: basically it was “Don’t get caught in an airport with the stuff.” There wasn’t any penalty for steroids, and even when they did the tests, there wasn’t any punishment, I guess the tests were observational, to collect data.

There were a couple times Rodriguez would go on an 8-game road series against someone and get 6 homers, 13, 14 RBI in the series. He went to and from Seattle four times in ’95, and he didn’t sulk after he came back down, he didn’t say, “Oh, they don’t know what they’re doing.” You just knew there was something special there.

All the booing against him when he went to Texas, it wasn’t really fair. He’s the only one who got that treatment, when Griffey and Johnson, their exits were pretty bitter too, but they haven’t felt the unwelcomeness that Alex is saddled with. He wasn’t making big money and then gets the $252 million from Texas. You’re supposed to blame him for that?

A-Rod had a German Shepherd here and he was living in an apartment complex. Over the year the puppy had a field day in the apartment which didn’t sit very well with the landlord at the end of the year. The complex manager was quite upset and we had to come over and explain and tell him what happened. And the guy who ran the complex said, “Who is this Alex Rodriguez?”

I have fond memories of Alex as a player and person. There are a lot of players with 1/10th his talent who think they have 10 times the talent.

(go on to part three)

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The ’95 Mariners and the Tacoma Rainiers (Part I)

March 16, 2009

The Tacoma Rainiers were the new AAA affiliate of the Mariners in 1995. In a cross-border swap, after the 1994 season the Rainiers succeeded the Calgary Cannons and displaced the Tacoma Tigers, the AAA A’s affiliate that became the Edmonton Trappers. A few days ago I went looking for the Rainiers’ perspective on the Mariners’ run that year, which led me to a talk with their then-public relations director, Kevin Kalal, about the Rainiers’ relationship with the Mariners in ’95. Kevin was with the Rainiers from 1991 through 2007 in several front office roles. We talked about things such as Ken Griffey Jr.’s brief rehab assignment in August, Bob Wolcott, Alex Rodriguez and his pet German Shepherd, Bill Krueger, Salomon Torres, and Rainiers’ manager Steve Smith. Here’s the result, in three parts (read parts two and three here and here):

Arne: I was just looking through some archives and noticed the Rainiers actually started their 1995 season before the Mariners did, because of the strike. That’s kind of funny, to see the new AAA team starting play before the Mariners did.

Kevin: We’d been the A’s affiliate from 1981 to 1994, and there was some benefit to that. We got to see Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Walt Weiss, three rookies of the year in a row. But in ’94 we had an expiring contract, and so did Calgary, the Mariners affiliate. When we posted scores for the major league  games, our fans would do nothing when the A’s scored, but they’d cheer when the Mariners scored. The A’s were so much farther away; a lot of fans would never see the Tigers’ players again. It was a natural fit with the Mariners, and in October of 1994 we announced we were going to be with the Mariners the next season. There was a lot of enthusiasm in anticipation of the season.

Actually even before that the Mariners, because of the tiles falling from the Kingdome in ’94, they were going to play their games at Cheney Stadium, or in Anaheim, while they fixed the Kingdome roof. Of course the strike stopped that, but it still shifted attention to our organization, our facilities. Around that time we were playing the Cannons, and Alex Rodriguez hit a homer in extra innings to win the game.

’95 was an exciting time, there were these questions about what’s going to happen if the season doesn’t start on time, will we use scab players, replacements. In fact, 5 or 7 of the guys who started the season, people like Terrell Hansen and Marty Pevey, were not everyday guys, they wouldn’t’ve ordinarily been on the team. We had one fireman who’d been a player and he made the team. Then when the major league rosters got readjusted after the strike ended we had brand new players.

We had a major turnover in our front office staff going from the A’s to the Mariners. We needed to break away from the green and gold so we came up with a new logo, a new team name. A lot of people really didn’t like the decision to be called the Rainiers. The detractors didn’t like “Rainiers,” they said it was too tied up with Seattle. “Why were we naming the team after a Seattle franchise?” They said our teams were the Tigers, and some of them would wear Tigers clothes to the game. We had a really good team in ’95, but lots of transition, guys coming and going. Two great shortstops, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Sheets. Andy hit about .293, 47 RBIs. We had Marc Newfield, Ron Villone, Desi Relaford.

Arne: What about Bob Wolcott?

Kevin: Wolcott came to us midway through the year. He was solid, not very big, not really a dominating pitcher. When he had the chance to go up to the Mariners he did pretty well, but wasn’t on the division roster. Then the Mariners put someone on the 60-day DL and took him up to pitch against Cleveland. He struggled in his first inning but got a strikeout and a double play, and got through the game. At the time, the fans, they didn’t know who he was, but the next year when he back to here he had a little more celebrity to him.

Salomon Torres, back then he had all the stuff but terrible stats. I saw just last year he was still going with the Brewers. It’s funny to see how the guys who were supposed to be stars don’t ever really make it, people like Roger Salkeld, Newfield. And then you have Andy Sheets, guys who just keep going and eventually they make it. Chris Widger was still in the majors a couple years ago.

Arne: I noticed Don Wakamatsu was on the roster.

Kevin: Yeah, Wakamatsu, he started the season with us and played briefly before the Mariners offered him an opportunity to be a player-coach at a lower level. I was talking with him as we drove to the airport and he ended up deciding to take the player-coach position instead of being released, perhaps a blessing in disguise.

Then there’s Tony Phillips. I heard about him later, that he was the mayor of a small town in Mississippi after his days as a pitcher. Then one day a couple years ago I saw him outside Cheney Stadium, and he said, “Kevin!” He said he was working for some company back East, sales, and he came back on a business trip, and took a trip over to the stadium.

(go on to part 2)

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An Interview With Rick Rizzs

March 14, 2009

Not long after spring training started, I spent a few minutes talking with Rick Rizzs about his memories of the ’95 Mariners from a broadcaster’s perspective, and we discussed a few elements of the season. Here’s how the interview went:

Arne: Was there any sense coming into the 1995 season of what the Mariners could do?

Rick: There was a great nucleus, Junior, Randy, Edgar, but nobody really knows what’s going to happen before the season starts.

Arne: Coming off the strike that stretched into the scheduled start of the season, were fans upset at baseball?

Rick: The fans were upset, they were frustrated, sure. There was anger. But people really just wanted to see baseball again. The strike had extended into April, and we had spring training for two weeks before the season started in late April. There had been replacement players scheduled to begin the season. Thank goodness it didn’t come to that. The Mariners would’ve lost more games early, they wouldn’t have been in position later in the season to make their run.

Arne: At what point in the season did it begin to feel like the Mariners could do something?

Rick: All the pieces of the puzzle came together: everybody stepped up and got the job done. After Junior broke his wrist on May 24, Diaz and Amaral made some great plays. Edgar hit about .400 while Junior was out. Blowers played a huge role; he had something like 98 RBIs that year. Tino of course.

If you remember, that was the first year of the wild card, and in July, people were thinking in terms of that. But then Buhner said “hey, forget the wild card, let’s win the division,” and the Mariners picked up Charlton on waivers from Philadelphia in July, they made some trades for Coleman and Benes and people got serious.

Arne: As the season went along, the Mariners played under the rumor that they were moving to Tampa. Was there a sense that they were really going to leave without something happening?

Rick: Yes, that was the season that saved baseball in the Northwest. I remember on the 19th of September the vote on the stadium funding took place. Texas had the Mariners beat but they made a comeback against Jeff Russell. Coming out of the park after the game we learned there were 500,000 votes, and it lost by 1,000. That was for the 1/10th of 1 percent sales tax on restaurants, bars, car rentals, the lottery. But then a task force and the legislature got together and put together a creative funding package just as the Yankees series was ending.

Arne: How about the Angels playoff?

Rick: You know it was the 3rd largest comeback in the history of baseball. The Mariners had tied up the division to end the season, coming into the playoff with the Angels. You had Randy Johnson and Mark Langston starting. The Mariners had traded away Langston for Randy in 1989, and now they were matched up against each other. Just a great game. In the bottom of the seventh, Blow was on third, Tino on second, and Cora on first, and I remember Vince Coleman had a great at-bat. He fouled off pitch after pitch, finally on the 11th or 12th pitch he hit a low line drive to right and Tim Salmon made a great catch. Then came Sojo, and “Here’s the pitch. Swing, and it’s a ground ball, and it gets on by Snow. Down the right field line into the bullpen. Here comes Blowers. Here comes Tino. Here comes Joey. The throw to the plate is cut off. The relay by Langston gets by Allanson. Cora scores! Here comes Sojo! Everybody scores!!!”

Arne: People don’t seem to remember the Indians series so well; I haven’t really had anyone write about it. The Mariners were up 2-1 on the Indians, then lost the last three games and the series was over. Why do you think they faltered?

Rick: Sure, there was that stirring game in game 3, Buhner going from hero to goat to hero, hitting the homer in the second, not getting that fly ball in the eighth inning, then winning the game with his home run in the 11th. You know, it had taken so much just getting into the playoff with the Angels, then coming back from 2-0 against the Yankees. Randy had pitched three innings in game 5. The Mariners had to use Wolcott, who hadn’t even been on the roster, to start game 1.

Coming into the Cleveland series, you thought this is going to be their year, they had the magic working. But they just ran out of gas, they’d left everything on the field against the Angels and Yankees. They tried to drum up the energy, but they’d used all their magic dust just to get there. The Indians had so much talent, Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Omar, and of course Jim Thome at third, but also their pitching, Dennis Martinez, Orel Hershisher, Charles Nagy.

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