Tatonka's Favorite Mariners Series #3: Randy Johnson

Now, you’ll have to bear with me on this one, because it’s not the “traditional” best memory of the third man in Tatonka’s Favorite Mariners series. THAT memory is probably either his 1995 complete-game victory over Mark Langston (the man traded to get him some six years prior) on 2 October to claim the first-ever AL West title for Seattle, or else his even more impressive outing six days later, when Randy Johnson (who had started two games in the preceding six days) came out of the bullpen with none out and two Yankees on in the top of the ninth and held New York scoreless for two innings before tiring in the 11^th and surrendering a single run…which wouldn’t matter due to the efforts of Favorite Mariners #s 1 and 2.

No, my favorite memory of the Big Unit came two years earlier. It might well be my favorite baseball moment ever, and it occurred on 16 August, 1993, at the Kingdome. I was in the cheap left field bleachers behind the plexiglass, watching Dave Fleming spin a fine quality game against the visiting Baltimore Orioles. Our closer that season, the Sheriff (Norm Charlton), was hurt and had pitched his last game of the season a little over a week before. The M's had signed ancient Ted Power to close in his stead, but this plan didn't inspire a great deal of confidence. Keep in mind that the Mariners had yet to experience any manner of success, so despite having Junior and Randy Johnson on the team, we were still a bit giddy over little things.

The Orioles, down 8-3 in a blowout, came back in the top of the 8th. Jeff Nelson had started the inning after relieving Fleming in the 7th, but couldn't get the O's out. Neither could Erik Plantenberg. Neither could Ted Power. The nightmare 8th inning dragged on and on, and it seemed certain that the M's would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Again.

Then it happened. The Kingdome had no "bullpens," in the traditional sense, but instead the relievers warmed up right along the side of the field in left- and right-field foul ground. No one in the stadium missed the unusual sight of our tall lefthanded ace, Randy Johnson, walking down from the dugout to the bullpen mound, where he proceeded to warm up. The man had pitched two days before, and everyone in the park knew something odd was happening. Indeed, there was an electrifying buzz throughout the crowd for the rest of the inning. While the Oriole uprising continued, the Big Unit just kept throwing pitches. Finally, with the Mariners clinging to an 8-6 lead with two outs in the top of the 8th, Lou Piniella waddled out of the Mariner dugout and signaled for the lefty...but RJ was the only one left throwing in the pen...it couldn't be! The buzz of the crowd erupted into outright audible glee for the remainder of the game. That day, I witnessed one of a precious few times that then-selfless Randy Johnson had volunteered to bail out the pitching staff (exhausted from previous games, compounding the recent Charlton injury), offering to close out the game if needed.

He certainly was needed. Although he gave up a walk and a hit, he struck out four batters to end the game and preserve the win. Oh, sure, the M’s didn’t go on to anything spectacular that year (82-80 that season, our second winning season ever), but that one extended electric Kingdome crowd still stands as one of the handful of best sports memories ever for me.

Oh, and that Johnson guy turned out to be pretty good. Today, his career (which will soon continue with a second tour of duty for the Arizona Diamondbacks) stands at 280 wins, a 3.22 ERA (compiled mostly in the AL), 4,544 strikeouts, four consecutive NL Cy Young Awards from 1999-2002, plus his 1995 AL Cy Young with that historic M’s team. This is the resume of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

More than his well-deserved accolades and place in baseball history, though, RJ is everything that is good about baseball as entertainment. Of course, we would be remiss in remembering the Unit as a Mariner without mentioning his absolutely hilarious moments in the All-Star Games. For instance, in his first inning pitched in the 1993 game in Baltimore, the Unit faced Phillies first baseman John Kruk. With two outs (Johnson had retired some guys named Bonds and Sheffield for the first two outs), the first pitch to the left-handed Kruk sailed several feet over his head at about Mach 6, reminiscent of nothing so much as the scene in Bull Durham when Nuke LaLoosh fires his first pitch at Durham into the press box at 95 MPH.

Kruk, terrified of having a baseball-sized hole blasted through his skull on a subsequent pitch, stood as far from the plate as he could for the next three pitches, waving his bat weakly at each one while falling backwards, happy to strike out just to get away from the situation. (We should note that this was before interleague play, so NL batting stars had often never faced Randy before.)

Four years later, with Randy starting the All-Star Game for the American League, his first pitch to lefty Larry Walker also sailed over the batter’s head at high velocity, and Walker responded by turning his batting helmet around and batting right-handed for the next pitch.

Priceless.

We could go on, but this gives you a sense of what makes RJ third on the list of Tatonka’s Favorite Mariners. Have a great season with the D-Backs, RJ. We still love ya.

Tatonka's Favorite Mariners Series #2: Edgar

October 8, 1995.

Bottom of the eleventh, down 5-4, Joey Cora on second, Junior at first. Rookie Alex Rodriguez on deck and Jack McDowell on the mound. Ahead 0-1, Black Jack tries to go inside with a fastball. The pitch is jerked into left field. Gerald Williams races over, but can’t cut it off and plays it off the wall. Cora scores easily and Junior slides in ahead of Tony Fernandez’ relay. Mariners win 6-5.

Alex jumps on top of Junior and a huge pile forms around the plate as the M’s celebrate. You’ve seen that part on TV. But Cora runs out towards second base instead, and jumps in the arms of the batter and an equally large pile forms on him. The Mariners have won their first ever post-season series and that winter the Legislature would approve the funding package to build Safeco Field. It’s probably hyperbole to say that baseball was saved in Seattle that day, but it is unquestionably the biggest single hit in their history.

The man responsible for it all comes in at #2 in Tatonka’s Favorite Mariners, Edgar Martinez.

Edgar is so much more than just that one hit however. He was class personified and one of the few people who truly deserved the moniker “professional hitter.” In his prime he was widely considered, if not the best hitter in the game, at least the best right handed one. The numbers are special. Seven times an All-Star, Gar won 5 Silver Sluggers and two batting titles. His career OBP of .418 is 22^nd all-time. His career SLG of .515 is 63^rd all-time and his batting average of .312 is 89^th. Despite a late start to his career (he didn’t become a full time player until he was 27) his 514 doubles are 36^th all-time and garnered him the nickname Senor Double.

But it’s more than the numbers too. Edgar was a true gentleman and to young Latin ballplayers, he was Papi long before David Ortiz. Always willing to laugh at himself he was the often the star of the famous “You gotta love these guys” ad campaigns and his Eagle Hardware spots were instant classics: “Eeeeets a light bat!” He was always willing to stand up and be counted and gladly took on the role of face of the franchise after Junior left town.

We loved the chant where one person would yell “ED!” and the other growl “GRRRRR!” Indeed, some in the group claim authorship of that chant, but of course proving that is impossible. In any case, it was especially fun to ask the 8 year old sitting behind you, “Hey kid, say ‘Ed.’” If he obliged you could scare the pants off him with a quick, “Grrrrrrrrr!” It made a lot of blowouts go by quicker.

Edgar is the one guy who spans the transition of the Mariners from bad to good. Depending on whether you think Gaylord Perry’s 48 starts make him a Mariner or not, Edgar has a good chance of being the first Mariner in the Hall of Fame. I don’t know if he’ll get in or not, but for us, he defines the term.

Tatonka's Favorite Mariners Series #1: Junior

Monday, April 10th, 1989. The home opener that was one in a string of openers that many of us at Tatonka got to enjoy in person. This one would be special, entirely because of a teenager who is far and away the consensus all-time Tatonka’s Favorite Mariner.

Oh, it wasn’t Ken Griffey Jr.’s MLB debut. That had occurred precisely one week earlier in Alameda County Coliseum, where the Kid roped the second pitch he saw from Dave Stewart to the wall in left-center, for a solid double.

Really, even that event, which we watched with great anticipation and much cheering, was not Griffey’s major league inauguration. Instead, that was on Saturday, April 1st, when pitcher Mark Langston and new manager Jim LeFebvre had taken part in an annual rookie-hazing, April Fools joke in which LeFebvre informed Junior that he was going to be sent out to triple-A Calgary as the team broke Spring camp and headed north.

I honestly can’t recall with certainty WHERE in the Kingdome Tad and I sat as we watched the game. It almost seems like it was the seats right behind home plate, but since I was still a very poor college student then, that seems unlikely. My favorite haunt, at the time, was in the first two or three rows of the upper deck seats behind home plate on the third-base side. So perhaps we were sitting there. The records say that there were 33,864 other paying fans in the dome as well.

But all eyes were on young Ken Griffey Jr. as he walked to the plate in the evening of 10 April against Pale Hose starter Eric King. King had just dispatched of Harold Reynolds with the ol’ backwards K, and now it was Griffey Time.

There will never be another Opening Day like it. Honestly, whatever has happened with Junior since 1989, with the unhappy ending to his Mariners’ career with the trade before the 2000 season, and the injuries that have robbed baseball fans of seeing a Hall of Fame career—no one will be able to top the 1989 opener. We were, finally, foolhardy enough to BELIEVE in the ability of our beloved but inept team. We were LeFebvre Belebvres. And the Kid was going to lead us.
He’s gone on to 12 All-Star games, launching 563 HR (and counting). And WE KNEW HE WOULD. Indeed, there was little doubt watching the young man that he would be a legitimate superstar. When el Caballo, Ivan Calderon (once a promising Mariner, now toiling profitably for an opponent, one of a long string of such stories), put the White Sox ahead in the top of the first by doubling in Dave Gallagher, it merely served to remind us of all of the lost opportunities in the Seattle Mariners past.

The Kid would erase it all. He would lead us. He would take us to respectability. Two years later, we were a winning team for the first time in 15 years. 4 years after that, we erased 19 seasons of heartbreak by winning our first division title.

So, as Junior strode up to the Kingdome plate for the first time ever in a game that counted, waving his black beauty (as Dave Niehaus would say thousands of times going forward), Eric King hurled a pitch to the rookie.

Swung on and BELTED…deep to left field…to the warning track…to the wall…FLY AWAY!

Have a great Opening Day, Kid.