August 9- Seattle Pilots

I realize that today’s actual date is November 12^th, so just humor me when you read it. I’ll make more sense if you actually think it’s August 9^th.

There was one game that stood as “the one game I NEEDED to attend in 2012,” but an unfortunate series of events thwarted my efforts. Today the Seattle Mariners played host to the Milwaukee Brewers, a game that most casual baseball fans would chalk up as “another interleague matchup,” but to the borderline psychotic fans like myself, it’s a “Haley’s Comet” of matchups. See, interleague first started in 1997 as a method to not only make the game more entertaining, but it also gave fans a chance to check out teams who they would not normally see at their local Major League stadium, unless of course you lived in Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area or Chicago. At that time the Brewers were still members of the American League and played the Mariners at least six times a season; typically one three-game series at home and the other on the road since they were in different divisions. Well, all of that changed at the end of the ’97 season as I cataloged in my Brewers post from two days ago. So, with the Brewers now members of the National League their impending visit to Seattle was bound to happen somewhere down the road. What few realized is that “somewhere down the road” turned out to be 16 years later.

Back in 2002 my best friend Sam Spencer and I had talked about this chance meeting while we were sitting in the first base side seats of Safeco Field watching my Oakland Athletics beating the piss out of his Mariners. One thing that never felt right to us was that with every interleague matchup each team had their “rivalry” team. The Athletics have the San Francisco Giants (Battle of the Bay), the Los Angeles Dodgers have the Los Angeles Angels (Freeway Series), the Kansas Coty Royals have the St. Louis Cardinals (I-70 Series), but there are even seemingly odd matchups like the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the Detroit Tigers (dates back to 1909) and the Boston Red Sox versus the Atlanta Braves which makes sense because they both started in Boston. However, the rivalry teams for both the Mariners and Brewers have huge question marks over them. Yes, I understand that the Brewers and Minnesota Twins are rivals, but their series name (I-94 Series) is what they call their matchups with the Chicago Cubs. As for the Mariners, I understand that they share their stadium in Peoria, Arizona with the San Diego Padres and that they both play on the West Coast, but they are the furthest away from one another. How do you call that a rivalry? Sam and I were both intent on the Mariners and Brewers being a legitimate rival for the same reason that the Braves and Red Sox were rivals, except for the fact that the Mariners and Brewers are way more connected than any other rivalry. And of course, Bud Selig is involved.

Back on June 21st I laid out the specifics as to how the Brewers became a team so I will give you the Cliff’s Notes version in just a moment. First I have to talk about the team that started it all, the Seattle Pilots. Actually, it started with the Athletics. Charlie O. Finley, the former owner of the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics had originally bough the team in 1960 under the guise that he wanted to keep the team in Kansas City. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he had been shopping the team around almost immediately after signing the team into his control. Finley had been pressing the city to build him a new baseball stadium, but when the voters finally agreed and a bond measure was put in place, it was too late. Finley and the Athletics were gone. Former Missouri Senator Stuart Symington caused a massive uproar and threatened legal action against Major League Baseball, challenging the antitrust exemption after the AL teams and their presidents Joe Cronin formerly approved Finley’s move of the team. The timing truly couldn’t have been any better/worse, depending on how you look it at, because MLB was in the market to expand the game in order to preserve baseball as the “national pastime” as the National Football League was starting to take over the public interest in 1967. Needing to add two teams to each league in spread out portions of the country, MLB added the Montreal Expos and Padres to the NL and for sure the Royals to the AL to appease Symington and the state of Missouri. The only question left was who the other team was going to be in the AL.

By the 1960s, with Seattle's population growing, the city became the largest to host a Pacific Coast League team, the Seattle Rainiers. The league's stature also declined with the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and the New York Giants to San Francisco, which caused those cities' PCL teams to fold. In 1964, the city purchased Sick's Stadium for $1.1 million. In 1965, the Rainiers were sold to the Los Angeles Angels, who renamed it the Seattle Angels. The city made several attempts to lure a Major League Baseball team. In 1964, William R. Daley visited the city when searching for a new home for the Cleveland Indians. He was unimpressed with the stadium, citing it as the primary reason to terminate his quest to move his team. Finley also found the stadium inadequate during a 1967 visit, and so rejected Seattle as a potential target for moving the Athletics. Because of this, the city instead tried to lobby for an expansion franchise at the 1967 owner's meetings in Chicago. The delegation also had support from two Congressmen, Henry M. Jackson and Warren Magnuson, the latter of whom was the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, a committee which has "jurisdiction over the Major League’s business activities". Coupled with Symington's threats related to the move of the Athletics, the political influence swayed the AL owners. However, they were reluctant to expand in 1969 without a Seattle stadium bond issue. The Seattle delegation assured the owners that Sick's Stadium could be renovated in five months to fulfill the minimum requirements until a new stadium was built; with this, the owners agreed to a 1969 expansion, and approved the team in Seattle along with Kansas City. In December 1967 at the Winter Meetings in Mexico City, the franchise was officially awarded to Pacific Northwest Sports, which received $5.5 million in funding from Daley, who thus had 47% ownership of the venture. Other owners included Max and Dewey Soriano. The award was contingent on renovation of Sick's Stadium to increase its seating capacity from 11,000 to 30,000 by the start of the 1969 season. The Sorianos persuaded notable athletes to advocate for the $40 million King County stadium bond issue, including baseball players Mickey Mantle, Carl Yastrzemski, Joe DiMaggio, and football player Y. A. Tittle; the bond issue was approved by 62.3% of the electorate. The "Pilots" name originates from the owner's part-time job as a harbor pilot and the city's association with the airplane industry.

The front man for the franchise ownership, Pacific Northwest Sports, Inc. (PNSI), was Dewey Soriano, a former Rainiers pitcher and general manager and former president of the PCL. In an ominous sign of things to come, Soriano had to ask Daley to underwrite much of the purchase price. In return, Soriano sold Daley 47% of the stock, the largest stake in the club. He became chairman of the board while Soriano served as president. However, a couple of factors were beyond the Pilots' control. They were originally not set to start play until 1971 along with the Royals. The date was moved up to 1969 under pressure from Symington who wanted the teams playing as soon as possible. Because the AL didn’t want just one team to enter the league, causing an odd balance, the Pilots were forced to start way ahead of schedule. Also, the Pilots had to pay the PCL $1 million to compensate for the loss of one of its most successful franchises. After King County voters approved a bond for a domed stadium (what would become the Kingdome) in 1968, the Pilots were officially born. California Angels executive Marvin Milkes was hired as general manager, and Joe Schultz, coach of the NL Champion Cardinals, became manager. With the front office, a stadium in the process of being refurbished and a brand new stadium in the future, the Pilots were finally starting to look like a professional ball club.

Schultz and Milkes both optimistically stated that they thought Pilots could finish third in the newly formed, six-team AL West. However, to the surprise of almost no one outside Seattle, the Pilots experienced the typical struggles of a first-year expansion team. They won their very first game, and then their home opener three days later, but only won five more times in the first month. Nevertheless, the Pilots managed to stay in reasonable striking distance of .500. The Pilots were only 6 games back of the division lead as late as June 28. But a disastrous 9–20 July (and an even worse 6-22 August) ended even a faint hope of any kind of contention, though they were still in third place as late as August. The team finished the season in last place in the AL West with a record of 64-98, 33 games out of first. However, the team's poor play was the least of its troubles. The most obvious problem was Sick's Stadium. The longtime home of the Rainiers, it had once been considered one of the best ballparks in minor league baseball; by the 1960s, however, it was considered far behind the times. While a condition of MLB awarding the Pilots to Seattle was that Sick's had to be expanded to 30,000 seats, only 19,500 seats were ready by Opening Day because of numerous delays. The scoreboard was not even ready until the night before the season opener. By June there were finally 25,000 seats in place. Water pressure was almost nonexistent after the seventh inning, especially with crowds above 8,000. Attendance was poor (678,000) and the Pilots lost hundreds of thousand of dollars in their first season. The team's new stadium was slated to be built at the Seattle Center, but a petition by stadium opponents ground the project to a halt.

By the end of the season, the Pilots were gasping. However, Daley refused to put up more financing. It was obvious that they would not survive long enough to move into their new park without new ownership. It was also obvious that such a move would have to happen quickly, as Sick’s' Stadium was inadequate even for temporary use. During the offseason, Soriano made contact with car salesman and former Milwaukee Braves minority owner Bud Selig, who was leading the effort to bring major league baseball back to Milwaukee. They met in secret for over a month after the end of the season, and during Game 1 of the 1969 World Series, Soriano agreed to sell the Pilots to Selig for $10.8 million. Selig would then move the team to Milwaukee. The remaining owners of the Pilots turned it down in the face of pressure from Washington State's two senators, Warren Magnuson and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, as well as state attorney general Slade Gorton. Local theater chain owner Fred Danz came forward in October 1969 with a $10 million deal, but it fizzled when the Bank of California called in a $4 million loan it had made to Soriano and Daley to finance the purchase of the franchise. In January 1970, Westin Hotels head Eddie Carlson put together a nonprofit group to buy the team. However, the owners rejected the idea almost out of hand since it would have devalued the other clubs' worth. A slightly modified deal came one vote short of approval.

After a winter and spring full of court action, the Pilots reported for spring training under new manager Dave Bristol, unsure of where they would play. The owners had given tentative approval to the Milwaukee group, but the state of Washington got an injunction on March 16 to stop the deal. PNSI immediately filed for bankruptcy, a move intended to forestall post-sale legal action. At the bankruptcy hearing a week later, Milkes testified there was not enough money to pay the coaches, players, and office staff. Had Milkes been more than 10 days late in paying the players, they would have all become free agents and left Seattle without a team for the 1970 season. With this in mind, Federal Bankruptcy Referee Sidney Volinn declared the Pilots bankrupt on April 2, five days before Opening Day, clearing the way for them to move to Milwaukee. The team's equipment had been sitting in Provo, Utah (possibly with Alan Stanwyck’s parents) with the drivers awaiting word on whether to drive toward Seattle or Milwaukee. The move came so late that Selig had to scrap his initial plans to change the team's colors to navy and red in honor of the minor-league Brewers of his youth. Instead, the Brewers were stuck using old Pilots' uniforms, with the team name replaced. One legacy of the Brewers' roots in Seattle is that to this day, their colors are still blue and gold, although the shades have been darker since 2000.

Well, much like what happened with the Royals at the end of the 1967 season, MLB found themselves in hot water again after allowing the Pilots to be relocated after Selig’s purchase. The City of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington (represented by then-State Attorney General and later U.S. Senator Slade Gorton) sued the AL for breach of contract. Confident that MLB would return to Seattle within a few years, King County built the multi-purpose Kingdome, which would become home to the NFL's expansion Seattle Seahawks in 1976 and the eventual co-habitation for the Mariners when they were introduced in 1977.

In short (way beyond that), it would be way more fitting if the Mariners and Brewers were actually rivals. But getting back to the matter tat hand, today is the day I should have been at Safeco Field for the historic return, but unfortunately not having a car, money or any of the other creature comforts that would have facilitated that dream. It’s very rare that a moment like this comes along. By that I mean having knowledge of a special event, as opposed to it happening by chance. I didn’t cry or anything, but it was certainly a huge disappointment. I was looking forward to wearing this cap to the game, the one symbol that connects both teams to the one that fizzled out before it could take off.

The cap until itself was truly historic as it was the first to feature graphics on the bill as opposed to just within the confines of the front panels. Even though it was only around for one season and one Turn Back the Clock Night on July 9, 2006, this cap is still as popular because of its exclusiveness and short lifespan. One thing that should be noted is that the typeface for the “S” was taken from the Seattle Turks whom I wrote about on July 3rd.

As for the marks, you’d be surprised what I can pull based on a team that was around for one season.

#12- Of all the players to find themselves on the Pilots, Tommy Davis holds the most unfortunate story. See, back in 1956 Davis was singed by the Brooklyn Dodgers, the year after they won their first World Series title in franchise history. Davis bummed around the minors for a bit which included a new team every year as the Dodgers were in the process of relocating to Los Angeles. The move to LA also meant that the team needed minor league facilities closer to Dodgers in case you were wondering what that entailed. On September 22, 1959 Davis made his MLB debut as a pinch hitter. Luckily for Davis he was brought back full-time in 1960 where he would hit .276 with 11 home runs and 44 RBI in 110 games. His effort was good enough to warrant him a fifth place finish for the NL Rookie of the Year. 1961 was a so-so season, but 1962 and 1963 were hands down the best of his career, and no I’m not just saying that.

In 1962 Davis hit .346, the best in the league. He also happened to lead the league in hits (230) and RBI (153), but he only knocked 27 pitches over the wall because some clown named Willie Mays hit 49 that season. But even with his incredible numbers, Davis still only finished third for the NL MVP behind Mays and his teammate Maury Wills who finished the season with a .299 average, six home runs and 48 RBI. Oh! And 104 stolen bases. You might be thinking that Wills also cleaned up in run. He did, with 130; however, that was only 10 more than Davis. Davis should have been the outright MVP that season. The same thing happened the following year when Davis once again won the batting title behind his .326 average, but that year he finished in eighth place for the award. Davis did make the All-Star team both seasons and won his only World Series ring of his career in 1963, but still, he deserved a lot more credit than he got then, AND for the rest of his career.

Davis had a mediocre (by his standards) season in 1964, was hurt in 1965 and picked things back up in 1966. At the end of the 1966 season Davis found himself on 10 different teams in 10 years. Crazy, right!? He was dealt to the New York Mets first for the 1967 season, then to the Chicago White Sox for 1968 only to be thrown into the list of names for the expansion draft where he was selected by the Pilots with the 16^th overall pick. 

Davis was a solid choice. His .271 average was the best amongst anyone who played in over 100 games for the Pilots, but he was dealt to the Houston Astros around the trade deadline. Davis played for seven more seasons and ended his career with a .294 average and 2,121 hits having played in an era that especially favored pitchers. Borderline Hall of Famer for sure, but never got beyond one vote as he received 1.8% in 1982.

#24- Born and raised in Holguin, Cuba, Diego Segui holds the unique distinction of having pitched for both of Seattle's major league baseball teams, the Pilots and the Mariners, in the first game ever played by each franchise (earning a save for the Pilots in 1969, and absorbing the opening-day loss for the Mariners in 1977). Segui played for 15 seasons; his time with the Pilots came after his seventh year in the league as a member of the Athletics as he found his name of the expansion draft list. Segui was picked 14^th overall. His most productive season came in 1969, for the Pilots, when he posted a career-high in wins, with 12, and 12 saves, against only 6 losses. Segui was also the only pitcher to start at least eight games and finish with a record above .500.  At the end of the season, his teammates voted him the Pilots' Most Valuable Player.

His final season was in 1977 as a member of the Mariners. Segui was the starting pitcher in the Mariners' inaugural game in 1977, earning him the nickname "the Ancient Mariner." Although he set a Mariner record against the Boston Red Sox with 10 strikeouts early in the season, he failed to get a win. After compiling a 0–7 record with a 5.69 ERA, he was released at the end of the season. He continued pitching in the Mexican League for another 10 years, tossing a no-hitter for the Cordoba Coffee Growers in 1978. His son David played in the Majors as well from 1990-2004, playing with seven different teams including the Mariners.

#50- Clearly the most notable name of the bunch, Jim Bouton was a well-known relief pitcher and World Series champion with the New York Yankees in 1962. He was also one of the most consistently used pitchers in the league when he was a starter in his first few years before his arm began to wear down. In 1965, an arm injury slowed his fastball and ended his status as a pitching phenomenon. Relegated mostly to bullpen duty, Bouton began to throw the knuckleball again, in an effort to lengthen his career. By 1968, Bouton was a reliever for the minor league Seattle Angels.

In October 1968, he joined a committee of American sportsmen who traveled to the 1968 Summer Olympics, in Mexico City, to protest the involvement of apartheid South Africa. Around the same time, sportswriter Leonard Shecter, who had befriended Bouton during his time with the Yankees, approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the 1968 season after having a similar idea, readily agreed. This was by no means the first baseball diary. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jim Brosnan had written two such books, about his 1959 and 1961 seasons, called The Long Season and Pennant Race respectively. Those books were much more open than the typical G-rated and ghost-written athletes' "diaries", a literary technique dating at least as far back as Christy Mathewson. Brosnan had also encountered some resistance. Joe Garagiola made a point in his own autobiography, Baseball Is a Funny Game, to criticize Brosnan for writing them.

Bouton chronicled his 1969 season with a frank, insider's look at a professional sports team, eventually naming his book Ball Four. The backdrop for the book was the Pilots' one and only operating season, though Bouton was traded to the Astros late in the season. Unlike previous sports publications, Ball Four named names and described a side of baseball that was previously unseen. Bouton did this by writing about the way a professional baseball team actually interacts; not only the heroic game-winning home runs, but also the petty jealousies (of which Bouton had a special knowledge), the obscene jokes, the drunken tomcatting of the players, and the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Upon its publication, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Ball Four "detrimental to baseball," and tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying that the book was completely fictional. Bouton, however, refused to deny any of Ball Four‘s revelations. Many of Bouton's teammates never forgave him for publicly airing what he had learned in private about their flaws and foibles. The book made Bouton unpopular with many players, coaches, and officials on other teams as well, as they felt he had betrayed the long-standing rule: "What you see here, what you say here, what you do here, let it stay here." Although his comments on Mickey Mantle's lifestyle and excesses make up only a few pages of the text, it was those very revelations that spawned most of the book's notoriety, and provoked Bouton's eventual blacklisting from baseball. Oddly, what was forgotten in the furor is that Bouton mostly wrote of Mantle in almost reverential tones. One of the book's seminal moments occurs when Bouton describes his first win as a Yankee: when he entered the clubhouse, he found Mantle laying a "red carpet" of towels leading directly to his locker in Bouton's honor.

Bouton retired midway through the 1970 season after the Astros sent him down to the minor leagues. He immediately became a local sports anchor for New York station WABC-TV, as part of Eyewitness News; he later held the same job for WCBS-TV. Bouton also became an actor, playing the part of "Terry Lennox" in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), plus the lead role of "Jim Barton" in the 1976 CBS television series Ball Four, which was loosely adapted from the book and was canceled after five episodes. Decades later, Bouton would also have a brief one-line cameo as a pitching coach in the James L. Brooks film How Do You Know. By the mid-1970s, a cult audience saw the book Ball Four as a candid and comic portrayal of the ups and downs of baseball life. Bouton went on the college lecture circuit, delivering humorous talks on his experiences.

Bouton launched his comeback bid with the Portland Mavericks of the Class-A Northwest League in 1975, compiling a 5-1 record. He skipped the 1976 season to work on the TV series, but he returned to the diamond in 1977 when Bill Veeck signed him to a minor league contract with the White Sox. Bouton was winless for a White Sox farm club; a stint in the Mexican League and a return to Portland followed. In 1978, Ted Turner signed Bouton to a contract with the Braves. After a successful season with the Savannah Braves of the AA Southern League, he was called up to join Atlanta's rotation in September, and compiled a 1-3 record in five starts. His winding return to the majors was chronicled in a book by sportswriter Terry Pluto, The Greatest Summer. Bouton also detailed his comeback in a 10th anniversary re-release of his first book, titled Ball Four Plus Ball Five, as well as adding a Ball Six, updating the stories of the players in Ball Four, for the 20th anniversary edition. All were included (in 2000) as Ball Four: The Final Pitch, along with a new coda that detailed the death of his daughter and his reconciliation with the Yankees. After his return to the majors, Bouton continued to pitch at the semi-pro level for a Bergen County, New Jersey team called the Emerson-Westwood Merchants, among other teams in the Metropolitan Baseball League in northern New Jersey, while living in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Once his baseball career ended a second time, Bouton became one of the inventors of "Big League Chew," a shredded bubblegum designed to resemble chewing tobacco and sold in a tobacco-like pouch. He also co-authored Strike Zone (a baseball novel) and edited an anthology about managers, entitled I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad. His most recent book is Foul Ball (published 2003), a non-fiction account of his unsuccessful attempt to save Wahconah Park, a historic minor league baseball stadium in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Although Bouton had never been officially declared persona non grata by the Yankees or any other team as a result of Ball Four’s revelations, he was excluded from most baseball-related functions, including Old-Timers' Games. It was rumored that Mantle himself had told the Yankees that he would never attend an Old-Timers' Game to which Bouton was invited (a charge Mantle subsequently denied, especially during a lengthy answering-machine message to Bouton after Mantle's son Billy had died of cancer in 1994. Mantle was acknowledging a condolence card Bouton had sent). Things changed in June 1998, when Bouton's oldest son Michael wrote an eloquent Father's Day open letter to the Yankees which was published in the New York Times, in which Michael described the agony of his father following the August 1997 death of Michael's sister Laurie at age 31. By juxtaposing the story of Yogi Berra's self-imposed exile with that of his father's de facto banishment, Michael created a scenario where not only were the Yankees placed under public pressure to invite his father back, but the article paved the road to reconciliation between Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Berra. In July 1998, Bouton, sporting his familiar number 56, received a standing ovation when he took the mound at Yankee Stadium. He has since become a regular fixture at Yankees Old-Timers' Games.

I read Ball Four for the first time around the age of 14 and once again during my time in New York while I was a member of the MLB Fan Cave, but never in between. Both times I felt a sense of duty surging through me. The first time it was after really understanding my gift of writing. Everything I wrote I wanted to mimic the same honest and tone that Bouton displayed during his time with the Yankees and eventually the Pilots and Astros. When I read it again in New York it motivated me to speak from the heart and not hold anything back in my day-to-day experiences, something that inevitably turned around and bit me in the ass on multiple occasions with the powers that be. In any event, I didn’t care. There’s a part of my banishment from the Fan Cave that came as a result of not knowing when I should have kept my mouth shut. While some would ponder of it for the rest of their days, wishing they had done things different, I take the exact opposite approach. I take solace in what I did. The Fan Cave wasn’t just supposed to be about the nine of us that were brought on to watch all the games and interact with the guests, it was about swapping stories and sharing the experience with anyone who is a fan of the game, a reality that no one else past or present seems to understand with the exception of season one Cave Dweller Mike O’Hara. Without Bouton, I doubt I would be the writer, let alone the person that I am today.

August 8- Seattle Mariners

Back on March 4th I tackled the original trident cap that the Seattle Mariners wore from 1977-1980, but I purposely left out one particular detail as it pertains to the cap that I’m writing about today. The 1979 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the 50th playing of the midsummer classic between the All-Star of the American League and National League and it took place at the four-year-old Kingdome in Seattle, Washington. The game is perhaps most remembered for the play of Dave Parker in the outfield, as he had two assists on putouts at third base and at the plate. With Parker receiving the MVP award for this game, and teammate Willie Stargell winning the NL MVP, NLCS MVP, and World Series MVP, all four possible MVP awards for the season were won by members of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The game was also notable for the play of Lee Mazzilli, the lone representative from the then-lowly New York Mets, providing the 7-6 margin of victory. In his only All Star appearance, Mazzilli tied the game in the eighth inning with a pinch hit home run off of Jim Kern of the Texas Rangers, and then put the NL ahead for good in the ninth, drawing a bases-loaded walk against Ron Guidry of the New York Yankees. This would be the only time the Kingdome would host the All-Star Game. When it returned to Seattle for a second time in 2001, the Mariners had moved to their new home at Safeco Field. The other important detail from this game is that the Mariners inadvertently created one of the most iconic logos in All-Star Game history which they would ultimately don as the primary logo for their caps and uniforms.

Since the All-Star Game was first played in Chicago at Comiskey Field in 1933 it had become customary for the host team to come up with some sort of a cool logo when advertising for the game. You’re probably thinking that my math is off based in the year of the first game played and how the 50^th game took place in 1979. Well, from 1959-1961 the All-Star Game was played twice per year, typically one in June and the other in July. In 1961, the final double-dip, the second game, hosted at Fenway Park, ended in a tie. Now where have we seen that happen?

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the logos created are usually only meant for their one-time use at the All-Star Game; however, the Mariners and their fans took quite a liking to the logo they had created for their midsummer classic and decided to make it their official logo for their game caps from 1981 through 1986. With the exception of a few of the teams who incorporated the cap logo into their All-Star Game logos, the Mariners are the only team to do it the other way around.

One of the unfortunate things about this cap is that not a whole lot happened for the Mariners while they wore it with the exception of the players strike which took place in 1981. I don’t know how many times I’ve said it or listed it, but changing uniforms does have a tendency to bring success for a lot of teams, but when it doesn’t, all Hell breaks loose. Besides the strike, this bit of bad fortune befell upon the Mariners: On April 25, 1981, Mariners' manager Maury Wills advised the Kingdome groundskeepers to enlarge the batter's box by a foot. A's manager Billy Martin noticed. Martin showed umpire Bill Kunkel that the batter's box was seven feet long instead of six feet. Martin felt that batters being able to move up a foot in the box could cut at pitches before a curveball broke. Wills was suspended for two games and fined $500. In May, while in Arlington, Texas to play the Texas Rangers, the Mariners' uniforms were stolen. 

On May 28th, this happened...

 

In the sixth inning, Amos Otis of the Kansas City Royals topped a ball down the third-base line. Lenny Randle, the Seattle third baseman, charged the ball, fell on his stomach and appeared to blow the ball into foul territory. Larry McCoy, the home plate umpire, ruled the ball foul, but manager Jim Frey protested. After a discussion, the umpires awarded Otis first base, ruling Randle had illegally altered the course of the ball. Two days later in a game against the Rangers, the Mariners wore their batting practice jerseys, Milwaukee Brewers' caps, and Rangers' batting helmets. The Mariners purchased the Brewers caps at the Rangers' souvenir-stand; the Rangers did not offer Seattle caps for sale.

The only other notable moment came in 1985. On July 9^th, in a game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Mariners at Seattle, Jays catcher Buck Martinez executed a double play by tagging out two runners at home plate. In the third inning, Phil Bradley was on second when Gorman Thomas singled. Bradley was tagged out at home, on a throw from Jesse Barfield to Buck Martinez. There was a collision between Bradley and Martinez; Martinez broke his ankle. Martinez was sitting on the ground in agony and threw the ball to third base in an attempt to tag out Gorman Thomas. The throw went into left field and Thomas ran towards home plate. Toronto left fielder George Bell threw the ball back to Martinez. He was still seated on the ground in pain but was able to tag Gorman Thomas for the second out.

Despite having stars such as Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry (nicknamed the "Ancient Mariner"), 1984 AL Rookie of the Year Alvin Davis, two-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner Harold Reynolds, three-time American League strikeout leader Mark Langston, and shortstop and team captain Spike Owen on their rosters, the Mariners teams of the entirety of the 1980s were characterized by perennial non-achievement, gaining a reputation for poor performances, low attendance, and losing records. Moreover, the team's ownership again changed hands after the 1988 season, as then-owner George Argyros sold the club to a group headed by communications magnate Jeff Smulyan. However, the 1989 rookie season of center fielder Ken Griffey, Jr., acquired with the first overall pick of the 1987 amateur draft, gave fans hope that a change of fortunes might be on the horizon.

The Mariners since wore the caps for their Turn Back the Clock nights on June 25, 2010 against the Milwaukee Brewers and July 1, 2011 against the San Diego Padres. With all that in mind, it made my markings a bit of a challenge, but I’m pretty happy with my selections and their place in Mariners’ history.

#12- Born and raised in San Diego, California Mark Langston was a second round draft pick by the Mariners out of San Jose State in the 1981 amateur draft. From then until the end of the 1983 season he came up through the ranks of the Mariners’ minor league system, but bypassed AAA altogether when he made is MLB debut on April y, 1984. His most notable season in the minors came in 1982 when he was with the Class-A Bakersfield Mariners and went 12-7 with a 2.54 ERA and 161 strikeouts in 177 1/3 innings.

Langston served as the team’s ace his rookie season, going 17-10 with a 3.04 ERA and a league-leading 202 strikeouts. He ended up finishing in second place for the AL Rookie of the Year Award thanks in part by his jerk of a teammate Alvin Davis who had a great offensive showing. Either way, the important thing to note from the two finishing one-two for the Rookie of the Year Award is that they both beat out Kirby Puckett and Roger Clemens. 1982 proved to be a pretty rough sophomore season for Langston, but he picked his game back up in 1983 when he led the league in strikeouts again with 245. Unfortunately he also led the league in earned runs with 129 as well. Yikes!

In 1987, of course the first year not wearing this cap, Langston had his best year in Seattle, going 19-13 with a 3.84 ERA and once again leading the league in strikeouts with 262. He also made his first All-Star Game appearance and won the first of his back-to-back Gold Gloves. Langston would win seven for his career. But not to sell him short, Langston also finished fifth for the AL Cy Young Award, the highest finish he garner for his career.

Langston went 15-11 with 235 strikeouts in 1988, but got off to a mediocre 4-5 start in 1989 when he found himself on the trading block in July where he was sent to the Montreal Expos along with Mike Campbell for Gene Harris, Brian Holman and Randy Johnson. Langston pitched for 10 more seasons, eight of which came with the California Angels from 1990-1997 when they changed their name to the Anaheim Angels. In 1998 he was a member of the NL pennant-winning San Diego Padres. Noted for his pickoff move to first base, his 91 career pickoffs were, at the time of his retirement, the most in baseball history. Today, he has the fourth-most pickoffs in baseball history, behind only Kenny Rogers, Terry Mulholland and Andy Pettitte, all of them also left-handed pitchers. Currently, Langston serves as a radio color commentator for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim during Angels home games. Starting in 2013, Langston does radio color commentary for all games and is also a co-host of the Angels post-game call-in show Angel Talk on radio station KLAA. He also appeared as himself in an episode of “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.”

#29- Speaking of players most of you have probably never heard of, Phil Bradley is arguably one of the greatest hitters in the history of the Mariners’ organization. Bradley played high school baseball in Macomb, Illinois for the Macomb High Bombers. Due to his success there, the Macomb High School baseball field was later dedicated in his name. Also a talented football player, he played college football at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and was their starting quarterback from 1978 through 1980. One of the most decorated athletes in Mizzou history, Bradley lettered in football from 1977-81, and in baseball in 1979-81. Bradley quarterbacked the Tigers to three bowl games. He was a three-time Big Eight Conference "Offensive Player of the Year" and set the conference total offense record at 6,459 yards which stood for 10 years. In baseball, he starred as an outfielder on Mizzou teams that won the Big Eight championship in 1980, and went to the NCAA Tournament in 1980 and 1981.

Bradley was selected in the third round of the 1981 amateur draft by the Mariners and made his Major League debut on September 2, 1983, as a pinch hitter against the New York Yankees. Bradley became Seattle's regular left fielder in 1984, batting .301 in 124 games. In 1985 he hit .300 with career-highs in home runs (26) and RBI (880 in 159 games and was selected to the AL All-Star team. He also finished 16^th for the AL MVP that season. On April 29, 1986, Bradley was Roger Clemens' 20th and final strikeout as the pitcher set a major league record for strikeouts in a game. In December of 1987, the Mariners traded Bradley and Tim Fortugno to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Mike Jackson, Glenn Wilson, and minor leaguer Dave Brundage.

Bradley hit a respectable .264 in his only season with the Phillies. Almost one year to the day since arriving from the Mariners, the Phillies, desperately in need of pitching help, dealt Bradley to the Baltimore Orioles for Gordon Dillard and Ken Howell. Back in the more familiar AL, Bradley's batting average rose to .277 in his first season in Baltimore. In mid-season 1990, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Ron Kittle. His final major league appearance came on September 29, 1990, as he drew two walks and scored a run in a 5-2 White Sox win over the Seattle Mariners. For the Mariners Bradley his .301 lifetime with 52 home runs, 234 RBI and even stole 107 bases.

July 26- Seattle Mariners

2001 was an incredibly difficult year to be living in the Pacific Northwest as an Oakland Athletics fan, but somehow I managed. I was just at the tail end of my senior year at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Washington and working at Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) when it all began. First off, some of you may have heard of Columbia River recently, especially if you’re a big sports fan. Here’s a link to explain why. Yup, that was my high school, but that’s beside the point. No, my issues started in late November of 2000 when the Seattle Mariners purchased the contract of Ichiro Suzuki from the Orix Blue Wave of the Pacific League in Japan, sending Mariners fans into a feeding frenzy as they all needed to have a piece of the Ichiro sensation. As you could imagine, most of my days were filled with selling nothing but Mariners gear. On the outside this was good; more money for the store meant more money to pay my wage as more hours were available. However, on the inside I was a pot of hot water about to boil over. The Mariners had only been successful one year in my life, 1995, something that I covered in two posts on January 31^st and May 27^th. My Athletics had edged the Mariners by half a game in 2000 and all I wanted to do was rub it in the faces of the people who I felt were jumping onto the bandwagon of one of the biggest sporting fads of the last decade. After all, I grew up in Southern California when Hideo Nomo was brought over to the United States by the Los Angeles Dodgers and I also saw his career go from instant Hall of Famer to role player in a very short time. I thought the 2001 Mariners were going to be the 1995 Dodgers all over again. Boy, was I wrong.

Things immediately started off the exact opposite of how I thought they would. Within the first nine games of the season the Athletics and Mariners played each other six times with the Athletics biting it hard to the tune of 1-5. To make matters worse the Mariners finished the first month of the season with a 20-5 record while my Athletics finished 8-17. Needless to say, panic had set in. And of course to make matters worse, the store was doing so well in selling Mariners gear that we opened a separate kiosk at the opposite end of the mall which only carried Mariners gear. Guess who got stuck working at most of the time, yours truly. The Baseball Gods sung their praises and boasted the Mariners into the limelight, something that most had felt would take years to recover after the loss of Ken Griffey, Jr. Nope! It only took one full season with out him to reach a higher plateau than anyone could have imagined. From May 23^rd through June 8^th the Mariners went on a 15-game winning streak, a feat that would be bested by my Athletics the following season with a hard 20. But none of that mattered. Once the Mariners lost a game, two games in a row if a team was lucky, they would start another streak right back up.

The worst moments of the season (for the Mariners) came on August 5^th and September 20^th through September 23^rd. August 5^th, as some of you may remember, is a game that is routinely played on ESPN Classic, is probably the worst result in Mariners history and is by far one of the greatest games in Major League Baseball history. This is the night when the Mariners got out to a 12-0 lead against the Cleveland Indians at Jacobs Field and ended up losing in the 11^th inning by the score of 15-14 thanks in part to a miraculous comeback in the seventh through ninth innings and a walk-off RBI single by Jolbert Cabrera. As for the games in September, those four games account for the longest losing streak the Mariners suffered the entire season, three of which came at the hands of the Athletics, which ended up being key victories as the Athletics managed to finish the season with 102 wins and 60 losses despite the absolutely horrific start. The Mariners, on the other hand, tied the Major League record with 116 wins which was originally set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Most of the Mariners season consisted of one to two run victories; however, you can’t help by look back on these five games and easily say that any one of them could have, should have been a victory for the Mariners, especially their game against the Indians. To make matters worse, the Mariners were only able to notch one victory against the defending World Series champion New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series. And like the 1906 Cubs, the Mariners ended their season with a record, but not a championship trophy.

For 10 of the last 12 years I held the piece of history above the heads of every Mariners fan I know. After all, until the Anaheim Angels won the World Series in 2002 the Athletics owned the American League West, except for 1985 when the Kansas City Royals were still in division. But the more I look at things, the more I notice how many empty seats are in Safeco Field for every game, the more I see how the team has gone through seven managers after Lou Pinella and the more I see homegrown talent traded away for overhyped multi-millionaires, it all makes me realize how important a World Series title would have been for that team, the fans and the city. Who knows how different things would be? Lou Pinella might have just stepped down two to three years ago, Pat Gillick would still be putting World Series-caliber teams together and even Portland, Oregon might still have a AAA baseball team if not a Major League team in the works. People outside of the sport realm don’t really understand how a championship can change the economy of a city or its surrounding area, but I sure as shit do.

It’s sad. My selfishness and spoils got the better of me I guess. I’m not at all taking the blame for what happened, but it’s all so clear now how rivalries should never be taken to intense depths. Wins and losses come and go, but sometimes, the grand scheme of things, the thing that will hurt your pride the most is the most beneficial for you in the end. If the Mariners winning the World Series that year helped keep the interest and support in Portland, I would have been comfortable with that in a heartbeat. But, it didn’t. And like Mariners fans of today, all I can do is look back on the season that once was.

This cap is an interesting relic from the 2001 season. Most of you have probably seen it, but very few probably remember that it was only used for 14 games, only on Sunday home games throughout the 2001 season. The Mariners went 11-3 under this cap, losing to the Toronto Blue Jays on May 6^th (11-3), the Indians on August 26^th (4-3) and the Texas Rangers on October 7^th, the last day of the regular season by the score of 4-3. Like I said earlier, a lot of one to two-run games. The silver material used for the bill is a metallic-looking thread which had only been used one other time on a baseball cap by the Houston Astros, a post I’ll get to in the not too distant future. The compass logo was first introduced in 1993 and has been a fixture on all the Mariners caps as it normally sits in the center of the “S” on the home and road caps. This particular cap for the first to use it as a primary cap logo and was subsequently used for all/most of the batting practice caps after the 2001 season.

#48- One of the most important figures for the 2001 team is somebody who has gotten very little credit over the last decade for his service, Paul Abbott. Abbott was a third round draft pick by the Minnesota Twins in the 1985 Draft out of Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California. He didn’t play a major role for them, but he was still a 3-1 winning relief pitcher for the Twins on the 1991 team which earned him his only World Series ring of his 11-year career. At the end if the 1993 season he was released by the Twins and signed by the Indians where made five stars, none of which were great, and was released at the end of the season. From then until January of 1997 he bounced between the Royals, Cubs and San Diego Padres, but never made it beyond the minors until the Mariners decided to give him a shot. Abbott had a decent 1998 and 1999 season with the Mariners, but still found himself getting released and re-signed by the Mariners twice during that time period. Finally in 2000 then-manager Pinella put Abbott in a starting role where he started 27, pitched in 35 and went 9-7 on the season with a 4.22 ERA and 100 strikeouts, the highest of his career. With a savvy, reliable veteran arm in tact, Abbott remained one of Pinella’s five starters going into the 2001 season.

Abbott was given the fourth spot behind Freddy Garcia, Aaron Sele and equally if not more grizzled veteran Jamie Moyer. The Mariners and their fans figured Abbott was nothing more than a 33-year-old arm to throw the ball until they got something better, they were wrong. Despite carrying a 4.25 ERA throughout the season, Abbott managed to score the best win percentages in the franchise’s history, 81%. Abbott mustered everything he had that season and posted a record of 17-4, as well as a new career-high in strikeouts with 118. All of this came in 27 starts once again. He wasn’t at all in the running for any awards like his teammates were, nor did he make the All-Star team that year, nor any year of his career.

Abbott pitched one more season with the Mariners, the worst of his tenure, and he was released at the end of the season. Abbott was picked up by the Arizona Diamondbacks soon after and traded to the Royals in August of 2003 where he would make his only MLB appearances of that season. He was then signed by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in late 2003, made a few appearances in 2004, was released shortly after and picked up by the Philadelphia Phillies before the season ended. After that his MLB career was over.

#50- Jamie Moyer is hands down one of the greatest human being to every put on a Mariners uniform, let alone any MLB uniform. Moyer has received numerous awards for philanthropy and community service, including the 2003 Roberto Clemente Award, the 2003 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, the 2003 Hutch Award, and the 2004 Branch Rickey Award, and there was even this one time he almost fell of the second tier of Century Link Field while he was waiving the 12^th Man flag during a Seattle Seahawks playoff game against the Washington Redskins because he was so fired up. But, the one thing most people will remember him for is that he is one of only 29 players in baseball history to have appeared in Major League games in four decades.

Moyer’s career began when he was drafted in the sixth round of the 1984 amateur draft by the Cubs out of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To put things into a wild perspective, he was drafted the year before Rafael Palmiero (also drafted by the Cubs) and made his MLB debut on June 16, 1986, two months before Palmiero. From 1986-1996 Moyer had modest success, but jumped around to a lot of teams until ending up on the Mariners via trade by the Boston Red Sox for Darren Bragg. In Seattle he started 11 games and went 6–2. His record of 13–3 led the majors in winning percentage at .813.

In 1997, Moyer was fifth in the AL with 17 wins. His 17–5 record gave him the second-highest winning percentage (.773) in the league. Moyer made his first postseason start against his former club Baltimore, but was forced out with a strained elbow in the fifth inning. In 1998, Moyer went 15–9 with a 3.53 ERA. He was third in innings pitched with 234.1. He registered his 100th career win against the Indians on August 27, as well as his 1000th career strikeout with a sixth inning strikeout of David Bell. He was named Seattle's Pitcher of the Year by the Seattle chapter of the BBWAA. He walked two or fewer batters in 29 of his 32 starts. He ranked fourth in the American League averaging just 1.9 walks per nine innings. Moyer was also third among the league in innings pitched and seventh winning percentage. He matched his career-best seven-game winning streak from May 11 to July 7. He started the Inaugural Game at Safeco Field on July 15 against the San Diego Padres, throwing a called strike to San Diego's Quilvio Veras for the first pitch and getting a no-decision in Seattle's 3–2 loss after leaving with a 2–1 lead after eight innings. He defeated Baltimore for the ninth straight time on July 31; he did not lose to the Orioles in the 1990s. Moyer's only loss at Safeco came on August 5 against the Yankees. He recorded three complete games in the final month of the season, tossing back-to-back complete games on September 14 and 19. His 2.30 ERA after the All-Star break was the second-lowest among AL starters, behind only Pedro Martínez with his 2.01 ERA. He pitched 4 complete games for the second straight season, tying his career best. In 1999, Moyer went 14–8 with a 3.87 ERA and was voted to The Sporting News AL All-Star team. He again won the Seattle Pitcher of the Year award and finished sixth for the AL Cy Young award.

2000 saw Moyer rebound from an early shoulder injury to tally 13 wins, giving him at least 13 in each of his past five seasons. He made his first Opening Day start for Seattle, but lost to the Boston Red Sox 2–0 on April 4. His shoulder problems led his ERA to balloon to 5.49. A knee injury suffered on the last pitch of a simulated game caused him to miss Seattle's trip to the ALCS against the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees. Moyer lost five consecutive starts from August 4–24. He allowed a career-high and a club-record 11 earned runs in a 19–3 loss on August 9 against the Chicago White Sox. He allowed 11 runs, 6 earned, in a 14–4 loss on August 14 against the Detroit Tigers, joining the Astros' José Lima as the first two pitchers since 1950 to allow ten or more runs in consecutive starts. Moyer allowed a career-high seven walks in a no-decision on August 29 against the Yankees. The Mariners' 7–2 win on September 9 against the Minnesota Twins snapped a six-game losing streak. Moyer lasted just one and two-thirds innings in his final start, getting a no-decision September 28 against the Rangers. Moyer suffered a hairline fracture of left kneecap while pitching a simulated game on October 7.

In 2001 Moyer rebounded hard, winning 20 games, ranked tied for second in the AL, and his 3.43 ERA was sixth in the AL. He earned his 150th career win against the Rangers on September 24. He became only the second Mariner in history to win 20 games on October 5, former teammate Randy Johnson being the other. Moyer went 3–0 with a 1.89 ERA in the postseason. He won Games 2 and 5 for the Mariners against the Indians and also carried Game 3 against the New York Yankees before Seattle lost in Game 5. Moyer would finish in fourth place for the AL Cy Young that season.

Moyer continued to thrive with a successful campaign in 2003 wile becoming the first player 40 years or older to win at least 20 games. He went 21-7 that season and posted a career-low 3.27 ERA and 129 strikeouts. He was selected to the first and only All-Star Game of his career and finished fifth for the AL Cy Young that season. It would be the last time he would be on a Cy Young finishing ballot.

Moyer’s career with the Mariners came to a sad end on August 19, 2006 when he was traded to the Phillies for minor league pitchers Andrew Barb and Andrew Baldwin. The only important thing to take of note from this time period is that Moyer earned the elusive World Series ring in 2008 as the Phillies won for the first time since 1980. Most important about this is that Moyer was able to win it in his home city.

His career continued on until the end of the 2012 season. He is the oldest pitcher to record a win on April 17^th against the Padres as a member of the Colorado Rockies. He would subsequently break that record on May 16^th against the Diamondbacks which would ultimately be the final victory of his career.

Moyer brought me many years of absolute frustration as an Athletics fan, but in the end, I had the utmost respect for him. The one thing that I think really personified his career was a commercial the Mariners put together in 2006 about him which, in my opinion, is still one of the greatest team commercials ever released.

July 3- Seattle Turks

I kind of screwed myself a little bit on this post; nothing major, just a slight bit of oversight in the grand scheme of things. Back in early June my friend and co-worker Clayton Coyne (@Clayton_Coyne) informed that he and his girlfriend would be heading up to Seattle for the Saturday (June 29) game in which the Mariners were hosting the Chicago Cubs. What I didn’t know, until I looked the schedule, is that it was the Mariners’ “Turn Back the Clock Night” at Safeco Field. For those who don’t know what that means, I suggest you take a look at my post from January 23^rd to understand its importance to hat collectors. “Turn Back the Clock Night” is when the home team, and most of the time the away team, don old school uniforms from the respective teams’ history on the ball field. Leading up to this game the Mariners had pretty much rolled out all of the combinations years passed, including a rare Seattle Raniers get-up during their game with the Los Angeles Angels the year before. Going into this game I knew that both teams were reviving uniforms from 1909; however, I couldn’t really find anything for the Mariners until a few days before the game.

The Cubs uniforms were definitely made to the exact specifications of the turn-of-the-century team who had won what would be their last World Series the previous year (1908), while the Mariners dug deep and pulled something out from their storied minor league past. These.

I’m not going to get too deep into the Cubs cap as I have plans for that down the road. As for the Mariners, or Seattle Turks as they were known, it was really interesting to find that they only wore this uniform for one season. That year, 1909, happened to be their only year known as the Turks, and it was also the only year in which they won a Class-B Northwest League title under then-player manager Mike Lynch. The team played their games at Yesler Way Park, which was used for baseball from 1907-1912 as the Turks were known by their other team names: Siwashes (1903-1908) and Giants (1910-1918). For most of the league's history, there were no official playoffs following the regular season; in fact, 1915 was the only season in which a playoff was played. Therefore, the team that finished in first place was often the de facto league champion. That season the Turks went 109-58.

Now that we’ve established all of that, back to the story. Due to the fact that the hats were being unveiled during that game I had foolishly assumed that the Saturday in which the game was being played would be the only day in which the hats would be sold. Oops! To make matters worse on the subject, I had gotten a sneak peek at the Cubs cap a few days before the game, along with a few other teams’ “Turn Back the Clock” caps during the #CrewEra13 visit to New Era’s headquarters in Buffalo, New York on June 24^th. Basically I bring this up because I really should have known better in thinking that the Turks cap would only be available for one day.

The day before Clayton and his girlfriend left for Seattle I was supposed to meet up with him to give him money to get me one of the caps. Unfortunately, our meeting didn’t happen, but he did let me know that he would buy me the cap just as long as I paid him back immediately, a request I had no problem complying with. On a whim I had also asked him to pick me up the Cubs cap just in case he saw it. Based on this request he had phones ahead to one of his friends working for the team and asked if the Cubs hats would be available. His friend had told him “no” and we all just kind of left it at that.

Since I was working I watched as many little bits and highlights as I could on my break. It’s one thing to see photos of the uniforms, it’s another thing to see them in action. The game got off to a quick start as Cubs’ shortstop gave his tem an early 1-0 lead with a solo blast off of Aaron Harang in the first inning. Justin Smoak countered with a solo shot of his own off of Jeff Samardzija while Dustin Ackley plated Mike Zunino with an RBI single of his own to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead after two. In the sixth inning the Cubs added two more thanks to RBI-singles from Nate Schierholtz and Alfonso Soriano. The Mariners then tied it up in the ninth with an Endy Chavez RBI-single himself to force extra innings. Free baseball would sadly be short-lived as Soriano tagged Oliver Perez for a two-run homer in the top of the 11^th which ended up be the winning runs for the Cubs.

The next day I arrived at work without any money in my pocket as I had forgotten to stop by an ATM on the way, o when Clayton arrived to drop off the hat and pick up his money I had to run out to a random non-bank ATM in order to pay for the ware he picked up for me. In this case I had to shell out an extra $3.50 in fees on top of the $35 for the regular price cost of the cap. Therefore, I spent $38.50 for the cap. Things were just starting to go bad.

Before Clayton left to head back home I randomly stumbled across the Lids Web site to check out if there was anything new that they may have added over the last 24 hours. Sure enough, both caps were kicking it in their “TBTC” section. Not only that, the Mariners did in fact sell the Cubs’ caps at the game, thus making Clayton’s friend one of the most uninformed employees on their payroll. In other words, he works for general manager Jack Zduriencik. Kidding of course. But the point I want to make about the Lids Web site is that I could have gotten 25% off of both caps with my Lids card as well as gotten them shipped to the Lids location in the mall I work at for free. So you see, in summation, I blew it. For an extra $17.50 added on to what I paid I could have had both had I been a little more patient about things. But then again, that’s the trouble with hats that will only be used for one game during a season; they go fast. Now… I need to collect all of the other “Turn Back the Clock” caps before it’s too late.

#1909- When marking this up I decided to keep it simple in order to pay tribute to the lost championship season of yesteryear. One thing that I should point out on these caps is that the "S" logo is different than in the picture below. The ones on the modernized caps are identical to the "S" logo of the Seattle Pilots, who I will be writing about in August.

It’s a bit interesting to look around on seasonal stat sheets on BaseballRefernce.com only to find a slew of question marks next to almost every players’ name. Only six players from this team went on to have any kind of a career in the Major Leagues; they include: Emil Frisk, Pug Bennett, Mike Lynch, Lee Magee, Gus Thompson and Burt Whaling. One thing I can point out is that none of them had numbers on the back of their jerseys as that concept wouldn’t be introduced until the 1929 New York Yankees. Of all six only one had a worth-while career in the Majors while one had an interesting fact pop up on his bio sheet.

The random fact that popped up was how Bennett is buried in an “unknown” cemetery in Kirkland, Washington. Kirkland resides on the east side of Lake Washington about 21 minutes east and then north. I find this fact to be a bit eerie for the sake that I would hate to have my body missing when I die. I realize that when I’m dead it’s not going to matter, but still, it’s the principle of the matter.

As for the “stat king,” Lee Magee, born Leopold Christopher Hoernschmeyer, played in the Majors from 1911-191 for seven different ball clubs: St. Louis Cardinals (1911-1914), Brooklyn Tip-Tops (1915), Yankees (1916-1917), St. Louis Browns (1917), Cincinnati Reds (1918), Brooklyn Robins (1919) and Cubs (1919). His best season came in 1914 when he hit .284 with two home runs, 40 RBI and 36 stolen bases, which was good enough for an 11^th-place finish for the National League MVP. Johnny Evers of the Boston Braves took home the hardware that season. Aside from that, nothing else of real note. Magee finished his career going .276/12/277 with 186 stolen bases in 1015 games.

May 27- Seattle Mariners

Before you make an attempt to read this article I must first ask that you click on this link and either watch the whole thing first, or having it playing in the background while you read on. I assure you, it’s not a virus or anything, just a little something to help get into the experience.

Prior to about a month-and-a-half ago I had never heard that song in my life. I’m not one to seek out newer music as my preference in new music/bands took a hiatus some time after the end of the year 2000. I’ve always been a bit of an old school guy, classic rock to be more specific. Most of that has to do with my upbringing; born and raised in the Bay Area I quickly became accustomed to one particular local band whose best-selling album was released the same year I was born, 1983. That band and that album; Sports by Huey Lewis & the News. I know a lot of you are feeling where I’m coming from on this, and a lot of you probably think I’m the biggest cracker around. It’s ok, to each their own. Truth be told I do listen to a lot of underground rap; mostly a lot of old school Bay Area stuff. There are certain sounds and instruments within songs that trigger a deep fondness from my past and the sensation it puts me through sends me into a frenzy to the point where I have to keep listening to a particular song over and over and over until I get my fix. In some cases, the same thing can be said about sports.

When I first heard “My Oh My” by Macklemore I was immediately hooked. As inspiring as the lyrics are, if you take them out you still have a pretty solid song comprised solely of a piano, drum and tambourine. But the one thing that gets me the most is hearing Dave Niehaus’s final call of the Seattle Mariners American League Division Series win against the New York Yankees, a game that still sends chills down my spine despite the fact that I didn’t grow up rooting for the Mariners. Nope, I’m an Oakland Athletics fan through-and-through, but one thing I have grown to know over the 30 years I’ve been alive it’s that you have to take a time out once in a while to appreciate the joys of others.

1995, first off, was kind of an interesting time period for me. I was 12-years-old and in my first year of Junior High School n Bakersfield, California. A few of my friends didn’t have a specific tam that they followed, but they were all very quick to say that Ken Griffey, Jr. was their favorite player. By default of Jr.’s presence with the Mariners that essentially made them my enemy; however, for that brief five-game series we all had a common enemy, the Yankees. My friends and I took turn watching each game at a different person’s house. I really didn’t care where, I was just happy to be watching playoff baseball, something that was taken away from all the baseball fans the previous season.

Until Game 1 of the series I had never really heard Niehaus’s voice. Living in Southern California we primarily got Los Angeles Angels and Dodgers games, and of course became very familiar with Vin Scully. Within the first few innings I was hooked on Niehaus, an appreciation that grew stronger once I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2000. There’s a certain grainy ripple that catches the back of his throat when he talks, much like Mick Jagger’s voice if you ever listen to the Rolling Stones’ albums “Exile on Main Street” or “Sticky Fingers.” 

I think the line in “My Oh My” that gets me the most is, “the voice on the other end might as well have been God’s.” It’s an eerily true, but non-sacrilegious truth. No matter if it’s Niehaus, Billy King, Bob Sheppard or any other vocal figure of the game, to us, this is exactly how God should sound. The level of genuine excitement that exudes from Niehaus’s mouth as Griffey, Jr. is more than enough to make anyone believe that the unthinkable can happen.

Like my other Stars and Stripes posts, I compiled the Mariners Memorial Day record, but all ready wrote it in another post on May 13^th. So, without further ado, my marks

“My Oh My”- I couldn’t think of a better way to mark this cap. David Arnold Niehaus was the lead play-by-play announcer for the Mariners from their inaugural season in 1977 until his death after the 2010 season. In 2008, the National Baseball Hall of Fame awarded Niehaus with the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest honor for American baseball broadcasters. Among fans nationwide and his peers, Niehaus was considered to be one of the finest sportscasters in history.

Niehaus graduated from Indiana University in 1957, entered the military, and began his broadcasting career with Armed Forces Radio. He became a partner of Dick Enberg on the broadcast team of the California Angels in 1969. Niehaus also broadcast the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL and UCLA Bruins football and basketball during this period.

In 1977, Danny Kaye, part-owner of the expansion Seattle Mariners, recruited Niehaus to become the franchise's radio voice. Despite working for a franchise who from its first year in 1977 until 1991 was without a winning season, his talent was recognizable, and Niehaus was considered one of the few attractions for Mariner fans. Even in the period before the team's memorable 1995 season, the Mariners were regularly one of the leading major-league teams in terms of the percentage of radios in use.

If there’s one moment I love to remember Niehaus by, besides the ’95 ALDS, it has to be what took place on September 27, 2009 in Toronto as the Mariners were set to square of against the Blue Jays. During the pre-game broadcast Blowers predicted Matt Tuiasosopo’s first career home run. What started as simply selecting a possible notable player for the day's game became an extended humorous rant by Blowers. In the course of pre-game banter, he stated that the home run would come in Tuiasosopo's second at bat, on a 3-1 count fastball, and that the ball would land in the second deck in left center field. This then happened - with correct prediction of player, at-bat, count, pitch and general landing area - in the top of the 5th inning.

Blowers was on the television side of the broadcast when the prediction came true, and was simply laughing, with no explanation to the TV audience. Radio announcers Rick Rizzs and Dave Niehaus, however, recalled the prediction, restated it for the audience, and were beside themselves in laughter and disbelief as the prediction came true. Said Niehaus on-air, seconds before the event, "I've never been so excited on a 3-1 count in my life!” Here’s the clip so you can fully appreciate it if you haven’t seen it yet. Being the voice of a team was its pluses and minuses. On one hand you’re always the bearer of bad news if the team loses, but on the other hand, like in this moment, you can rekindle the childlike wonder of the game, that first feeling you had when you saw baseball for the first time. At soon as Tuiasosopo makes contact with the ball you can feel it tingle through your body as Niehaus giggles while trying to get the call out. Only something so absurdly brilliant came make a grown man act like that.

Niehaus suffered a myocardial infarction (heart attack) at his Issaquah, Washington, home on November 10, 2010, and died at age 75 while preparing to barbecue some ribs on his deck. Heart problems had forced Niehaus to undergo two angioplasties in 1996, causing him to give up smoking and change his diet. He is survived by his wife, three children, and seven grandchildren. In a formal statement, Mariners Chairman Howard Lincoln and President Chuck Armstrong said "Dave has truly been the heart and soul of this franchise since its inception in 1977... He truly was the fans connection to every game." Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said "Today the Pacific Northwest lost one of its sports icons...Dave was an institution here starting with the team's first pitch in 1977. With all due respect to the great Alvin Davis, Dave is 'Mr. Mariner.'" At news of Niehaus's death, tributes came from Jay Buhner, Griffey, Jr., Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, other Mariners broadcasters, and fans.
Prior to the Mariners' home opener in 2011 against the Cleveland Indians the city of Seattle and King County declared that April 8 be "My oh My! Dave Niehaus day". A successful petition drive by Mariners fans Glen Garnett and Mark Caylor got the city of Seattle to give the block of First Avenue S. between Edgar Martínez Dr. S. and S. Royal Brougham Way the honorary designation of Dave Niehaus Way S. Up in the press area at Safeco Field a sign was unveiled giving tribute to Niehaus as well. A bronze statue of Niehaus was unveiled on Friday September 16, 2011 at Safeco Field. Niehaus 's longtime broadcast partner Rizzs presided over a private ceremony to unveil the statue. The statue depicts Niehaus at a desk, behind a microphone, wearing headphones with his Mariners scorebook in front of him. Niehaus is wearing a favorite necktie with tiny baseballs on it and a sport coat. He's holding a pencil in his right hand and wearing the 2001 All-Star Game ring on his left. The scorebook in front of him is open to the 1995 ALDS game against the Yankees. The pages are engraved with Niehaus's actual notes and scoring of the game. The scorebook is so detailed, you even see the word "Unbelievable" scribbled—and misspelled—at the top in Niehaus's handwriting.