Glory Days B aseball has a long history in Seattle A team in the minor leagues called the Rainiers played there for many years In 1969 the city was awarded its first big-league team the Pilots Unfortunately Seattle wasn’t quite ready Its stadium was old and small The Pilots moved to Milwaukee after one season and became the Brewers Meanwhile Seattle began preparing to host another baseball team That day came in 1977 when the Mariners arrived in town They built their team with unwanted players from other clubs They added promising young players from high school and college in the draft The Mariners moved into a new stadium called the Kingdome They shared it with the Seattle Supersonics basketball team and Seattle Seahawks football team 6
LEFT Al Cowens RIGHT Mark Langston The Mariners continued to search for players who had been overlooked by other teams In their early years their hitting stars included Ruppert Jones Ron Fairly Dan Meyer Leroy Stanton Bruce Bochte Leon Roberts Willie Horton Ken Phelps and Al Cowens Their best pitchers were Glenn Abbott Rick Honeycutt and Bill Caudill In the mid-1980s Seattle welcomed a group of homegrown stars The best was Mark Langston a left-handed pitcher who led the American League AL in strikeouts as a rookie First baseman Alvin Davis second baseman Harold Reynolds third baseman Jim Presley and outfielder Phil Bradley formed the core of a solid offense Even with this talent the Mariners did not have their first winning season until 1991 By then they were building a new team around an 7
amazing young outfielder named Ken Griffey Jr He would lead the AL in home runs four times and win 10 Gold Gloves Randy Johnson also joined the Mariners during this time He was a tall left-handed pitcher who whipped the ball in at terrifying speeds Johnson pitched Seattle’s first no-hitter in 1990 and led the AL in strikeouts four years in a row Other Seattle stars during this time included Edgar Martinez Jay Buhner Tino Martinez and Alex Rodriguez The Mariners found a great manager to lead these players in Lou Piniella He guided the team to the American League Championship Series ALCS twice but both times Seattle fell short of winning the LEFT Ken Griffey Jr gave fans a lot to smile about during his 13 seasons in Seattle ABOVE Randy Johnson became baseball’s best left-handed pitcher with the Mariners 9
