The Rise and Fall of the 1990s Seattle Mariners:<br> A Ticket-Stub ...

April 11: M's 9, Twins 8 (10 innings): It may be Opening Night at the Kingdome but the M's are already 0-5 after a mini-disastrous road trip. The Twins take a 4-0 lead, the M's counter 8-4, and by the 8th it's 8-8. M's win it on a two-out single by Mike Blowers that plates New Mariner Dan Wilson, who hit a 1-out double. New Mariner Bobby Ayala gets a blown save by allowing 1 of 2 inherited baserunners to score, but otherwise pitches 3 innings of scoreless baseball for the win. Junior: 2-4 with a walk.
April 12: M's 12, Twins 0: This one ain't close. Ken Griffey, Jr. hits 3-run homerun in the second inning, and Dave Fleming pitches 7 innings of shut-out ball.
April 16: Brewers 1, M's 0: Chris Bosio goes the distance, gives up only 4 hits, but gives up a lead-off, 7th-inning homer to Turner Ward and loses.
April 25: M's 4, Red Sox 2: Hall-of-Fame match-up! Randy Johnson vs. Roger Clemens. RJ strikes out 9, goes the distance. Clemens strikes out 6 and punks out after 7 innings. He's replaced by Tony Fossas, whose line reads: strikeout, double, strikeout, double, walk. M's front office thinks, “Hey, that's a guy we could use!” Junior goes 3-4, including a 430-foot HR. Junior, in case anyone's forgot, OWNED Clemens.
May 13: Angels 11, M's 1: I guess the M's didn't own the Angels yet. M's stinking it up, 13-20, but only 1 1/2 back in the weak AL West.
May 21: M's 13, Rangers 2: Luis Sojo hits a grand slam in a 7-run 5th inning. It's his first HR of the year. Junior follows with #19 for the year. He's hitting .342. M's are 1/2 game back.
June 6: M's 5, Indians 4: Junior with a solo HR in the fourth. They've gone 4-9 since I last saw them.
June 10: A's 4, M's 3 (10 innings): Randy Johnson gives up only 2 runs in 9 innings, but the bullpen team of Bill Risley, Tim Davis, Goose Goosage and Bobby Ayala give up 2 more in the 10th to lose it. In the 4th, Junior makes a great catch in center. From The Seattle Times article: “Then Griffey ended the inning with a marvelous leaping catch of a Terry Steinbach blast at 389-foot mark. Griffey timed his jump perfectly, digging his cleat on the wall and catching it about 11 feet up the 11 1/2-foot barrier. His cleat tore away a small hole in the padding. Piniella called it 'one of the greatest plays I've ever seen.'”
June 24: White Sox 6, M's 2: Junior's 32nd HR of the year (9th inning, solo). M's are 10 games below .500 and 2 1/2 games back, but Junior's getting national attention:

Esquire story from the summer of '94.

June 27: Tigers 11, M's 1: 10-0 after 4 innings but we stick around. We rarely left early in those days.
July 16: Yankees 9, M's 3: Jimmy Key beats RJ. Enjoy it, Yankees fan. I won't see the Yankees beat the M's in Seattle again until August 1997.
July 19: Walking from my Belltown apartment to the Kingdome, I decide to get on the bus in the Ride-Free Zone, but the driver, seeing my glove and cap, asks, “You going to the game? It's postponed.” I'm thinking, “Bummer,” and then say out loud: “Wait a minute. Why is a game t a domed stadium postponed?” “Dome collapsed,” driver says. I imagine a fallen soufflé and go down anyway to check it out. The dome hasn't collapsed so much as huge tiles have fallen from the roof and crashed into several seats. After assessing the situation, and finding the Kingdome unplayable, the M's finish the season as the nomads of MLB, playing their final 20 games on the road. Does it bring them together? Make them more of a team? They win 9 of their last 10, at any rate, and are only two games back before the 1994 players' strike ends the season.

SEASON RECORD: 5-6 (after starting out 5-2). Same pattern as the previous year. When I'm at the park, they start out hot and then fade. Everything evens out in baseball. Junior dominates. He finishes the season .323/.402/.674. He leads the league with 40 home runs. But it's the first of three straight years, which should be his glory years, when his season is truncated.