The Yanks jumped out to an early lead, and I knew it was over. A part of me was hoping the Yankees would hang on so I wouldn’t have to spend any more money or time driving back and forth to Seattle. By the end of seven and a half, the Yanks were up by two, and Cone looked unstoppable. In the bottom of the eighth, a glimmer of hope streaked over the wall in right center, off the bat of Ken Griffey, Jr., cutting the lead to one. But, when Cone got to two outs by striking out Edgar, it looked like it was over, again.

Then Cone’s control got away from him; he walked Tino, let Buhner single to center, and walked Rodriguez to fill the bases. The crowd went crazy. My friend said later it was as if the crowd willed what happened next. Cone filled up the count, and then threw a pitch in the dirt to walk Doug Strange and tie the score. Cone was pulled, and Rivera got the next batter.

The Big Unit, Randy Johnson, on one day of rest, took the mound in relief in the ninth. I heard his name announced over the public address system, and was certain I misheard. There was no way Piniella was going to put him in after seven innings two nights before. When he began his walk to the infield, the crowd rose and screamed to their savior. Randy would deliver them. The first pitch he threw, I discovered later, was 93 mph. In a drama the ancient Greek poets could not have sung better, he took out the top of their order, striking out Wade Boggs, and getting Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill to pop up.

The Yankees put Blackjack McDowell, also with only a day’s rest, on the mound to counter the big man. On the big screen in center played the birth scene from Rocky 2 when Adrienne tells Rocky there’s only one thing she wants him to do now: win. (Complete with Burgess Meredith asking Rocky what he was waitin’ fer) The Rocky theme played to a cheering crowd as the M’s got the lead off man aboard, but failed to bring him home.

In the tenth, Johnson got three outs with four batters by striking out the side. One of his pitches was clocked at 99 mph. The M’s went through the bottom of the order and did not score.

The eleventh looked to be the end of the season yet again. Fernandez doubled, went to third on a sacrifice, and then scored on a hit to left by Pat Kelly. Piniella visited the mound and told Randy not to worry about it, just end the inning. After striking out Ruben Sierra and Mattingly, he moped to the dugout, believing he had ruined the season for his team.

The Dome crew queued up John Belushi’s inspirational “Over? It’s not over!!” scene from Animal House, but it did little more to the crowd than make it giggle uncomfortably. But, maybe there was hope. After all, batters 2, 3, and 4 were due up, maybe there was a chance.

Joey Cora pulled a two-strike drag bunt down the first base line and evaded Mattingly’s sweep tag by diving head first under the glove. Griffey knocked Cora over to third with a single to center field. No outs, men on the corners, AL Batting Champ Edgar Martinez at the plate. Though looking at it now, it seems almost obvious what would happen next, it was hardly a sure thing at the time. After all, Blackjack struck him out in the ninth. But, in what has since been named by Mariner fans “The Double”, Edgar screamed a shot down the left field line. Gerald Davis seemed to lose it in the corner, but I could not tell for sure. I was looking at the third base coach. He was jumping up and down and windmilling his arms. I put my hand to my mouth and whispered to myself, barely audible over the thunderous crowd, “They’re sending him. They’re sending Griffey.”

Though he claims that he looked at the coach, Junior never had the intention of stopping. Perfectly hitting the back of each bag and cutting the corners just so, he beat the throw by several feet. The M’s won, just like they had so many times in September, with a come-from-behind in their last at-bat.

I knew leaving the Dome that night that it was the best baseball game I had ever seen, in person or on TV. What I didn’t realize was how many other people were watching that night, and what it did for baseball. The next day at work, people who I would never have thought to watch a sporting event came up to me and asked what it was like to actually be there. For the first time in a long while, people were actually standing around water coolers and coffee pots talking about the game of baseball, not the greedy owners or the ungrateful players. They were talking about the game. The audience was back, and the strike was forgiven.

The M’s went on to lose the ALCS to Cleveland, whose players were rude, whiny, and acting like the M’s didn’t belong in the same league. It was a stark contrast to the way the Yankees behaved. Surprisingly, though, it was the Yankees who seemed to irk Mariner fans the most. Most M’s fans began hating the Yankees, and were dreaming up some sort of a one-sided rivalry. This was when I started to become a Yankee fan. I was so happy to be able to see those games, and game five in particular, that I felt nothing but gratitude towards both teams. Any team that could be on either side of that contest deserved respect, and I knew I could never hate them.

When I moved to New York, many of my friends in the Pacific Northwest sneeringly asked me if I was going to be a Yankee fan. Without hesitation, I would answer, “I already am.”

The 1994 baseball season was possibly the worst ever for any baseball fan. The players’ strike ended the season on August 12, canceling 938 games and all of the postseason. It spilled over into 1995, shortening that season by 18 games, and decimating the fan base. Clubs had some of their worst opening day attendance in history, and at Shea, two fans ran on to the field and threw wads of dollar bills at the players. Many wondered whether fans would ever come back, or had the greed of the players, owners, and umpires turned them off of baseball for good.

As a whole, I didn’t really care. Baseball was just an entertainment for me. And while I missed not having a postseason to watch in October, I certainly didn’t take it personally. I continued to watch the Mariners on TV (I was living in Portland at the time), and even made it up to the King Dome every month or so to take in a game. By the time August rolled around, I was seeing something I had never seen before: a wild card race.

The Mariners were about 12 games out in the middle of August, something that in prior years would have had them looking at rebuilding for next season. But this year, there was room for a few more teams in the playoffs, and Lou Piniella thought the M’s had a shot at the wild card. I had more faith, and one day in late August, walked into my friend’s office and wrote the number 38 on his dry-erase board.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The Mariner’s magic number.”

“But they’re, like, 10 games out. You don’t get a magic number if you’re not in first place.”

“The Mariners do.”

Every time the Mariners won or the Angels lost I went into his office and reduced the number. When it was in the single digits, my friend started to believe. The last week of the season, we took a day off, drove to Seattle and watched the Mariners beat the Angels. At the end of the season, the M’s and the Angels were tied, and the Yankees had snuck in and taken the wildcard. There was a one-game playoff, and the M’s trounced the Angels 9-1, including an error-filled inside-the-park grand slam for Luis Sojo, possibly the slowest man ever to hit an ITP homerun. In the end, the Mariners won 25 of their last 36 games, seemingly all of them in come from behind victories. The M’s would face the Yankees in the first ever, best-of-5, American League Division Series.

The first two games were in the Bronx, and the Yanks took them both, including the 15-inning marathon that was game two. When they came back to Seattle, I expected to see maybe one or two games before the Yankees ended the M’s season. In fact, I sort of hoped the Bombers would end it quickly so I could escape with a full wallet. I was still working in an entry-level job, and the $700 I had to lay out for all of the playoff tickets was more than I could afford.

Game three was good, but not particularly exceptional. Randy Johnson had pitched in the playoff game against the Angels, so he had to sit out games one and two. Since he was on the mound, everybody expected that the M’s would win game three, then the Yanks would finish them off in game four. Though it was the first time I had seen Johnson pitch, the only true image I have from the game is Don Mattingly striking out all three times he faced Johnson. The M’s won, 7-4.

About 7:00 pm Saturday, October 7th, I was confident the Mariners’ season was over. The Yankees were leading 5-0 and the M’s had nothing in the bullpen. Miraculously, they closed the gap. With the score tied at 6 apiece in the bottom of the eighth and the bases loaded, Edgar Martinez stepped up to the plate. Grand Slam. The only one I have ever, or probably will ever see in person. One of the images etched in my brain is of the ball hitting the curtain in centerfield and the triangle-ripple it made when it hit. I still think I heard the sound of the hard ball hitting the nylon tarp, but I know I could not have possibly, with 57,000 people screaming in my ear. The other image is Adam Arkin (then starring in “Northern Exposure”), sitting a few rows in front of me, holding his fists over his head as the Mariner Moose walked by and yelling “Moooose!! Moooose!!”

The next day, when I walked into the Kingdome, I thought there was no real way the M’s could beat Yankee pitcher David Cone, but they had come this far, and anything could happen.

There are several items on my list that were accomplished before I created the list proper. These were things that I had done before the summer of 2005 that I thought were essential, things that I had long wanted to do before I did them, and felt were truly special and important moments in my life. Some, like living in New York, are seminal. Others, like the one I will be describing in the next few posts, were just terrifically exciting to do, though not perhaps very life-changing. At any rate, here’s one from the archives, so to speak.

When I was in college in the Bay Area in the late 80′s and early 90′s, a friend of mine worked the scoreboard for the San Francisco Giants, and the instant replay for the Oakland A’s. That time and place was a great place to be for a baseball fan. The A’s were in the World Series in ’88, ’89, and ’90, winning in 1989 against the Giants in what has been called the Earthquake Series. Though I had liked baseball most of my life, it was during this time, when I saw more games than I could possibly count, that I became a true fan.

One evening in the summer of 1990, a friend of mine who lived down the hall poked his head into my room.

“I’m going to the A’s game tonight. Wanna come?”

“Who are they playing?”

“Rangers.”

The Rangers at the time, had one of my all-time favorite players. “Who’s pitching?” I asked.

“Nolan Ryan.”

Shit.

I had made a tentative date with a woman, who was going to call me when she got off work around 10pm. As this was the era before mobile phones, I couldn’t get in touch with her, and I had little chance of making it back in time for her phone call.

“I’m going to have to pass,” I said, with my chin on my chest. “I have a date.”

A few hours later, the woman not having called yet, my friend boldly walked into my room, and announced:

“Nolan Ryan. No hitter. Me. There. You. Here.”

Ten minutes later the woman called.

During the season of 1991, I worked with a guy who was best friends with Rickey Henderson in high-school. Whenever he couldn’t use the tickets Rickey gave him, he passed them along to me. In April of that year, Henderson was closing in on Lou Brock’s all time stolen base record. I went to the game right after the one in which he tied the record, but he didn’t steal a base the day I went. I couldn’t get tickets for the following game on May 1st, when he stole number 939, passing Brock for good. (Oddly, this was the same night Ryan pitched his record-breaking seventh no-hitter.)

The next day at work, I saw Rickey’s friend, and all he said was, “You must’ve been there, because you didn’t call me for any tickets.” I sadly shook my head.

“What were you thinking?” he asked. “You have my pager number. Rickey gave me 25 tickets to give to whoever I wanted, and I had two extra! Right behind the dugout! After the game, Rickey jumped on top of the dugout, pointed at the whole line of 25 seats, and said to the security guy, ‘All these people are coming to the locker room with me.’ We hung out and drank champagne with the team in the clubhouse!”

Even now, over 15 years later, I can barely talk about it without a little rage welling up inside me.

Two chances in under a year to do something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, #27 – Attend a legendary baseball game. I blew them both.

But, during the 1995 season, the year after the strike and the first year of wildcard play, I would have my shot at redemption.