Spring Break
The day the game changed, Randy Johnson saved Seattle
Adam Loghides
Issue date: 6/3/09 Section: Sports
Do you remember what you were doing on October 2, 1995?
Well, I do.
I, along with all baseball fans, was watching as the face of my favorite sport changed forever.
That was the day baseball in the northwest was saved by a lanky southpaw by the name of Randy Johnson.
Tonight, Johnson attempts to get win number 300. The man you will see on the mound is a shell of his former self. But, don't kid yourself.
In 1993, John Kruk said that Johnson was so dominating that you could blink and miss Johnson's fastball completely.
The 2009 version of Johnson isn't quite that good, but he can still bring it with the best of them.
In order to celebrate what could happen tonight, it's best to take a look back at 1995 and contemplate just what exactly happened that fall afternoon inside the Kingdome.
The Mariners were hosting the California - who later became the Anaheim and Los Angeles - Angels in a one-game playoff for the A.L.'s West division title. The Mariners had been behind the Angels by as many as 13 games in early August and King County voters were deciding whether or not to allow sales tax to rise in an effort to build them a new stadium.
Without the new stadium the Mariners would most likely have sailed away and the pacific northwest would never have seen another team set anchor here again. Only two weeks prior to the end of the season, King County voters decided to not pass the sales tax increase.
The new owners wanted to move the perennial losers out of Seattle. Thanks to Johnson, though, the Mariners were losers no more.
Mariners 9, Angels 1. It's hard to know who scored more that day - the Mariners or their fans.
Two weeks after the season ended - with the Mariners falling just short of a World Series berth - the Washington State legislature reconvened and approved a funding package to pay for a new stadium.
That new stadium is the beautiful Safeco Field. It doesn't appear that the Mariners are going anywhere anytime soon.
Well, I do.
I, along with all baseball fans, was watching as the face of my favorite sport changed forever.
That was the day baseball in the northwest was saved by a lanky southpaw by the name of Randy Johnson.
Tonight, Johnson attempts to get win number 300. The man you will see on the mound is a shell of his former self. But, don't kid yourself.
In 1993, John Kruk said that Johnson was so dominating that you could blink and miss Johnson's fastball completely.
The 2009 version of Johnson isn't quite that good, but he can still bring it with the best of them.
In order to celebrate what could happen tonight, it's best to take a look back at 1995 and contemplate just what exactly happened that fall afternoon inside the Kingdome.
The Mariners were hosting the California - who later became the Anaheim and Los Angeles - Angels in a one-game playoff for the A.L.'s West division title. The Mariners had been behind the Angels by as many as 13 games in early August and King County voters were deciding whether or not to allow sales tax to rise in an effort to build them a new stadium.
Without the new stadium the Mariners would most likely have sailed away and the pacific northwest would never have seen another team set anchor here again. Only two weeks prior to the end of the season, King County voters decided to not pass the sales tax increase.
The new owners wanted to move the perennial losers out of Seattle. Thanks to Johnson, though, the Mariners were losers no more.
Mariners 9, Angels 1. It's hard to know who scored more that day - the Mariners or their fans.
Two weeks after the season ended - with the Mariners falling just short of a World Series berth - the Washington State legislature reconvened and approved a funding package to pay for a new stadium.
That new stadium is the beautiful Safeco Field. It doesn't appear that the Mariners are going anywhere anytime soon.
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