The Seattle Mariners have been in existence since 1977, yet there are no plaques in the Baseball Hall of Fame depicting a player wearing a Mariners cap. On Monday the first step toward changing that was taken.
The Hall of Fame announced its list of candidates for induction in 2016 on Monday, and headlining the group was former Mariners star center fielder Ken Griffey Jr.
There are four players who spent time with the Mariners who are in the Hall of Fame, those being pitchers Randy Johnson, Gaylord Perry and Goose Gossage and outfielder Rickey Henderson. However, only Johnson spent a significant portion of his career in Seattle, and he chose to be enshrined wearing an Arizona Diamondbacks cap, the team with which he won the World Series in 2001.
So Griffey will undoubtedly be the first player to go into the Hall of Fame as a Mariner. He spent 13 of his 22 seasons in the majors wearing a Mariners uniform, including the first 11, during which he was one of the dominant players in baseball. He later returned to Seattle, spending two seasons with the Mariners before retiring. He finished with 630 career home runs, which ranks sixth all-time. He made 13 All-Star teams, and won 10 Gold Gloves. The question isn’t whether Griffey will get voted in, but just how close he will get to the 100-percent vote tally.
One other former Mariner is on this year’s ballot with a legitimate chance of getting elected is third baseman/designated hitter Edgar Martinez. Martinez, who is in seventh year on the ballot, received 27 percent of the possible votes last season. A player must get 75 percent to achieve election, so Martinez has some serious ground to make up.
Two other former Mariners are on the ballot for the first time, those being outfielder Randy Winn and pitcher Mike Hampton, though both seem unlikely to reach the five-percent threshold needed to remain on the ballot for another year.
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