1995: A season to remember

PEORIA, Ariz. – It has been 10 years, but Dan Wilson’s ears still ring with the memory of the noisy crowds in the Kingdome.

He’ll never forget winning the one-game playoff against the California Angels that brought the Seattle Mariners their first division championship.

The image of Ken Griffey Jr., sprinting around third base to score the winning run in the Division Series to beat the Yankees, will always remain vivid.

As good as those moments of the 1995 season became for Wilson, one thing about it was even more special.

“It was the impact that year had on the people and the city of Seattle,” he said. “People talk about male bonding here, but that was a huge city bonding time. I remember people being in the streets celebrating. Even today, there are still people who come up to me and say, ‘I wasn’t a baseball fan until ‘95. Thank you.’

“That’s what was so neat about the experience.”

While the Mariners were taking the entire Northwest on that glorious ride, another phenomenon was happening across the country.

In Cleveland, where the Indians had been laughingstocks – like the Mariners – in the American League, a team managed by 45-year-old Mike Hargrove reeled off 100 victories in a strike-shortened 144-game season.

Hargrove took that team to the World Series, including a victory in the American League Championship Series that finally ended the Mariners’ magic, to begin a run of five straight trips to the postseason.

“I’m not one to dwell on the past a whole lot, whether it’s negative or positive,” Hargrove said. “But that’s a memory to trot out every now and then to make you feel good.”

Ten seasons later, Wilson and Hargrove are on the same team, a veteran catcher and a seasoned manager hoping to lead the Mariners back to the glory they found for the first time in 1995.

In some ways, Wilson says, it seems like yesterday that he was jumping into Randy Johnson’s arms, celebrating the victory over the Angels in the one-game playoff that clinched the Mariners’ first division title.

Then there are the days his body reminds him that he’s now 36 and not 26, when it seems to Wilson that more than 10 years have passed.

Images in the mind, however, never age.

“The time goes by fast,” Wilson said. “But the memories are still there.”

The Mariners had fallen 13 games behind the Angels in the AL West on Aug. 13. Then they began a run of success marked by come-from-behind victories and a “Refuse to Lose” belief that not only swept the city, but the team.

“Everybody in this clubhouse came together,” Wilson said. “That’s the great part about a team. When you have success as a team, it brings everybody along.”

The Mariners went 16-3 from Sept. 7-29 and took a two-game lead in the division going into what seemed certain to be a celebratory road trip to Texas. Instead, the Mariners lost two games in that series while the Angels won twice in Oakland, leaving the two teams tied atop the division and forcing the one-game playoff. The winner would go to the postseason, the loser home.

“On the way home from Texas, I remember somebody talking about how loud it was going to be tomorrow,” Wilson said. “We all had the feeling that we were floating. There was a ton of adrenaline. The town was crazy, too, and we sensed before the game what it was going to be like.”

The Mariners beat the Angels 9-1, breaking open a 1-0 game in the sixth inning on Luis Sojo’s three-run double.

Johnson finished it by striking out Tim Salmon, sending the Kingdome – and the Mariners – into a wild celebration.

“It was an incredible moment,” Wilson said. “We couldn’t hear each other and we were out of breath because we were screaming so much.”

The celebration lasted as long as the Mariners could empty a few cases of champagne – mostly onto each other – and pack their belongings for a late-night flight to New York. The Division Series started the next night against the Yankees.

The Yankees beat the M’s two straight at New York, including a 15-inning classic in Game 2 that ended on Jim Leyritz’s two-run homer. The Mariners won Game 3 with Johnson back on the mound, and they came from behind to win Game 4, bolstered by Edgar Martinez’s grand slam that helped them overcome a 5-0 deficit.

In Game 5, with more than 57,000 turning the Kingdome into a noise chamber, the M’s and Yankees played a back-and-forth epic that ended with Martinez’s 11th-inning double into the left-field corner that scored Griffey from first base.

“To be able to come back, being down 0-2 to New York and win that series, was a huge moment again,” Wilson said. “To do it in front of your home fans was incredible.”

On the day of the deciding game between the M’s and Yankees, Hargrove and the Indians hung out in Cleveland waiting to learn whether they would travel to New York or Seattle. The Indians had beaten Boston in the Division Series.

“I had a suitcase packed but didn’t know where it was going,” Hargrove said. “I remember thinking that if it was going to be Seattle, we knew we wouldn’t be facing Randy Johnson in the first game. As it turned out, I’d have rather faced Randy.”

The Mariners won Game 1 of the ALCS after Bob Wolcott, a rookie right-hander, walked the bases loaded in the top of the first inning, then got out of it without allowing a run. He remained steady and shut down a slugging Indians club in a 3-2 M’s victory.

The Indians won Game 2, but the Mariners won Game 3 at Cleveland on Jay Buhner’s two home runs to take a 2-1 series lead. The Indians won the next two, including a tense 3-2 victory over the M’s in Game 5 that sent the series back to Seattle.

“Game 5 was the big one for me,” Hargrove said. “If we’d have lost that game and had to go back to Seattle to win two, it would have been really difficult. I couldn’t have taken a seventh game.”

Needing to win Game 6 at home or end the season, the Mariners’ magic finally ran out. Indians starter Dennis Martinez mastered the M’s in a 4-0 victory that ended the series.

The Indians lost the World Series in six games to the Atlanta Braves, ending a season that was just as big to Hargrove as the Mariners’ success was to Seattle.

He likened the Indians’ 100-win season – in just 144 games – to the same kind of magic the Mariners experienced in 2001 when they won 116 games. It was a team built around Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Eddie Murray, Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel and Carlos Baerga, and a pitching staff that included Martinez, Orel Hershiser and closer Jose Mesa.

“If we needed a home run to win a ballgame, we got a home run that won a ballgame,” he said. “It was unbelievable the dramatic finishes we had. We were 13-0 in extra-inning games. How unusual is that? We had 28 come-from-behind wins in the ninth inning.

“As a manager, I cannot ever remember a major problem coming up during the season, one where I had to devote a large part of my day to settling. All I did was write a lineup and watch them play. The best thing I did that year was stay out of the way.”

As Wilson and Hargrove begin the 2005 season next week as members of the same team, they will never forget their link to the memorable season of 1995. It reminds them of what they accomplished, but also how far they have come in 10 years.

Hargrove managed the Indians to division championships each of the next four years, plus another trip to the World Series in 1997.

Wilson remained part of a Mariners team that won two more division titles (1997 and 2001), and he made it to the playoffs three more times.

In many ways, Wilson says, it does feel like it’s been nearly 10 years.

“I think about in my personal life, in ‘95, not having any kids then,” he said. “Now I have four children. You think about how much they’ve grown and how our lives have changed in those 10 years. That makes it seem like a long time. But it also seems like it was just yesterday, and there’s an odd paradox in that way.

“That’s what was so magical about that season. Unless you were around, it’s hard to understand the impact it had and how it brought everybody together, the team and the city.

“I don’t know if it’ll ever be like that again.”