ESPN continues MLB Encore Tuesdays, a series of classic game broadcasts, this week at 7 p.m. ET with Game 5 of the 1995 American League Division Series between the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees at the Kingdome in Seattle.
• What you need to know: In the wake of the 1994 strike that cut the season short and wiped out the World Series, fans were unhappy with baseball throughout 1995, with big drops in attendance across the league. Then came this series to reignite everyone’s love for the game. It remains perhaps the most memorable division series ever played. The Yankees won the first two games at home, 9-6 (overcoming two Ken Griffey Jr. home runs) and 7-5 in 15 innings on Jim Leyritz’s walk-off home run. The Mariners won Game 3 at the Kingdome behind Randy Johnson, then took Game 4 on Edgar Martinez’s go-ahead grand slam in the eighth. That set up the decisive Game 5.
Remember the backdrop to the series as well. The Yankees were in the postseason for the first time since 1981, with franchise icon Don Mattingly finally making it to the playoffs. (This would be his final game, although we didn’t know that at the time.) The Mariners were in the postseason for the first time in franchise history and were literally fighting to save baseball in Seattle. (The excitement generated by the season helped the push for public funding for a new ballpark.) It remains the greatest game in Mariners history, and in Seattle, Martinez’s series-winning hit is known simply as “The Double.”
• Did you know? The Mariners entered play Aug. 24 one game under .500 and 11½ games behind the Angels in the AL West, but Seattle would go 24-11 the rest of the way, then beat the Angels in a one-game tiebreaker to claim its first division title.
• The view from the field: “As I was running, I looked around third base, and I couldn’t believe he was about to score on that ball. I had never seen him run the bases that way. It was amazing.” — Martinez
“Hey, we’re all big kids, grown men playing a kid’s game, but when he hit that double and we won, I felt like an 8-year-old, running around, jumping, yelling. We really wanted to win that bad. … You see me sprinting out of the dugout. I don’t know where I’m going, just running.” — Mariners infielder Doug Strange
• One thing you might miss: That’s young Alex Rodriguez running for Tino Martinez in the eighth inning and remaining in the game at shortstop. Note the pause as Seattle manager Lou Piniella appears to be looking for Rodriguez in the dugout when he wanted to insert him in the game. By the way, fun fact: A-Rod was actually the third shortstop used by the Mariners. Luis Sojo started and was lifted for pinch hitter Warren Newson in the sixth inning. Felix Fermin then was lifted for pinch hitter Alex Diaz in the eighth. Rodriguez grounded out in his one plate appearance and was on deck when Martinez ended the game. Bigger point: Even though A-Rod played only 65 games and batted just 208 times over 1994 and 1995, he accumulated an extra year of service time, allowing him to leave Seattle after the 2000 season instead of 2001. Would the Mariners have won it all in 2001 if they hadn’t used Rodriguez as a bench player in 1995?
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• You probably forgot he was in this game: Besides rookie A-Rod, we also get rookie Mariano Rivera coming on in the bottom of the eighth after Yankees manager Buck Showalter had left David Cone in for 147 pitches (astonishing by today’s standards 25 years later). Rivera had a 5.51 ERA that year in 19 games, including 10 starts. But he had been the team’s best reliever in the series, and after closer John Wetteland served up Martinez’s grand slam in Game 4, Showalter was reluctant to go to him in Game 5. So Rivera got the call to try to clean up Cone’s mess. Rivera didn’t yet have his famous cutter, but he did have an explosive upper-90s fastball. After this series, he was no longer a starting pitcher.
• Quote of note: “It impacted people here like nothing else. People who never were Mariners fans became huge fans.” — Mariners president Chuck Armstrong, reflecting on the game to the Seattle Times in 2005