Mariners Pile It On Seattle’s Most Successful Season Tops Area Sports Stories For Year
The Seattle Mariners are the local sports story of the year.
The American League West champions play 275 miles away, but their unprecedented success won over voters in the annual poll of the sports staff of The Spokesman-Review.
Sportswriters awarded the M’s 13 of a possible 15 first-place votes and 145 of a potential 150 ballot points, far outdistancing the more local but less compelling No. 2 story of 1995.
The runner-up was the rise of the Spokane Arena. The year brought the last gasp of the Spokane Coliseum and the inaugural of the new building.
The Arena story narrowly edged Gonzaga University’s romp to the West Coast Conference basketball championship and its first appearance in the NCAA tournament.
A close fourth was John Stockton’s successful bid to eclipse Magic Johnson as the NBA’s all-time assist leader.
Stockton’s story was embellished in October when the former GU star came back with the Utah Jazz to play an exhibition with the Seattle Sonics. It was the first basketball game in the Arena.
A distant fifth was the Dennis Erickson saga.
The former Washington State coach had a busy year, beginning with his Orange Bowl loss to Nebraska and resignation at Miami.
After joining the Seahawks, Erickson was charged with covering up drug tests at Miami. A drunk-driving episode added to the controversy. Amid reports that the franchise might be relocated, after a terrible start to the regular season, Erickson responded as he always has.
He found a way to win.
U-Hi, WSU and Gonzaga Law grad Chad Little’s string of successes in Grand National auto racing was judged the sixth-best story of ‘95.
Little started the year in last - a provisional starter at the Busch Series at Daytona - but won that race on his way to a series record for earnings, $529,000.
Washington State coach Mike Price made the headlines with a contract extension that, with perks, puts him at $200,000 a year through the turn of the century. The Cougs lost six straight to end the season, but a disappointing year ended with the emergence of freshmen quarterback Ryan Leaf, who engineered an entertaining near-miss in the Apple Cup.
The story is No. 7 on our list.
Dan O’Brien’s world decathlon championship is eighth, followed the Cougars basketball team’s run to the quarterfinals of the NIT.
The lifetime ban of three-time Playfair riding champ Scott Bergsrud rated No. 10.
North Central High School’s stirring run to the state volleyball championship and ex-WSU quarterback Drew Bledsoe’s landmark $42 million contract extensions with New England were narrow misses.
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