Tears And Cheers Mariners’ Incredible Season Ends

It was a painful change of seasons for the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday. Summer ended, and fall came hard.

Two victories from a World Series, the Mariners finally met an elimination game they couldn’t win, and a 4-0 defeat laid on Seattle by Cleveland meant the Indians were American League champions for the first time since 1954.

“We came so far, played so hard, did so much and came up short,” Mike Blowers said. “There’s disappointment, but no shame.”

In a quiet Mariners clubhouse - where Cleveland’s Eddie Murray shook hands with each player - the sentiment ran heavily in the direction of pride, mixed with the knowledge that the best season in franchise history had ended.

It ended despite another start from bone-tired Randy Johnson, when veteran Dennis Martinez shut down the Mariners offense, and when the pressure finally broke Seattle’s defense.

“We made mistakes, we didn’t hit and we were beaten,” manager Lou Piniella said. “And I am prouder of these kids than I can put into words. They played their hearts out for this city.”

Another time, another summer, the Kingdome finale might have elicited booing from the stands - the Mariners committed one costly error, let two more runs score on a passed ball.

But this was a different season than the Mariners had put together in 19 years of futility, and when Jay Buhner grounded out for the final out of the first postseason in Seattle history, a crowd of 58,489 fans stood and cheered a team that had just lost the American League Championship Series, 4-2.

“Twenty years from now, people may look back at this season and remember it as the year California choked, not the year we won,” Norm Charlton said. “But everyone in this clubhouse will remember the year we had. And we’ll remember this crowd.”

Said Edgar Martinez: “I have never seen such a reaction from a crowd. It gave me chills.”

After beating the Angels in a one-game playoff in the ‘Dome to win their first A.L. West title, the Mariners had taken a five-game Division Series against New York to the limit, then won with an impossible comeback.

And then against a Cleveland team that won 100 games in the regular season - 22 more than Seattle - the Mariners forged a two games to one lead … and lost three in a row.

They lost on Tuesday because an offense that had overwhelmed the Yankees stayed dormant. They lost because Joey Cora threw away an infield grounder. They lost because with runners on second and third base in the eighth inning - and the Indians ahead, 1-0 - catcher Dan Wilson’s passed ball let both Cleveland runners score.

When asked about the game, the Mariners insisted they had lost as they had won all season. As a team.

“We gave it all we had and we got beat,” Tino Martinez said. “It’s hard. We knew what we were playing for, how hard we’d work to get this far, but we got beat.”

“It was a great year for us,” Ken Griffey Jr. said. “Tonight, the fans showed they were behind us - win or lose - and that there’s a good chance they’ll be back for us next year. We learned a lot about each other and about ourselves this season.”It was the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball.”

Pitching on three days rest once again, Johnson threw 107 pitches and, until the eighth inning, was losing 1-0 on an unearned run.

“Everything was put on R.J.,” Griffey said. “He did everything you could ask a pitcher to do, but he can’t win a game when we don’t score.”

Johnson, his left shoulder iced, his face showing exhaustion, chose not to look back over the final hours of the year, instead pointing ahead.

“This spring when we got to camp, we were a team that didn’t know how to win,” he said. “Now we know how to win. We know what it takes - how much it takes. We went further than even some of us anticipated.

“I was hoping I could do it for this team one more time tonight,” he said. “It didn’t happen. I’m no less proud of these guys than if we’d won, though. I know it’s a business, but I hope we can keep this team together, keep it here in Seattle and get a new ballpark.”

For a team that had never finished second in a divisional race, there was pride in having finished a year as the second-best team in the league, in having come deeper into October than many believed possible.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Charlton said. “We weren’t supposed to win the A.L. West - we were 13 games out in August! We weren’t supposed to beat the New York Yankees after they won the first two games of a five-game series. We weren’t supposed to beat Cleveland.

“It’s pretty incredible what this team achieved, and I hope it saved baseball in the Northwest. I know it saved baseball for me. When I was pitching so bad in Philadelphia this season, I almost quit. The last three, four months, I think this whole city had as much fun watching this team play baseball as this team had playing the game.”

Asked to put the year in perspective, Piniella sipped a beer and thought a long moment.

“It was a season where baseball was saved in Seattle,” he said. “Where it looks like we’re going to get a new stadium here for the whole Northwest. Where this city proved once and for all it can be a great town for baseball. Where we started a winning tradition for a franchise that hadn’t had one.”“What this season was, was one hell of a lot of fun,” he said.