Rivalry renewal
SEATTLE – As rivalries go, the one between the Mariners and Angels got up and went more than a decade ago.
On Monday, the two old adversaries will see if the Angels-Mariners brand still has any juice left.
The three-game series that opens at Safeco Field, with first place in the American League West on the line, might well be the most significant in Seattle between the teams since a two-game series Sept. 26-27, 1995.
That one opened with the Mariners holding a two-game lead with six to play, and closed the same way after a split.
In 1995, of course, the teams waged a race for the ages, when the Mariners stormed back from 13 games behind on Aug. 3 to win the West in a one-game, loser-go-home playoff at the Kingdome. The Angels, you might not recall, had won their final five games, while the Mariners dropped their final two, to force the playoff.
The Mariners’ title, and the electrifying playoffs that followed, awakened a previously dormant baseball fever in Seattle, facilitated the funding of a new stadium, and ensured that the whole operation wouldn’t just up and move to Tampa Bay.
It seemed plausible that the Mariners, with such baseball luminaries as Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner and Alex Rodriguez on the roster, and the Angels, with a solid core in place and the financial might of Disney about to take control in ‘96, would wage annual battles for A.L. West supremacy.
It was not to be. Since then, the Mariners’ fortunes drifted from Sojo to so-so, while the Angels have had a resurgence in the Mike Scioscia managerial reign.
In the ensuing 11 full seasons since the Mariners’ Refuse to Lose miracle of ‘95, the Angels and Seattle have rarely intersected again in the divisional race.
Oh, in 1997 they had a tepid renewal of hostilities, with the Mariners ultimately prevailing for the A.L. West title by a comfortable six games. (To digress, historians might one day look back at the ‘97 M’s and wonder how a team with three Hall of Fame players in their prime – Griffey, Johnson and Rodriguez – plus borderline Hall of Famer Martinez and 40-homer man Buhner, and a possible Hall of Fame manager in Lou Piniella, could lose in the first round of the playoffs, as the Mariners did to Baltimore. Then they’ll look at Bobby Ayala and Heathcliff Slocumb, slap their foreheads, and exclaim, “Aha!”)
In 2002, with Bob Melvin replacing Piniella, the Mariners led the race in the first half before falling to third place with 93 wins, 10 behind division-champion Oakland’s 103. The Angels took the wild card with 99 wins, and then went to a destination that still eludes the Mariners – the World Series, taking out the Giants in seven games.
The Mariners have pretty much sat out the last three seasons, finishing a cumulative 66 games behind the Angels from 2004-06.
But now, to the shock of preseason prognosticators and the befuddlement of number-crunchers everywhere, Seattle is back in the thick of the race.
Shades of ‘95, the Mariners are mounting a furious comeback that has seen them erase most of the eight-game deficit they had on June 22, when a 16-1 loss to Griffey and the Reds at Safeco Field dropped them to 37-33.
Since then, through Friday’s games, the Mariners are 36-20, while the Angels are 28-26. While no one has publicly uttered the famous Buhner battle cry from ‘95 – “Bleep the wild card!” – the Mariners have made it known they prefer to enter the playoffs as division champion. That, of course, necessitates toppling the Angels.
Will it all be enough to resurrect a rivalry that pretty much died after ‘95? Maybe not long-term, but it should make for a highly entertaining September, which will feature one more Mariners-Angels series, four huge games in Anaheim, Sept. 20-23.
“They’re having a good year,” Angels general manager Bill Stoneman said Friday in a phone interview. “The Mariners hit the ball well, score a lot of runs. It’s probably going right down to the wire in this division, as it will in several divisions. It’s a real good year to be a baseball fan.”
Historically, three things can create rivalries in sports – proximity, head-to-head competition, and/or bad blood.
The Mariners and Angels aren’t geographically close enough to work up a good territorial hatred. The only known bad blood courses through the veins of Jose Guillen, who hasn’t overcome his unceremonious ouster in September of 2004 when he crossed Scioscia in the dugout after being removed from a game.
No, this would-be rivalry will be fueled on the field, just as it was in ‘95, to the everlasting anguish of the Angels.
“I don’t know if I’d call it a ‘race,’ ” Garret Anderson, the only player on either team still around, recently told the Los Angeles Times. “It was a ‘giving it away.’ “
Seattle GM Bill Bavasi, who presided over the Angels’ ship as their GM in 1995, would certainly relish the chance to prevail in a role reversal.
Neither Bavasi nor Stoneman made a significant upgrade at the trade deadline. Barring a last-minute waiver trade or a healed injury or two (pitcher Bartolo Colon, catcher Mike Napoli and outfielder Juan Rivera could all be back for the Angels in September), the players on the field Monday will be the ones who decide the ultimate outcome.
If Stoneman’s prediction of a down-to-the-wire race prevails, it will not only nudge the rivalry out of hibernation, but also ensure a memorable September and perhaps October for the fans of both teams.
If that’s the case, then as Rick Rizzs put it so memorably on Luis Sojo’s bases-clearing, game-breaking triple off Mark Langston in the Angels playoff game in ‘95, everybody scores.