On the doorstep of a World Series berth over Toronto, longtime Seattle Mariners fans reflect on opening season, shared history

A painful first few years quickly turned into decades of frustration, recalled longtime Seattle Mariners fan Len Zickler.

But for the first time in his life, his team is on the doorstep of its first World Series.

Zickler, now 75, almost couldn’t bring himself to put the possibility into words on Wednesday. Superstition goes hand in hand with diamond die-hards.

“I’m a baseball fan,” he said. “I don’t get too worked up if the Mariners aren’t doing well. And I’ve had a lot of, you know, ‘No need to get worked up if the Mariners are not doing well’ for 48 years.”

As the Mariners started play in 1977, Americans went to the theaters to a watch a movie called “Star Wars” and listened to the soundtrack of disco: “Saturday Night Fever.”

People bought the Atari 2600 to play video games and watched Seattle Slew win horseracing’s Triple Crown.

In Spokane, several thousand people laced up their sneakers to run the first Bloomsday.

The miniseries “Roots” aired on television. And yes, Reggie Jackson’s New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

But perhaps the biggest news of the year was the “alleged” death of Elvis Presley.

That season was also the inaugural season for the Toronto Blue Jays, the team the Mariners must beat twice more to advance to the World Series this year.

For longtime fans like Zickler, it is a chance to realize a dream that has long felt out of reach. Having that berth come on the heels of a thumping of the Canadian club the Mariners have been intertwined with since their shared inception would only sweeten the deal.

While Toronto was able to field competitive teams almost immediately, the Mariners did not boast a winning season until 1991. The Mariners are now seeking the city’s first American League pennant in just its sixth postseason appearance, while the Blue Jays are making an 11th run at it, and sixth in the past decade.

And the Blue Jays already have a pair of World Series championships from back-to-back seasons in 1992 and 1993.

“It was always frustrating for me to see teams like, well, Toronto, specifically, do so well,” Zickler said. “While the Mariners struggled for so long.”

Politically, the late former President Jimmy Carter was in the midst of his first year in the White House, while across the border, Pierre Trudeau, father to Justin Trudeau, was nine years into his first stint as Prime Minister. Toronto street signs, as well as throughout Canada, saw an overhaul while in the midst of the country’s conversion to the metric system.

The Seattle Mariners’ first at-bat came almost eight years after professional baseball first arrived in Seattle. The growing city successfully lobbied for an expansion team in the 1960s, and in 1969, the Seattle Pilots made their debut.

By the next season, the Pilots organization had relocated to Milwaukee, becoming the club now known as the Brewers. Financial and venue woes at the now-torn-down Sick’s Stadium were to blame.

The Seattle Pilots are one of just two franchises in Major League Baseball to relocate after their initial season. In 1901, the original Milwaukee Brewers were sold for $40,000 following a disaster of a season on the field and for the organization’s finances. That club became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, after 50 years in St. Louis as the Browns.

“After years of a successful AAA team in Seattle, and the 1969 disappointment of the Pilots, the region was full of fans but devoid of a team,” wrote Tacoma resident Rick Allen. “But in 1977, those legions got both a brand new stadium and a brand new major league team.”

Allen, who has attended every Mariners spring training session since 1986, is the author of the book “Inside Pitch: Insiders Reveal How the Ill-Fated Seattle Pilots Got Played into Bankruptcy in One Year.”

Like his brothers Rob and John, he is a lifelong fan of the sport. He fondly remembers their card collection, playing Little League and, eventually, selling hot dogs and drinks at Spokane Indians games.

Professional baseball did not reach West of the Mississippi River until the late 1950s, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Like many, that made Allen a Dodgers fan by default – until the Mariners arrived.

One of Allen’s lasting impressions of the inaugural season was the sheer size of the team’s new venue. Construction of the Kingdome began when the Seattle Seahawks started play. It played a major role in securing the Seahawks, which debuted in 1976, and the Mariners.

“It was truly amazing to walk into that gigantic, gray cement structure and find inside a gleaming green baseball diamond in all of its glory,” Allen said. “It was stunning. No matter how well the team did in that opening year, just going inside the Kingdome was part of the adventure.”

The shine would soon fade. Zickler, who was a member of the King County Design Commission from 1986-1990, said improving the dome’s appearance was a perennial conversation topic.

“Because it was the ugliest concrete mess you could ever imagine,” Zickler said. “So we’re trying to color things and plant trees and all that kind of stuff. It was nuts.”

But on the Mariners’ opening day, April 6, 1977, the Kingdome filled with more than 50,000 fans and two professional baseball teams. It was a sight to behold, Molly Schemmel said.

A University of Washington freshman at the time, Schemmel and her sorority sisters snagged tickets, hopped on a bus from the University District to the Kingdome and took in the sights and sounds of opening day.

“Everything was exciting,” said Schemmel, who is Spokane’s designated safeguarding officer for the United Soccer League. “There were so many people, so it’s loud, it’s big.”

Schemmel doesn’t remember much about the game played that day; she had to look up the result to find out it was the California Angels, now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, that blanked the hometown Mariners 7-0.

Attendees received a commemorative certificate proclaiming themselves “First Nighters.” Schemmel’s is still in pristine condition – complete with the stenography of her birth name placed there by a sorority sister upon their return to campus.

Schemmel, who grew up in Spokane, said she has always been a sports fan and roots for the home teams, including the Seahawks, Gonzaga Bulldogs and, of course, the Mariners. Her role now safeguarding athletes in Spokane is a natural fit, she said.

“And I think honestly, having gone to that first game, kind of gives you a little ownership, right?” Schemmel said. “I was there. I was there from the start.”

The 1977 season was unserious for Seattle and Toronto, who finished at the bottom of the American League that year. But a rivalry quickly developed; the Blue Jays fanbase traveled well, and with Canada so close, fans have made their presence known in the Emerald City.

Zickler said the Blue Jays are “particularly frustrating” to Mariners loyalists because of their success, while the Mariners were adrift for more than a decade.

“But the thing that was really irritating is, every time you went to a game in the Kingdome, or at Safeco, or now T-Mobile, when the Blue Jays play, half the stadium is Blue Jays fans,” Zickler said. “They come down in droves from Vancouver. The Canadians really support their Canadian baseball.”

“There’s been some ugly moments between the fans,” added former Spokane Daily Chronicle and Spokesman-Review reporter Mike Murphey.

Murphey’s Mariners fan bona-fides include his work as a local author, as well as a former longtime operator of the Mariners Fantasy Camp, which allowed everyday people the opportunity to suit up and compete as professional stars for a week. His book detailing the life of former Mariners pitcher and Spokane Indians coach Keith Comstock, “The Conman,” won first place in the Sports Category of the American Book Fest’s 2020 International Book Awards.

While he is not as rabid in his fandom as he was when he was younger, Murphey said it has been rewarding to see the Mariners enjoy some postseason success. He arrived in the Pacific Northwest a year after the Mariners inception, but like many longtime fans will say, he quickly grew tired of what appeared to be a lack of leadership from the ownership group.

“The ownership doesn’t have the passion to take that extra step,” Murphey said. That’s what’s always been frustrating for me. Again, it’s thrilling to see it, and I like this group, but it should have happened 20 years ago.”

Murphey’s opinion is a common sentiment among Mariners fans, shared widely after the team faltered in their 2022 postseason bid. It began with a Wild Card win over the Blue Jays, and ended when the Houston Astros swept the first three games of the following American League Division Series.

“It was just kind of years of frustration, because it didn’t seem like they were serious about it,” said Rod Higgins, Spokane Valley councilman and former mayor . “They have a baseball team, a Major League Baseball team no less, but they didn’t seem to want to make them a contender.”

Higgins lived in the Seattle area at the time, and remembers the tangible excitement of the Mariners coming to town. The lack of success “had a natural drain” on the fanbase in the years following, he said.

The Seattle Mariners have changed hands five times since 1977, and for most of those owners, the focus has been on tending the fire, Allen said. The 35-year season ticket holder said stability for the club only came after the Nintendo Group of America took over in 1992.

“Guys bought the team, but didn’t have the money to sustain it and build it up,” Allen said.

By the time the Mariners had their first winning season in 1991, support among Washington locals was dwindling.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays were building momentum towards impending back to back World Series titles, rooted on by an entire country.

In 1995, the Washington Legislature was close to letting the Mariners relocate instead of providing funding for a new venue to replace the Kingdome. Then the Mariners went on an incredible run to clinch a playoff berth, and then a comeback victory in the American League Division Series against the Yankees that included the iconic walk-off double from Edgar Martinez in Game 5 that brought Ken Griffey Jr. home.

Washington state erupted, Allen said. The funding for what would become T-Mobile Park came shortly after.

“1995 was critical, not just because of ‘The Double’ and Griffey scoring, but because, honestly, it saved baseball,” Allen said. “That run saved baseball in Seattle.”

That 1995 run is rivaled only by the 2001 record-breaking season in which the Mariners set an all-time high for wins in the American League at 116 under former General Manager Pat Gillick.

Gillick, himself, is a notch in the storied history between Toronto and Seattle’s ball clubs, leading the Blue Jays to their first World Series title before joining the Mariners following a stint with the Baltimore Orioles. Gillick has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

In their shared history, the Toronto and Seattle ball clubs have traversed very different paths to arrive at the opportunity before them – a berth to the 2025 World Series. The contrasts in success have in large part shaped the respective fan bases, Schemmel theorized.

The support of Seattle fans has been on full display in the postseason, she said. While Blue Jays fans or Detroit Tigers fans are quick to “boo” or share displeasure with their team, the same has not been heard from the Mariners’ crowd.

“If you’ve never been there, you’re just always encouraging and positive and grateful,” Schemmel said. “Because you’ve made it this far, and now you made it this far and so on. It’s just more gratefulness each time.”

Schemmel, as well as Higgins, Murphey and so many other Mariners die-hards, is looking forward to seeing how far the team will make it this time. Zickler said he has started looking into tickets to catch a game in Seattle, if they do make it the playoffs.

Allen’s already secured tickets, he said. Fans whose teams do not end up making it can get a refund.

As for potential opponents, longtime fans are hoping to settle a long-held grudge.

“Let’s play Milwaukee, take them down,” Schemmel said with a chuckle.

“Wouldn’t that be great?” Zickler said.