Monday, September 21, 2020

On this day; 1996 Mariners-A's game

 

               Last month, I talked about the first Major League Baseball game I saw by myself, five years ago in 2015.  Now I’d like to talk about one from my childhood that happened on this day in 1996.  I actually did have to look up the day and this is actually my first anniversary celebration of it.  Appropriately, it’s on the 24th anniversary.

 

               This was the last game my family saw live in 1996, seen back in the Kingdome.  It was also the third of at least four years in a row when we saw the Seattle Mariners play against the Oakland Athletics, the 1994 one was the Turn Back the Clock game where the teams dressed as the Seattle Rainiers and Oakland Oaks (and according to a different blog, Ken Griffey Jr. and Rickey Henderson shared a glove for the game in homage to the budgets of teams of the 1950s), I’ll be talking about the 1995 one in a couple of days and the 1997 one was the last game of the season.  In a sign of things to come, Oakland’s regular first baseman Mark McGwire played Designated Hitter while Jason Giambi played first base.  Seattle also used recent acquisitions David Hollins and Mark Whiten at third base and left field, respectively.

 

               In the bottom of one of the innings, my Dad, my brother and I decided to go for refreshments.  As we headed down the tunnel, Alex Rodriguez came to bat.  Just as we left, fireworks went off, indicating he hit a home run.  We raced up to see him round the bases, glad, then turned around and started back to the concession stand as Ken Griffey Jr. came up to bat.  We got no further than we did before when we heard fireworks go off again!  Back-to-back home runs!  We ran back up to see Griffey rounding the bases, then went back down as Edgar Martinez came up to bat.  Again, booms were heard!  Back-to-back-to-back, the Mariners had combined for three home runs!  This time we stayed for Jay Buhner’s at-bat.  He flew out, so we expected nothing as Paul Sorrento, the then-first baseman of the Mariners, came up to bat.

 

               We were wrong.

 

               Fireworks went off as Paul Sorrento had hit the fourth home run of the inning, us running back up a fourth time to see them.  While the Mariners didn’t make the playoffs that year, that was a feat I’ve never seen any team do before or since.  It was one of my favorite games I’ve ever seen and I will remember for my whole life the day the Mariners hit four home runs in one inning.  This is also one short of the Major League record, as I found out when the Yankees recently hit five home runs in one inning, which tied the Major League record.

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