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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