Baseball's Greatest Series: Yankees, Mariners, and the 1995 Matchup That Changed History

8. Game 3: Playoff Baseball in Seattle [Contains Image Plates]

153 8 Game 3: Playoff Baseball in Seattle “25 Yanks Can’t Beat Our Johnson.” —Sign held by a Mariner’s fan in the Kingdome during Game 3 Two days later, people were still talking about Game 2 and wondering if there was any way the rest of the series could possibly live up to what had occurred in New York. The first two games had been a war on the field. Now the war spilled into the front offices. George Steinbrenner, already in trouble for his remarks about the umpiring in Games 1 and 2, now took shots at a different target: Mariners team CEO John Ellis. “I have trouble with Seattle owner John Ellis,” Steinbrenner told the New York Daily News before Game 3. “He’s the one crying poverty and saying he has to have revenue sharing to survive out there. Then he goes and adds $5 million [Andy Benes and Vince Coleman] to a payroll. Who’s he kidding? I’m supposed to help him when he has a payroll of $34 million?”1 “That’s a classic,” Ellis fired back. “George operates on emotion and spur of the moment. He can be a very charming guy, but when he puts on his game face, who knows what he’ll say? He can say what he wants, but what I’m saying is ‘Hey, look what’s happening here.’ We’ve 154 • BASEBALL’S GREATEST SERIES been told Seattle would never make it because we aren’t a baseball town. Look what happens when you put a competitive team on the field. But he’s a guest in our city this week, so I’m not gonna fight with him.”2 Steinbrenner had never shied away from fights with players, managers, umpires, or even commissioners. But openly feuding with a fellow owner was a new element to his game. It’s questionable whether The Boss would have ever said an unkind word about Ellis had their teams not been duking it out in the playoffs. A tense relationship between the two management sides was only made worse by the actions of one Yankees employee. Mariners president Chuck Armstrong had reserved a suite for Steinbrenner and his entourage for Games 3, 4, and 5 at the Kingdome. Upon being informed of this, a Yankees executive allegedly replied, “That’s OK—we’ll just need the one night,” meaning, of course, that he fully expected the Yankees to win Game 3 and sweep the series. It was a comment that quickly spread around the Mariners’ clubhouse.3 The Seattle fans also did their best to stir up emotions. They had waited years for this moment and they flooded the Kingdome that Friday night still carrying the energy and enthusiasm from Monday’s victory over the Angels. In less than a month, Seattle had gone from a Seahawks town to a baseball city. It was an amazing, stunning transformation , especially having occurred in so short a time. Just three weeks earlier, the Mariners had played a home game against the Twins before only 16,469 people. Now, they were the hottest ticket in the Pacific Northwest. “It’s amazing how far we have come,” said Mariners fan Terry Donalds, as he sat in his seat preparing for Game 3. “A couple of weeks or so ago, we were only talking about the wildcard.”4 “We’re gonna be there for the World Series,” said another Mariners fan Bob Zurbrugg. “They’ve proven themselves, and we’re gonna build them a stadium too.”5 “Notre Dame is in town to play the Huskies [today] and no one is talking about it,” said Dave Niehaus before Game 3. “Notre Dame and the Huskies are playing and everyone is talking about the Mariners. How amazing is that?”6 Yelling and screaming, 57,944 people were rocking inside the Kingdome. It was the largest crowd ever to see a Mariners game in Seattle.7 Even being down 2–0 in the series could not dampen their spirits. The Kingdome, in fact, was laden with banners. “I will always remember that,” said Mike Stanley. “There were just banners and GAME 3: PLAYOFF BASEBALL IN SEATTLE • 155 signs everywhere.”8 Banners were in the lower level, they were in the middle level, they were in the upper deck, and they were taped to the concrete walls of the stadium. One of the...