Thirty years ago this month, Dan Wilson found himself in a squat. As a catcher, this was a professional obligation, not a punishment. What was different about this squat was where it was — in an audio riot unprecedented in his life. The Mariners were completing a 9-1 victory in a one-game tie-breaker against the California Angels. The win gave Seattle its first American League West title, and first playoff appearance, in the club’s mostly dreary 18-year history.
The game was in the Kingdome, which for all of its aesthetic and structural shortcomings, could do things with noise under its concrete roof that probably had military applications.
Here’s how Tim Salmon, the last batter of the Angels’ season, described the moment, cashiered by relief pitcher Randy Johnson, who may never have been more jacked.
“I have never experienced anything that loud,” Salmon told me a few years later. “I was trying to talk to Dan, trying to tell him congratulations. But he couldn’t hear. My ears were ringing. The noise was echoing in my helmet. I took a couple of pitches, but I don’t even know if they were strikes or balls. My one indication I had struck out was the crowd’s roar.”
Wilson was closer to the umpire but he couldn’t hear calls either. His breathing became labored. When the audio wave crested, he jumped out of his crouch and ran to wrap his arms around the Big Unit.
“By the time I got to him, I was out of breath,” he recalled to me. “It was so exciting.”
As you likely know, Wilson has moved on in his baseball career. As Seatle’s manager, he now gets to stand up a lot. And he still gets to celebrate epochal Mariners moments, such as Friday when they and the Detroit Tigers played more innings in a winner-take-all game than any in MLB post-season history. The staggeringly compelling 3-2 triumph in 15 innings over five hours put the Mariners in this week’s American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays — winner goes to the World Series.
Exhilarating as it was for Seattle fans, the circumstances can’t blow past the events of 1995, and not just because the Mariners were favored over the Tigers and enjoyed a first-round playoff bye since they had the second-best record in the AL regular season. In 1995, the moribund franchise was burdened by an ailing stadium (interior roof panels in 1994 fell from the ceiling, prompting a $60 million fix) and a then-questioned marketplace. The club’s relatively new ownership insisted on public financing to help build a modern, retractable-roof facility, or the club would be put up for sale.
The unexpectedly dramatic field events of 1995, including a preposterous opening-round playoff win over the New York Yankees, provoked Gov. Mike Lowry and the state legislature to bend the knee, and Safeco Field opened in 1999 to a warm, stabilizing embrace.
The absence of such off-field stakes doesn’t diminish what has happened in 2025. It does inspire a question as to whether another “Wilson bounce” is in store: Can ownership be moved by this success to climb out of MLB’s vast mediocre middle to sustain contention?
It isn’t necessary to beat the Blue Jays, although getting rid of the 0-for-49 World Series stink would inspire a civic sport-gasm. Wilson himself seems to think the conversion is underway. As the traditional champagne wash began in the Mariners clubhouse post-game Friday, Wilson publicly addressed the team about a perceived breakthrough.
“You’ve changed this team, you’ve changed this organization,” he said loudly, “and you’ve changed that city. Let’s keep going!”
Hardly Churchillian in its eloquence — Wilson is to a good quote what a church organist is to Metallica — the call-out for transformation nevertheless underscores a point that not every top MLB needs has to match payrolls with the Yankees and Dodgers. But they can’t fake it either.
In the past 10 years, MLB has had eight different champions. The only repeaters were the Houston Astros, and they cheated, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose 2020 title comes with a covid asterisk. The Yanks haven’t won since 2009 and won’t this year.
In the only major North American sport without a salary cap, the largest-market teams can operate with a frontier recklessness. According to Spotrac, the Dodgers lead the 26-man active payroll rosters with $268 million. The Mariners are 12th at $129M, Detroit 14th at $107M and Toronto seventh at $160M. While payroll has never been the championship definer, a commitment to risk-taking is mandatory. The Mariners demonstrated that with the trade deadline acquisitions of infielders Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez. Both are on expiring contracts, meaning they could enter free agency in the off-season. The owners need to follow up.
A real test for any Seattle management transformation is the re-upping of first baseman Naylor, 28, who demonstrates a rare savviness for the game. Besides a 3.1 WAR, 20 homers and a .295 batting average in 2025, the 250-pound Naylor stole 20 bases in 20 attempts as a Mariner. The best heist may have been in the second inning Friday when his long stroll off second base went unnoticed by Tigers starter Tarik Skubal, who couldn’t hear warnings from teammates because of the din. After a head-first dive safely into third base, Naylor came home on a sacrifice fly in a uniform caked with dirt from letters to knees. The 1-0 lead looked for a while like it may last deep into the weekend.
What did last was the dirt on his uniform. Naylor left it untouched the rest of the game.
If it can be said that the 2025 team is standing on the shoulders of the 1995 team’s achievements, I’d like the image of the contemporary group to be swathed in Naylor’s unwashed Game 5 uniform. Seattle and the sports world need more dirtbags.
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Great article Art. Loved the Tim Salmon anecdote; having been at that game my ears are still ringing.
As for Naylor, this long time ownership critic thinks our chance to sign him rests with his professed desire to be here, the fact that he is on his fourth team and looking for his last team and the fan love for him. In the end I expect we will sign him in spite of not being the high bidder.
I love Art’s final sentence, “I’d like the image of the contemporary group to be swathed in Naylor’s unwashed Game 5 uniform. Seattle and the sports world need more dirtbags”. I agree fully.