From Seattle to Kansas City: A Baseball Love Story
Whenever the Kansas City Royals take on the Seattle Mariners, I feel torn. As a kid who was born in Seattle in the mid-1980s, it was those Ken Griffey Jr.-led Mariners teams that helped me fall in love with the game of baseball.
The first Major League Baseball game I ever attended was in Seattle at the Kingdome in the summer of 1985. That wasn’t a great year for the Mariners, but it sure was for the Royals, who won the franchise’s first World Series title later that year.
I wasn’t old enough to walk, though there’s a chance I was crawling. Let’s just say I was small enough that the wave, a fan “celebration” that some say originated in Seattle at a Washington Huskies football game on Halloween in 1981, frightened me. This was what the wave looked like at a preseason football game last weekend.
Actually, I wouldn’t really call the wave a celebration — it's more like a cheer or yell with everyone standing and waving their arms when “the wave” makes its way to you. If you’re still reading this, you probably already know what the wave is, but I digress.
It was those early years that built my love and appreciation for the game of baseball. The Mariners were a poor organization until Griffey took the league by storm. “The Kid” was an appropriate nickname for Griffey. He always wore his hat backward while chewing bubblegum and had the classic smile he was always flashing at the camera or fans in the stands.
When my family moved from the Pacific Northwest to Kansas City, there’s one game in particular that I remember my parents letting me stay up to watch. It was October 8th, 1995. It was game 5 of the ALDS and it was an elimination game. The Mariners were hosting the Yankees. Everyone hated the Yankees, even my new friends in Kansas City.
Having memories of attending games at The Kingdome, it was fun seeing it on TV during the playoffs. I remembered walking around the stadium, the wave, watching Junior roam center field.
It was an incredible game. The stadium was rocking. Lou Piniella, the Mariners' manager, coached a brilliant game. He even brought in Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson out of the bullpen in the 9th inning and let him pitch through the 11th.
Then it was the heroics of Junior and Edgar Martinez in the bottom half of the 11th inning that still gives me chills to this day. I can still hear Brent Musberger’s voice on the call. In reality, it was hard to hear Musberger’s call because of how deafening the crowd noise was at that point in the game. Griffey scores from first on a classic Edgar Martinez double down the line and the Mariners beat the Yankees to advance to the ALCS.
Unfortunately, that was as far as the Mariners have ever advanced in the playoffs in my lifetime. They have never been to the World Series. They have not been to the playoffs since 2002. This playoff game in 1995 was the best baseball memory I had…. Until 2014.
The Royals converted me. Yes, I had lived in Kansas City since 1991. As any good Royals fan knows, they have not been a very good baseball team over the past 30 years. However, 2014 was magical.
I didn’t think I would ever see a playoff elimination game where I would be so invested as that Mariners game in 1995 ever again. My child-like excitement came right back in the fall of 2014. Kansas City was painted blue in “The Hunt For Blue October."
We all know what happened on that night of September 30th, 2014. The game went so long it actually started in September and ended in October! What a crazy wave of emotions that game took us through, and it was capped off with a walk-off hit by Salvador Perez, who is having a career year for the Royals now in 2021.
The wild ride of the 2014 playoffs and watching the Royals be the first team in MLB history to win eight games and lose zero en route to a World Series was incredible. Starting with the Wild Card win over the Oakland Athletics, then sweeping the Los Angeles Angels, before capping off a series sweep against the Baltimore Orioles. The Angels and the Orioles haven’t been back to the playoffs since.
Though the Royals fell just short of their goal in 2014, losing a Game 7 to the San Francisco Giants gave the team extra motivation heading into their 2015 season, which ultimately ended up with the Royals first World Series title since 1985.
The whole series of baseball events from 1985 to 2015 built to the peak of my baseball fandom. Watching the team and players I grew to know and enjoy winning a championship. Meeting friends from Twitter out at games throughout the playoff runs. Taking my family and friends to World Series games. The run from 2014 and 2015 with the Royals was so organic and fun, it will be tough to ever match how those two seasons aligned with any future playoff runs for the Royals.
With that being said, the Mariners are looking like a team that could make a run at a wild card spot this season. The Royals aren’t there yet, but with the way the minor leagues are shaping up, another run looks to be on the way in the near future. Will it come as soon as 2022? It’s hard to say that with so many unknowns. Could 2023-2028 have a nice window for this next wave of players? That is very possible.
Whatever happens with this next wave of players, hopefully the success they achieve can be enjoyed in the moment by the Royals fanbase. Fans will ideally capture that lightning-in-a-bottle feel like the 2014 and 2015 seasons while hoping the organization's window for success can be sustained for a longer period of time.
There will be a lot of skeptics, but take time to step away from the negativity and enjoy your favorite team when the lights shine on them in the future. You never know when you’ll have the chance to enjoy that feeling again.
