By 1995, the Seattle Mariners had been losing for eighteen years. They had never won a division title. They had never been to the playoffs. They played in the Kingdome, a concrete dome that leaked when it rained, which in Seattle was most of the time. In July, ceiling tiles fell onto the field, forcing the team to play on the road for weeks. The stadium was, by consensus, the worst in baseball. The team's owners were trying to sell. The state legislature had refused to fund a new stadium. The franchise was on the verge of being moved to Tampa Bay.
Then the Mariners started winning.
Led by Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, and a young shortstop named Alex Rodriguez, the Mariners won their final five games of the regular season to force a one-game playoff against the California Angels for the American League West title. They won that game. For the first time in franchise history, the Mariners were in the playoffs.
Their opponent in the American League Division Series was the New York Yankees. The series went five games. The Mariners lost the first two in New York, then won three straight at home. But it was Game 5 that changed everything.
The game went to extra innings, tied 5-5. In the bottom of the eleventh, with runners on first and third, Edgar Martinez stepped to the plate against Yankees reliever Jack McDowell. The count went to zero and one.
McDowell threw a split-finger fastball. Martinez swung.
Dave Niehaus, the Mariners' radio broadcaster who had been calling games since the team's first season in 1977, made the call: "Swung on and lined down the left field line for a base hit! Here comes Joey! Here comes Junior to score! The throw to the plate will be late! The Mariners are going to play for the American League Championship! I don't believe it! It just continues! My, oh my!"
Junior, meaning Ken Griffey Jr., slid into home plate from first base on a two-out, two-run double. The Kingdome erupted. Players mobbed Martinez. Griffey lay on his back at home plate, grinning, while his teammates piled on top of him.
The Mariners would lose the next round to the Cleveland Indians, and they would never reach the World Series. But the Double did something more important than winning a championship. It saved the franchise.
The state legislature, which had previously refused to fund a new stadium, reversed its position. The public support generated by the 1995 playoff run made the politics possible. A new ballpark, Safeco Field, was approved and built, opening in 1999. The Mariners stayed in Seattle. The team that had been on the verge of leaving had a home, and the moment that made it possible was a line drive down the left field line in the eleventh inning of a Tuesday night game in October.
Dave Niehaus continued broadcasting Mariners games until his death in 2010. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. His call of the Double is the most famous piece of audio in Seattle sports history, and for many fans, the three words that matter most are not the dramatic ones. They are the ones at the end, the ones that sound like a man who has been waiting eighteen years for something to happen and cannot quite believe it finally has: "My, oh my."