Martinez and Rivera, both part of epic '95 game, could get in Hall of Fame in same year

Mariners legend Edgar Martinez and Yankees star Mariano Rivera could both be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019 -- and both were part of what's arguably the most important baseball game in Seattle history.

Many believe it saved baseball in Seattle.

The game was Sunday, Oct. 8, 1995 -- the day when Martinez hit The Double in the 11th inning of the American League Division Series against the Yankees.

It was, as Mariners manager Lou Piniella told sportswriter Art Thiel, "the hit, the run, the game, the series, and the season that saved baseball in Seattle.”

It may not have happened if Rivera -- now widely considered as the game’s greatest closer and a likely first ballot Hall of Fame selection -- was kept in that game to face Martinez.

Instead, the rookie Rivera was pulled in the bottom of the ninth.

Both teams packed with talent

Yankees manager Buck Showalter thought Jack McDowell -- a Cy Young Award winner two years prior -- was the safer bet against Martinez, who the ABC broadcast team called the league’s best hitter.

Initially the move looked good. McDowell struck out Martinez and made it to the 11th with a 5-4 lead.

Both teams were packed with stars. The Mariners had Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Jay Buhner and others. In addition to Rivera and fellow rookie Derek Jeter (who traveled with the team but wasn't on the active roster), the Yankees had Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, Jim Leyritz, Bernie Williams, Ruben Sierra, David Cone and more.

But the bottom of the 11th belonged to the Mariners and the 59,000-plus fans packed into the Kingdome. Joey Cora singled on a bunt, sliding into first base. Griffey, who was elected last year to the Hall of Fame with the highest voting percentage in history, advanced Cora to third with a single.

Then Martinez -- who had kept the Mariners’ hope alive the night before with a grand slam -- stepped to the plate for the most important moment in Seattle baseball history.

He took a fastball for a called strike. Martinez was waiting for McDowell to throw the same pitch that struck him out two innings earlier.

The Double happened in 11 seconds.

"When I hit it, I thought Junior would get to third, but I didn't think he would be able to score," Martinez told Thiel for his book, "Out of Left Field." "As I got toward second, I saw he was going to try and score. I said, 'Oh!' I'd never seen him run the bases like that."

Late Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus made the call -- one that broadcasting partner Rick Rizzs said was the best in team history.

“Swung on and lined down the left-field line for a base hit! Here comes Joey, here is Junior to third base. They’re gonna wave him in. 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!”

Saving baseball in Seattle 

But why did that moment save baseball in Seattle?

Vinnie Richichi, known to Seattle sports fans as New York Vinnie and who championed the effort to build Safeco Field, explained it best.

That game, which Major League Baseball staff ranked as the 15th all-time greatest, was in "the time between the final losing vote count and the governor calling a special session of the legislature to try to work out a deal to essentially change the result of an election," Richichi told KIRO 7 in 2015.

Less than a month before the game, Seattle voters rejected funding for what became Safeco Field.

That win against the Yankees -- made possible by Martinez’s double -- “saved the Mariners for Seattle as it moved people so much emotionally that not only did they go crazy but they picked up the phone and called their legislators,” said Richichi, who constantly encouraged listeners of Sports Radio 950 KJR to do so.

“I remember a few days later an unnamed Mariners official met with me and asked that I call people off of the Speaker of the House ... he was going to change his mind and allow the special session that would create the funding for a ballpark.”

Without Martinez’s double and that Mariners win, Richichi said, “there would have been no tomorrow for Seattle Baseball.”

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