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Washington Senate honors former Mariner Edgar Martinez

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - The Washington Senate has passed a resolution congratulating Edgar Martinez on his recent election to the Baseball Hall of Fame and thanking him for his long, storied career with the Seattle Mariners.

The chamber passed the resolution Monday as Martinez watched with his daughter, Jacqueline.

In his tenth and final year on the ballot, Martinez was elected in January with 85.4 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The election marked a remarkable turnaround for the former designated hitter, steadily climbing in his final five years of eligibility from being an afterthought on the ballot to finding his place in Cooperstown. He's the second player to be inducted under the Mariners umbrella, joining Ken Griffey Jr.

Martinez, 56, retired at the end of the 2004, ending an 18-year career with a .312 batting average, 309 home runs and 1,261 runs batted in.

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