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1977-Baseball returns to the state of Washington! Eight year earlier the Seattle Pilots were sold and moved to Milwaukee leaving the Seattle area with no baseball. Not for long because in 1977 The Seattle Mariners were added to the American League along with the Toronto Blue Jays. The first game ever played by the Mariners was against...guess who...yes, the Angels. The Mariners played their hearts out but still they lost the game 7-0 at home in front of 57,762 fans. The next night, facing Nolan Ryan, the Mariners fought there way to a 7-6 victory. The Mariners had a disappointing season ending with a W/L record of 64/98
1978-It takes more than 1 to have a winning season Dispite a devastating 56-104 W/L record 1 of the Mariners stood out, Outfielder Leon Roberts. He led the club with 22 home runs, 92 RBI and a .301 batting average which was far better than any of the other players. Another play stood out but maybe just not as much. Young Julio Cruz led the AL in fld%, helped in 101 double plays, and led the Mariners in walks (69). The interesting part of Cruz's season was that he only hit 1 homerun...and it was a inside the park homerun!
1979-Seattle fans delighted with a Al-Star game The Mariners open the season with a loud BOOM! They came out with a 2 game winning streak but soon fell into a 11 game losing streak which knocked them down to the 6th spot where they stayed for the rest of the season. But the season was highlighted by the All-Star game that was held in Seattle. There was only one representative for Seattle in the game, Bruce Bochte who was at first base. The NL won that year but it was a highlight never forgotten by any player or fan of the 1979 Mariners.
1980-Johnson tells Seattle goodbye On August 4th after Seattle finished 59-103, the Mariners found a new manager. His name was Maury Wills. He Wills was known for being the first Ml player to have swiped 100 stolen bases and so it was no surprised that Mills "secret weapon" was for the Mariners to swipe 64 bases in the 58 games that he managed in the season. *Did you know-On Sept. 25th MLB history was made when the Mariners took on the Texas Rangers. Bump Wills (Maury's son) played 2b for the Rangers and with Maury managing the Mariners it was the first time that a Father/Son were involved in a ML baseball game.
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1977-1980