Seattle's 10 Greatest Athletes
Remember: These performers are being measured only by what they did with Seattle teams. Some of them, had they spent their entire careers in the Emerald City, would rank considerably higher.
Honorable Mention to Seattle Seahawks Hall-of-Famers, who are not otherwise in the Top 10:
Kenny Easley, Cortez Kennedy and Walter Jones. Shaun Alexander should be allowed to join them.
Honorable Mention to Seattle SuperSonics Hall-of-Famers, who are not otherwise in the Top 10: Lenny Wilkens (also the coach of their 1979 NBA Champions), Spencer Haywood, Dennis Johnson and Ray Allen.
Honorable Mention to Lauren Jackson, forward, Seattle Storm, 2001-12. A 3-time WNBA Most Valuable Player and 2-time WNBA Champion, she also won 4 MVPs in her native Australia. The Storm retired her Number 15, and she was named to the WNBA's 20th Anniversary Team.
Honorable Mention to Jack Walker and Frank Foyston, members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, who helped the Seattle Metropolitans become the 1st American-based team to win the Stanley Cup, in 1917.
Honorable Mention to members of the original Seattle Sounders, 1974-83, who were, admittedly, typical of North American Soccer League players in that they were well past their best: Bobby Moore, Mike England, Alan Hudson and Roger Davies.
10. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, Seattle Mariners, 1987-2004. He had a .312 lifetime batting average, was a 7-time All-Star, and led the American League in batting average in 1992 and 1995, and in RBIs in 2000. The Mariners have never reached the postseason without him; with him, they did so in 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2001.
The M's have retired his Number 11, and named him to their team Hall of Fame. Their fans believe he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But his career numbers don't hold up: He collected only 2,247 hits, and only 309 of them were home runs. He was not a good runner. He was not a fielder at all. He was a one-dimensional player.
9. Clint Dempsey, forward, Seattle Sounders, 2013-present. Perhaps the greatest American soccer player ever, he has now played longer with the Sounders than with any other team, scoring 128 of his 467 professional goals for them. He helped them win the Supporters' Shield and the U.S. Open Cup in 2014, and the MLS Cup in 2016.
8. Harry "Hap" Holmes, goaltender, Seattle Metropolitans, 1915-17, with a return 1918-24. He and Jack Marshall, a teammate on the 1914 Toronto Blueshirts and a fellow member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, are the only 2 men to have won the Stanley Cup with 4 different teams.
Holmes, along with Georges Vezina for whom the annual award for best goaltender in the NHL is named, was 1 of the top 2 goaltenders of the 1910s. He won the Cup in 1914 with Toronto, then helped the Metros become the 1st American-based team to win the Cup, in 1917. He joined the brand-new NHL in the 1917-18 season, and won the League's 1st title and another Stanley Cup, with the Toronto Arenas, the team that became the Maple Leafs.
After just that 1 season away, he returned to the West Coast to play out his career. He helped the Metros win the Pacific Coast Hockey Association title again in 1919 and 1920. He won another Cup in 1925 with the Victoria Cougars, the last team from outside the NHL to win the Cup. This team, sort of, moved to Detroit in 1926, and eventually became the Red Wings. He was posthumously elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
7. Russell Wilson, quarterback, Seattle Seahawks, 2012-present. He's been in the NFL 6 seasons, and has reached the Pro Bowl in 4 of them. He was NFL Rookie of the Year in 2012, and on February 2, 2014, at the Meadowlands here in New Jersey, he led the 'Hawks to fulfill their destiny, winning Super Bowl XLVIII.
He got them back into the Super Bowl the next year, and made a mistake: He should have disobeyed head coach Pete Carroll and done a Bart Starr-style quarterback sneak. Had he done so, he'd have back-to-back titles, and be Seattle sports' greatest hero. He still might become that, as he doesn't turn 30 until this coming November, and could lead them to a 2nd World Championship, something no other Seattle sports team has (unless you count the Storm). Oh yes, he's also married to singer Ciara.
6. Gary Payton, guard, Seattle SuperSonics, 1990-2003. A 9-time NBA All-Star, all with the Sonics, "the Glove" led them to the 1996 Western Conference Championship, being named Defensive Player of the Year. Unfortunately for Seattle fans, he didn't win an NBA Championship until 2006, with the Miami Heat.
He is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and, while this has nothing to do with the Sonics, he won Olympic Gold Medals with the U.S. teams at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. He has been working to get the NBA back to Seattle, stating that he doesn't want his Number 20 to be retired by the Oklahoma City Thunder. To their credit, they have not reissued it since the 2008 move. His son Gary Payton II now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.
5. Sue Bird, guard, Seattle Storm, 2002-present. The native of Syosset, Long Island, New York has led the Storm to the 2004 and 2010 WNBA Championships, and is the league's all-time assists leader. She is a 10-time WNBA All-Star, including last season, which ended with her turning 37. She was named to the WNBA's 20th Anniversary All-Time Team. Presuming the Storm survive, they will almost certainly retire her Number 10.
4. Steve Largent, wide receiver, Seattle Seahawks, 1976-89. A 7-time Pro Bowler, he helped the Seahawks to their 1st Playoff berth, reaching the AFC Championship Game for the 1983 season, a feat they wouldn't achieve again for 22 years (by which point they were in the NFC). His 819 catches, 13,089 receiving yards and 100 receiving touchdowns were all records, since surpassed.
The Seahawks retired his Number 80, and named him to their Ring of Honor. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team, and The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999, ranking 46th. Oddly, he was not named to the NFL Network's 100 Greatest Players in 2010.
In 1994, he was elected to Congress from his home district in Oklahoma. He was re-elected until 2002, when he decided to run for Governor, getting the Republican nomination, but losing by less than 7,000 votes.
3. Randy Johnson, pitcher, Seattle Mariners, 1989-98. He might be the last pitcher ever to win 300 games (303, 130 with the M's). He's the all-time strikeout leader among lefthanders with 4,875 (2,162), had a career WHIP of just 1.171 (1.250), an ERA+ of 135 (128), made 10 All-Star teams (5), won 5 Cy Young Awards (just 1 in Seattle), led the league in strikeouts 9 times (4) and ERA 4 times (once).
He reached the postseason with the Mariners in 1995 and '97. He pitched 2 no-hitters, 1 with the Mariners. He became the 1st AL lefthander to strike out 19 batters in a game, then did it again, then became the 1st lefty in either league to strike out 20 in a game.
He was one of the all-time great Yankee Killers, due to his performances in the 1995 ALDS with Seattle, the 2001 World Series with Arizona, and the 2005 and '06 ALDS with… the Yankees. He has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Mariners have not yet officially retired his Number 51. They may be waiting for a dual ceremony with...
2. Ichiro Suzuki, right field, Seattle Mariners, 2001-12, with a brief return in 2018. After 9 seasons with the Orix Blue Wave in Japan, he came to America and set the baseball world on fire with his bat and his arm, winning the American League's Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards. (Despite his being 27 years old and it being his 10th season of top-flight baseball, he still met MLB's definition of a "rookie.")
In 2004, he set a new major league record with 262 hits in a season. He reached the postseason with the 2001 Mariners and the 2012 Yankees, but never won a Pennant. He retired earlier this season, with 3,089 hits. Counting his 1,278 in Japan, that's 4,367, more than Pete Rose, but neither MLB, nor the Elias Sports Bureau, nor the Hall of Fame counts it that way.
The Mariners will almost certainly retire his Number 51, although they may do it for both him and Randy Johnson. Barring doing something stupid like Rose or a revelation that he was once caught using PEDs, he's going to the Hall of Fame, probably in his 1st year of eligibility, which will now be 2024.
1. Ken Griffey Jr., center field, Seattle Mariners, 1989-99, with a return in 2009-10. In 1999, while not yet 30 years old, "Junior" was selected by The Sporting News as one of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and by fan balloting for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He batted .284 lifetime (.292 with the Mariners), with a 136 OPS+ (144), 2,781 hits (1,843) including 630 home runs (417) -- 4th all-time among honest men, including the 2nd half of back-to-back jacks with his father on the 1990 Mariners -- and 1,836 RBIs (1,216), including 8 100+ seasons (7).
He was a 13-time All-Star (10), a 10-time Gold Glove winner (all in Seattle), the 1997 American League Most Valuable Player, and, in 1995, told the Mariners to "Jump on my back," and he carried them all the way to the AL Championship Series, probably convincing voters to approve the funding for what became Safeco Field, and saving Major League Baseball in the Northwest.
Ironically, the new ballpark was, unlike the homer-happy Kingdome, a pitcher's park, and it's one of the reasons he left. In 8 seasons in his adopted hometown of Cincinnati (Number 24 had been retired for Tony Perez, so he switched to his father's number, 30), he and the Reds never made the Playoffs, and they traded him to the Chicago White Sox, and he helped them win the AL Central Division, after 2 AL West titles in Seattle. But he never appeared in a World Series, giving him more career home runs than anyone who didn't.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, with a record 99.32 percent of the vote. The Mariners retired his Number 24, and both they and the Reds elected him to their team Halls of Fame.
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