October 8, 1995: Yankees vs. Mariners

October 3, 1995: O.J. Simpson is acquitted on 2 counts of murder in Los Angeles.

On the same day, for the 1st time ever, a postseason Major League Baseball game is played in the Mountain Time Zone. The Colorado Rockies had won the National League Wild Card in only their 3rd season of play, and host the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the NL Division Series at Coors Field in Denver. But a Chipper Jones home run in the 9th inning gives the Braves a 5-4 win.

In the other NLDS, the Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

For the 1st time in 41 years, a postseason game is played in Cleveland. Tony Peña homers to left field in the 13th inning, to give the Indians a 5-4 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field). It is Cleveland's 1st postseason game victory since the clinching Game 6 of the 1948 World Series -- 47 years.

And after 14 seasons, Don Mattingly finally plays in a postseason game. It is also the 1st postseason game in the history of the Seattle Mariners, not counting the previous night's victory over the California Angels in a 1-game Playoff for the AL Western Division title.

The Yankees win, 9-6, in front of a rapturous crowd of 57,178, the largest paid attendance in the 33-season history of the post-renovation original Yankee Stadium. David Cone gives up 2 home runs to Ken Griffey Jr., but is backed up by home runs by Wade Boggs and Rubén Sierra. Mattingly goes 2-for-4 with an RBI.

October 4, 1995: All 4 series played their Game 2s. The Braves beat the Rockies, 7-4. The Reds beat the Dodgers, 5-4. And the Indians beat the Red Sox, 4-0. Orel Hershiser, one of the heroes of the Dodgers' 1988 World Series run, pitches a 3-hit shutout for the Tribe.

Also on this day, on ABC, The Drew Carey Show airs the episode "Nature Abhors a Vacuum." In it, Drew (playing a fictionalized, less successful version of himself) remarks on the Indians' long-awaited success, "Finally, it's everyone else's team that sucks!"

Game 2 in The Bronx begins at 8:06 PM, with Phil Rizzuto throwing out a ceremonial first ball. It includes the 1st of 44 postseason starts by Andy Pettitte, and home runs by Ken Griffey Jr. and Vince Coleman for the Seattle Mariners, and, for the Yankees, Rubén Sierra, Mattingly (ABC announcer Gary Thorne: "Aw, hang onto the roof! Goodbye, home run!"), Paul O'Neill and, at 1:22 AM, in the bottom of the 15th inning, through the rain, off Mariner pitcher Tim Belcher, Jim Leyritz. Yankees 7, Mariners 5.

It is the 1st postseason walkoff at Yankee Stadium since Chris Chambliss won the Pennant 19 years earlier. It is the 1st time Leyritz is a postseason hero. It will not be the last.

The Yankees lead the M's 2 games to 0, and need just 1 win in Seattle to take the series. 

Also on this day, star football players Kenny Clark and Jabrill are born.

October 5, 1995: A travel day for all 4 series.

October 6, 1995: All 4 series had their Game 3s. The Rockies got their 1st-ever postseason win, beating the Braves, 7-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Back-to-back RBI singles by Andrés Galarraga and Vinny Castilla drove in the winning runs in the top of the 10th inning.

The Reds completed the 3-game sweep of the Dodgers, 10-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. It's been 30 years, and the Reds, once one of baseball's signature franchises, have never won another postseason round.

The other Ohio team also completed a sweep, as the Indians beat the Red Sox, 8-2 at Fenway Park in Boston.

Game 3 of the other ALDS is the 1st postseason game ever played in Seattle. Bernie Williams becomes the 1st player to hit a home run from each side of the plate in a postseason game. But Randy Johnson shuts the Yankees down, and the Seattle Mariners win 7-4, for their 1st-ever postseason victory.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, beat J.P. Stevens of Edison, 16-12 at Jay Doyle Field in East Brunswick.

October 7, 1995: The Braves finished off the Rockies, 10-4. The Yankees want to finish off the Mariners, but But Edgar Martínez has other ideas. He hits 2 home runs, and the Mariners go on to win, 11-8, forcing a Game 5.

The Yankees had now blown a 2-games-to-none lead, and I was thinking, "Uh-oh... " I had little confidence that they would win Game 5.

Also on this day, the Montreal Canadiens have their 70th and final season opener at the Montreal Forum. They will move to the Molson Centre (now the Bell Centre) in January. They retire the Number 1 worn by Hall of Fame goaltenders Georges Vezina, George Hainsworth, Bill Durnan and Jacques Plante, but they retire it only for Plante -- not for Vezina, for whom the NHL's annual trophy for the most valuable goalie is named.

Perhaps the result is poetic justice: Patrick Roy is pulled in the 2nd period after allowing 5 goals, and Les Habitantes fall 7-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers.

It will not be Roy's last shelling in Le Sainte Flannelle -- and it will lead to one of the nastiest "divorces" in the history of North American sport. Eventually, however, they will patch things up, and Roy's Number 33 will be retired by the Habs.

Also on this day, the Boston Bruins play the 1st regular-season sporting event at their new arena, the FleetCenter, now known as the TD Garden. They play the New York Islanders to a 4-4 tie.

Among the college football games played this day

* Number 1 Florida State beat one of their biggest rivals, the University of Miami, 41-17 at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida.

* Number 3 Florida beat Number 21 Louisiana State University (LSU), 28-10 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Number 4 Colorado were upset by Number 24 Kansas, 40-24 at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado.

* Number 5 Ohio State beat Number 12 Penn State, 28-25 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania.

* Number 6 University of Southern California (USC) beat the University of California, 26-16 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

* Number 7 Michigan were upset by Number 25 Northwestern, 19-13 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* Number 8 Texas A&M were upset by Texas Tech, 14-7 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Texas.

* Number 9 Virginia were upset by North Carolina, 22-17 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

* Number 10 Tennessee beat Number 18 Arkansas, 49-31 at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

* And Number 15 Washington were upset by Notre Dame, 29-21 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

October 8, 1995, 30 years ago: The New York Giants beat the Arizona Cardinals, 27-21 in overtime at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands. The New York Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills, 29-10 at Ralph Wilson Stadium (now Highmark Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York. And basketball player Grayson Allen was born.

And Game 5 was played between the Yankees and the Mariners. Joey Cora opened the scoring with a home run in the bottom of the 3rd, to make it 1-0. O'Neill made it 2-1 Yankees with a home run in the top of the 4th. An RBI single by Jay Buhner tied it in the bottom of the 4th. The Yankees had traded Buhner away in 1988, at a time when he had a "lifetime" batting average of .198 and 3 home runs. He had since become a star right fielder -- but then, the Yankees had since had Jesse Barfield and now O'Neill to play that position.

In the top of the 6th, Andy Benes walked Bernie Williams, O'Neill and Sierra in succession. Mattingly hit a ground-rule double that scored Bernie and Paulie, but Benes got out of it with no more damage: 4-2 Yankees.

But in the bottom of the 8th, Yankee starter David Cone ran out of gas. He got Cora to fly out, but Griffey hit a home run off him to make it 4-3. Cone got Edgar Martínez to ground to short, but he walked Tino Martinez. (Tino and Edgar were teammates from 1990 to 1995, but not related: Edgar is a Puerto Rican from New York, and uses the accent mark on the I; Tino is a Cuban from Tampa, and doesn't use the accent mark.)

Alex Rodriguez, then a rookie, was sent in to pinch-run for Tino. Cone then gave up a single to Buhner, and walked Alex Diaz to load the bases. Mariners manager Lou Piniella, a former player for and manager of the Yankees, sent Doug Strange up to pinch-hit for Dan Wilson. Yankee manager Buck Showalter had a rookie in his bullpen, who had been the winning pitcher in Game 2, but refused to bring him in. His name was Mariano Rivera. In all fairness, nobody, not even Mariano himself, knew what he was going to become.

Strange worked Cone for a full count, and then Cone threw his 147th pitch. It was ball 4, and it was Mariners 4, Yankees 4. Only then did Showalter bring Rivera in, and he struck former Yankee Mike Blowers out to end the threat.

The Yankees got men on 1st and 2nd to start the top of the 9th, and Piniella brought in the Mariners' ace, Randy Johnson, and he got the next 3 batters. The Mariners got men on 1st and 2nd with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, but Showalter replaced Rivera with Jack McDowell, and it worked. It was extra innings.

Johnson struck out the side in the top of the 10th -- including Mattingly, in what turned out to be the last at-bat of his career. McDowell didn't let the M's score, either. Johnson, at 6-foot-10 known as "The Big Unit," had been untouchable down the stretch, a big reason why the Mariners came from far back to overtake the Angels for the Division title.

But Mike Stanley led off the top of the 11th with a walk. Pat Kelly was sent in to pinch-run for him. Tony Fernández bunted him over. This may have been a mistake: Showalter was playing for only one run. Which he got when Randy Velarde singled Kelly home. But Johnson struck Leyritz out. Bernie was intentionally walked, and Paulie struck out. Still, it went to the bottom of the 11th with the Yankees leading, 5-4.

McDowell had been one of the top starters of the early 1990s with the Chicago White Sox, but was not a reliever. He gave up a single to Cora, and a single to Griffey. The batter was Edgar Martínez. McDowell got strike 1, then Edgar sliced a double down the left-field line. Gerald Williams, playing left field for the Yankees, threw it in to Fernández at short, and he threw to Leyritz, who was now catching. But Griffey, coming in all the way from 1st base, beat the throw. Game over: Mariners 6, Yankees 5.

*

This, of course, was not only the last game as a player for Mattingly -- although he only said he was taking the 1996 season off, we knew he wouldn't be back for 1997 -- it was the last game as Yankee manager for Showalter.

Team owner George Steinbrenner subsequently moved general manager Gene Michael to an oversight role, hired Joe Torre as manager, and hired Bob Watson as general manager. Watson soon made the trades to bring Mariners Tino Martinez and Jeff Nelson, and Chicago Cub catcher Joe Girardi, to New York. The Last Baseball Dynasty is about to begin.

And that's the 1st reason why it's a good thing that the Yankees lost. If the Yankees had won, they might have beaten the Indians in the American League Championship Series, and they might have beaten the Braves in the World Series. But there was no guarantee of that. And there's certainly no guarantee that, without the changes made in the 1995-96 off-season, the Yankee Dynasty that we know, from 1996 to 2003, would have happened. Seriously: If the Yankees hadn't lost to the Mariners, do you think they would have traded for Mariners Tino and Nellie?

It was more than that: By winning this series, the Mariners saved Major League Baseball in the Pacific Northwest. A ballot measure to fund the building of a new ballpark passed, and Safeco Field opened in 1999. (It was renamed T-Mobile Park in 2018.)

If the Yankees had won, then the measure might not have passed, and, today, the Mariners would likely be playing their home games in Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. At least, with that area's nautical tradition, they wouldn't have to change their name: "Tampa Bay Mariners" would still have made sense, alongside the name of the football team, the seafaring Buccaneers.

The Mariners lost the ALCS to the Indians, and Cleveland had its 1st Pennant in 41 years. The Indians lost the World Series to the Braves, and Atlanta had its 1st Pennant in 30 seasons of trying. Each set of fans had waited a long time, through close calls and many awful seasons in awful stadiums, with sparse crowds.

At least Braves fans had Hank Aaron for some of that. Aside from Bob Feller for the first couple of years of the drought, what did Indians fans have? The young Rocky Colavito, the unfulfilled promise of pitchers Herb Score and Sam McDowell, a Cy Young season from Gaylord Perry, the end of Frank Robinson's playing career, and the too-soon trades of Dennis Eckersley and Joe Carter?

With 30 years of hindsight, it is better that the Yankees lost. Seattle, Cleveland and Atlanta fans had waited a long time for what they got in October 1995. The Yankees would take stock, make the necessary adjustments, and win much more.

It also helped that William Nathaniel Showalter III and Donnie Regular Season Baseball were gone. Buck became the manager of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks, and got them into the 1999 Playoffs, but was fired after 2000 -- and then they won the 2001 World Series. So, again a team won it all the year after they fired him.

In 2014, he got the Baltimore Orioles into the ALCS. This was the 1st time he managed a team into a League Championship Series. But he lost it. He got them to the 2016 Wild Card Game, but screwed it up by bringing in the wrong reliever. And in 2018, they lost 115 games, and it was over for him at Camden Yards. In 2022 and 2023, he managed the Mets, making the Playoffs the 1st year, but losing in ignominious fashion; then falling to below .500 in the 2nd year.

He's managed 22 seasons, and has never won a Pennant.

Mattingly worked on his farm outside his hometown of Evansville, Indiana, until he returned to the Yankees as a coach in 2004 -- in time for the choke against/steal by the Red Sox. He played 14 seasons for the Yankees (1982-95), had 4 seasons as a Yankee coach (2004-07), 3 seasons as a Dodger coach (2008-10), 5 seasons as Dodger manager (2011-15), 7 seasons as Miami Marlins manager (2016-22), and now 3 seasons as a Toronto Blue Jays coach (2023-25).

That makes it 36 seasons in a major league uniform, over 44 seasons, with 4 different teams over both Leagues, for Don Mattingly. Pennants won: So far, exactly none. What will it take before people finally start to take my assertions of "The Curse of Donnie Baseball" seriously?

Would you have traded the 5 Pennants and 4 World Series wins with Tino Martinez for just 1 title with Don Mattingly? I wouldn't.

After that epochal Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS that turned out to be his finale, Mattingly told the media, "I have a hard time feeling bad about it." Mattingly said that, having finished a 14-season career in which he won nothing, except that 1 Wild Card berth, and Yankee Fans still love him.

Just 12 years later, Tom Glavine picked the worst possible time to have the worst game of his career, preventing the Mets from getting into the 2007 Playoffs. After the game, he told the media, "I'm disappointed, but not devastated."

Glavine said that, a year after helping the Mets to get within 1 win of a Pennant, and Met fans, the Flushing Heathen, were so furious at him, it meant that the Mets couldn't re-sign him. He finished his career back in Atlanta the next season.

Glavine said he was "not devastated," and Met fans still hate his guts. Mattingly said, "I have a hard time feeling bad about it," and most Yankee Fans love him, most of them not even knowing he ever said that. Maybe this pair of occasions is a pair of occasions when Met fans were the smart ones, and Yankee Fans were the stupid ones.