October 22, 2001: 116 Wins and No Pennant

October 22, 2001, 25 years ago: Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez hit home runs, backing the pitching of Andy Pettitte, and the New York Yankees win Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, 12-3 over the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium, and take their 38th Pennant.

The Mariners had beaten the Yankees in the 1995 AL Division Series, before losing the ALCS to the Cleveland Indians. Still, it helped to save Major League Baseball in the Pacific Northwest, by convincing people to vote to approve a new ballpark. Safeco Field (now named T-Mobile Park) opened in 1999. In 2000, the M's got back to the ALCS, but, this time, the Yankees beat them.

In 2001, the M's got off to a 20-4 start, and were 9 games ahead of the rest of the AL Western Division. By May 17, they were 31-9, and 12 games up; by June 16, 52-14, and 20 games up. Their fans were going into Internet chat rooms with screen names like "Seattle Mariners 2001 World Champions."

The All-Star Game was set for Seattle that year, on July 10. The Mariners were 63-24, leading the Division by 19 games, and had 8 players selected for the game: Pitchers Freddy Garcia, Jeff Nelson and Kazuhiro Sasaki; designated hitter Edgar Martinez, 1st baseman John Olerud, 2nd baseman Bret Boone, center fielder Mike Cameron, and, in right field, Ichiro Suzuki.

With his first name, and former Mariner ace Randy Johnson's number on his back, "ICHIRO" and 51, he had a cannon of a right arm, and would finish the season leading the AL in batting at .350, hits with 242, and stolen bases with 56.

Though he had played in Japan's Pacific League for 9 seasons, and the game in question was played on his 28th birthday, he was named the AL's Rookie of the Year, and became only the 2nd player, after Fred Lynn in 1975, to win either League's Rookie of the Year and its Most Valuable Player awards in the same season.

On August 5, 2001, the Cleveland Indians accomplished a historic 12-run comeback, defeating the Mariners 15-14 in 11 innings, after trailing 14-2 in the 7th inning. This remarkable victory, known as the "Great Return," tied a major league record for the largest comeback in a game, featuring five runs with two outs in the ninth inning.

But Mariner fans shook it off. The team won its 100th game on September 5, over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, having lost only 40. When MLB paused after the terrorist attacks on September 11, the Mariners were 104-40, and in the 5th game of what turned into a 7-game winning streak. They clinched the Division on September 19, 5-0 over the team then known as the Anaheim Angels, with Jamie Moyer pitching a shutout.

On October 5, they beat the Texas Rangers at home, 6-2, to win their 115th game of the season, breaking the AL record set by the Yankees in 1998. On October 6, they won their 116th, beating the Rangers, 1-0, on a shutout by Joel Piñeiro, tying the major league record set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs.

They could have set a record with a 117th win the next day, but lost to the Rangers, 4-3. Like the August 5 loss to Cleveland, it didn't seem like a sign at the time. M's fans went into the ALDS, also against Cleveland, full of confidence that this would be the year for their 1st-ever Pennant and World Championship.

But the Indians won Game 1 in Seattle, 5-0. The Mariners bounced back in Game 2, 5-1. Then, the Indians won Game 3 in Cleveland, 17-2, one of the biggest blowouts in postseason history. The Mariners won Game 6-2, to send it back to Seattle, where they won Game 5, 3-1. This was the first time all season that they had really been tested. Maybe it would help them.

But the Yankees had been tested time and time again, including coming from 2-0 down at home to take 3 straight ALDS games from the Oakland Athletics. And, having beating the M's in the ALCS the season before, they weren't going to be intimidated by 119 wins (counting the ALDS). After all, in 1998, counting the postseason, they'd won 125, and a lot of those '98 Yankees were still there in 2001.

Again, the home teams fell short in this series. The Yankees stunned the Northwesterners by winning 4-2 and 3-2 in Seattle. But in Game 3 in The Bronx, the Mariners won, 14-3. Game 4 was scoreless through 7 innings, but each team scored a run in the 8th. With 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, closer Sasaki gave up an infield single to Scott Brosius, and Alfonso Soriano then hit a game-winning home run, 3-1 New York.

After the game, the Mariners' manager made a bold statement to the media: "We're going home for Game 6." He was, essentially, making a guarantee. He was tempting the ghosts of Yankee Stadium. He should have known better, because he was one of them: His name was Lou Piniella, and he had played on the Yankees' 1976-81 dynasty.

Game 5 was put away early. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the 3rd inning, with 2 coming on a Bernie Williams home run. Paul O'Neill added a solo homer in the 4th. The Yankees tacked on 4 more runs in the 6th, and it was 9-0.

Yankee Fans chanted, "One sixteen!" "O-ver-RA-ted!" and, for Ichiro -- I'm sure most of them didn't realize it was his birthday -- "SAY-o-NA-ra!" (Japanese for "Goodbye.")

Ichiro went on to collect 3,089 hits in the North American major leagues. This included 2,030 in the 2000-09 decade, to lead all players. And that included 262 in 2004, a new single-season record.

The Mariners did score 3 in the top of the 7th, but the Yankees came back with 3 in the bottom of the 8th, and won, 12-3. For the Yankees, it was their 5th Pennant in the last 6 years, and a tremendous lift for the City of New York after the events of last month.

For the Mariners, it was a crushing defeat. They had tied an all-time major league record with 116 wins, but had totally flopped against the Yankees. They did reach the postseason again for 21 years. With the Washington Nationals winning one in 2019, the Mariners became the only active team in Major League Baseball never to have won a Pennant. The last Seattle-based team to win a Pennant was the Seattle Angels, in the Class AAA Pacific Coast League, in 1966.