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The 1995 A.L. Divisional Series

Yankees-Mariners Playoff Series Helped Save Ailing National Pastime

Oct 3, 2007

Reeling from the previous year's strike that cancelled the World Series, baseball bounced back with a new round of playoffs that gave the game a classic series.

The 1995 Major League Baseball postseason was critical to the health, and perhaps even the survival, of professional baseball in America. The year before had been a disaster for the national pastime. A bitter fight between players and management resulted in a strike that cancelled postseason play for the first time since 1904.

When the game returned for the 1995 season, it was met by a lukewarm response from the fans. Attendance was down, and down a lot. Millions of rooters were on the fence about whether to continue following a game whose caretakers seemed more concerned about dollars and cents than winning and losing. Baseball needed a boost.

Baseball Introduces the Wild Card and the Divisional Series

Enter the new round of playoffs, called the Divisonal Series. Amidst the furor of the turbulent off-season, Commissioner Bud Selig realigned each league into three divisions, and also added a new playoff berth for the non-division winner with the best record. Now there would be eight playoff teams instead of four, and there would be an additional round of playoffs.

Alleged baseball "purists" universally decried the change, saying that it threatened the integrity of the game, and was a perfect example of the players and owners unchecked greed -- a lust for cash that could only be sated by the national television revenue that would be derived from as many as ten additional October games.

So, when the New York Yankees clinched the new playoff berth on the season's final Sunday, some mocked the accomplishment by parodying Russ Hodges' classic call of Bobby Thompson's 1951 pennant-clinching shot heard round the world by proclaiming with a snicker: "The Yankees win the wild card! The Yankees win the wild card!"

But even in the face of all of the cynicism, the new round proved to be an instant hit.

The Yankees Return to the Playoffs and Don Mattingly Finally Breaks Through

It had been fourteen years since the New York Yankees played a meaningful game in October. Not since 1981, when the team fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, had the Bronx Bombers made the postseason.

So when the team clinched a playoff berth, even if it did come via the allegedly bogus wild card route, their fans rejoiced, especially because the Yankees beloved first baseman, Don Mattingly, had finally made the playoffs after spending the first twelve Octobers of his career at home in Indiana.

The Yankees Win the First Two Games at Home

The Bombers prevailed in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium by a score of 9-6 on the strength of big games from Wade Boggs, Bernie Williams and Mattingly, who went 2-4 with a double and 2 RBI. If they could win Game 2, most figured that the team would make it to the next round.

The second game matched the Yankees 23-year old rookie Andy Pettitte against veteran Andy Benes, who had gone 7-2 since being traded to Seattle at the trading deadline. After five and a half innings, the Mariners led 2-1. But in the bottom of the sixth, the Yankees took the lead when Ruben Sierra and Mattingly hit back-to-back homers that sent the Stadium into a frenzy.

After Mattingly's blast into the right field stands, the fans celebrated by hurling thousands of plastic beer cups -- most of them still full -- onto the field below. The scene was so out of control that Seattle manager Lou Piniella pulled his entire squad off the field until the umpires could restore order.

In the top of the seventh inning, the Mariners scored two runs, but a Paul O'Neill home run in the bottom of the inning tied the game at four runs apiece. There would be no more scoring for seven and a half innings and almost four hours -- which included a lengthy rain delay.

Then, in the bottom of the fifteenth inning, as the rain poured down and the clock moved towards 3:00 a.m., Yankee catcher Jim Leytiz punched a high fly ball that landed just beyond the '314' foot sign and into the first row of seats in right field. The home run won the game, put the Yankees up two games to none, and sent the soaking wet crowd into an extended sing-along of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" which blared over the stadium's public announcement system. Chants of "sweep! Sweep! SWEEP!!" bellowed through the Bronx until the sun came up.

Back to Seattle for the Three More Games

The Mariners returned home and beat the Yankees in Games 3 and 4 to even the Series at two games apiece and set up a classic showdown in Game 5 between David Cone and the Game 2 starter, Andy Benes. Going into the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees led 4-2, but then Ken Griffey homered (again) and reserve player Doug Strange walked in a run to tie the score at 4-4.

Neither team scored in the ninth or the tenth innings. In the top of the 11th, Yankees second baseman Randy Velarde singled in a run to put the Yankees ahead, 5-4.

But in the bottom of the eleventh inning, Joey Cora and Ken Griffey hit back-to-back singles. Then Edgar Martinez came to the plate. Martinez had destroyed Yankee pitching all series long, and on the first pitch of the at-bat, he lined a Jack McDowell fastball into the left field corner for a double that scored Cora easily, and prompted the speeding Griffey to blow through the third base coach's stop sign and head for home plate as the Yankees frantically relayed the ball home to Leyritz. Junior arrived just as the ball reached home plate, and slid in safey just ahead of Leyritz's lunging tag.

The Mariners had won, 6-5. The team had come back from a two game deficit to win the inaugural ALDS in classic, indeed almost heart-stopping, fashion.

What a game! What a Series!

The Heroes

Ken Griffey, Jr. hit five home runs in the five-game Series. That record still stands today.

Designated Hitter and 1995 A.L. batting champion Edgar Martinez pummeled the Yankees, batting .571 with three doubles, two homers and ten (10!) RBI in the Series. That is still the record for runs batted in during any Division Series.

Mariners First baseman Tino Martinez, who would be traded to the Yankees just a month later, hit .409 with a home run and five RBI.

Don Mattingly played brilliantly in his first and only playoff series, batting .417 with 4 doubles, a home run, and six RBI in the Series. He retired in the off-season.

When it was all said and done, even the game's alleged purists had to admit that the newly created wild card and Divisional Series were big, big hits.

So much for the purists' opinion.

The copyright of the article The 1995 A.L. Divisional Series in Baseball is owned by James Lincoln Ray. Permission to republish The 1995 A.L. Divisional Series in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.