May 11, 1977 – Mariners 5, Yankees 2

SEATTLE – The Yankees got their first look at the expansion Mariners’ home ballpark, the Kingdome, which was as drab when it opened in 1976 for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks as it was when it was mercifully imploded in 2000.

I have a few remembrances of the place, and none of them are happy. The Kingdome was the site of O.J. Simpson’s final game as a member of the Buffalo Bills in 1977. The two-year-old Seahawks blew out the Bills 56-17, Simpson suffered a season-ending knee injury in the game, and the following year he was traded to San Francisco.

I covered two Bills games there, a 26-18 loss in 1996, a game in which Jim Kelly was sacked six times and called out his offensive line afterward; and a 26-16 loss in 1999 with Doug Flutie tossing a pair of damaging interceptions.

And as for baseball, I will always remember the Kingdome as being the place where the Yankees 1995 season came to an end when Seattle’s rising superstar, Ken Griffey, scored the winning run in the 11th inning of the decisive Game 5 in the divisional series. It was the Yankees’ first postseason appearance since 1981, and the only playoff series Don Mattingly ever played in. Needless to say, it wasn’t supposed to end for Mattingly at the Kingdome, but it did. He retired in the offseason, and wouldn’t you know it, the Yankees won the 1996 World Series. Yeah, the Kingdome wasn’t a place I thought too highly of.

The Yankees sure took a liking to the place in the first inning of this game when Mickey Rivers singled, stole second, and trotted home on a mammoth two-run blast to right-center by Reggie Jackson. But for the rest of the night, the Yankees managed just six hits, did not score, and Seattle snapped its seven-game losing streak in earning its first franchise victory over New York, a week after being swept three straight at Yankee Stadium.

In the seventh, more sloppy fielding cost the Yankees. Holtzman yielded a single and a walk, so Martin yanked him in favor of Sparky Lyle. After a grounder moved the runners to second and third, Jose Baez hit a pop fly into left-center that should have been caught for the third out. Instead, the ball dropped between Rivers and Bucky Dent as both runners scored.

Among the Yankees struggling on this night was Thurman Munson, who saw his 16-game hitting streak ended by Seattle starter Glenn Abbott and relievers Bill Laxton and Enrique Romo.

The daily baseball report

#ReggieJackson #MickeyRivers #KenHoltzman