August 7, 1977 – Yankees 7, Mariners 1
- Sal Maiorana
- Aug 7, 2017
- 3 min read
SEATTLE – A historic day in Seattle as the Yankees won for the first time in their history at an indoor facility. Of course, this was the first season they’d played games indoors with the addition of the Mariners to the American League, and after four straight losses, they finally broke through in the mausoleum called the Kingdome.
The victory actually gave the Yankees a winning 5-4 record on their West Coast trip, but it sure didn’t feel like it had been a positive week and a half, especially measured against the Red Sox who beat the same three teams in all nine games they played, thus knocking New York five games back in the standings.
But at least the Yankees could jet off to Syracuse in a good mood, even though, rather than enjoy a much-needed day off, they had to play a meaningless exhibition game against their Triple-A affiliate right in the middle of a pennant race, a practice that has long since gone the way of flannel uniforms.
What they didn’t know at the time was that this victory would kick-start a tremendous rally by the Yankees as they would go on to win 24 of 27 games to completely flip the script in the AL East.
A six-run explosion in the third inning off Seattle starter John Montague and reliever Bill Laxton decided this one. Willie Randolph doubled, Roy White singled, Thurman Munson singled and Chris Chambliss singled for the first two runs. After a bunt by Lou Piniella – seriously, Billy Martin asked Piniella to bunt, and he succeeded – Reggie Jackson hit a sacrifice fly to make it 3-0. Graig Nettles doubled home a run, and Paul Blair hit a two-run homer.
Mike Torrez didn’t need that much support as he tossed his third straight complete game allowing just six hits and a walk.
For the game in Syracuse, Martin announced that his long lost lefty, Ken Holtzman, would pitch at least a couple innings. Holtzman had pitched in just three games for a total of five innings, since the beginning of July, and he hadn’t been on the mound since July 13. Obviously, the proud veteran was irritated, but he’d kept it mostly to himself and sat back and watched everyone else bitch and complain about their existence with the Yankees.
“I feel I should be trying to earn the money,” said Holtzman. “I don’t think any professional athlete who has played at this level would say he’d rather sit down and get paid. Certainly I want to play. How discouraging is it to come to the ballpark and not play? I’ve reconciled myself to it. I don’t run around looking for someone to complain to. What I complain about to myself and my family is that on the day I signed, they were less than honest about their stated intentions.”
Holtzman had won 157 big-league games during 13 years with the Cubs and A’s before joining the Yankees in 1976. He signed a five-year contract for $825,000 thinking he’d be a fixture in the Yankee rotation. But after going 9-7 in 21 starts with a 4.17 ERA, he did not pitch in the postseason, and then began 1977 in Martin’s doghouse and had yet to escape.
“When they signed me last year, they were the ones who proposed a longer-term contract,” he said. “They stressed that ‘We want you to pitch here a long time. We traded a lot to get you and we want you to sign.’ One of either two things happened: Either this is what they had planned for me and they were not honest with me, or he (George Steinbrenner) doesn’t know a thing about baseball if he expected me to be sidelined five weeks and be effective.”
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