Yours truly spent the week last week in the Seattle area. Now that I have been back home a few days and have semi-caught up on my usual routines, it is time to share my experience attending the Mariners game I attended whilst there.
We took the light rail out to T-Mobile Park on Tuesday evening, September 9th. It was my first time on Seattle’s light rail, but it was not my first time in this ballpark. I attended a Mariners game almost twenty years ago — the stadium still called Safeco Field at the time — watching the action from the left field bleachers. This time around, we were able to get lower-level seats just to the third base side behind home plate.
T-Mobile Park, 2025
It was a giveaway night, and we made a point to arrive early enough to snag a Logan Gilbert Funko Pop. I’ve never owned a Pop prior to this one, but I suppose if I’m going to have one, it’s nice to have one of a baseball player.
Logan Gilbert Funko Pop
And I am a huge fan of having a hot dog while at the ballpark, so we traversed the concourse until we were able to score Seattle Dogs and cans of cider.
Seattle Dog and cider, T-Mobile Park, Seattle, 2025
The game itself proved an exciting one, complete with home runs, a couple stolen bases, a caught-stealing, double plays on both sides, and more. St. Louis struck first, scoring two runs in the top of the second. Then Seattle took the lead in the bottom of the third before the Cardinals tied it up in the top of the fourth. However, the Mariners managed to pull ahead, 5-3, in the bottom of the fourth, and this went on to be the final score for the game. As a Royals fan, it was quite satisfying to watch the Cardinals lose.
Dazzy Vance, 1922 (The Sporting News Archives / public domain)
Charles Arthur “Dazzy” Vance was born on March 4, 1891 in Orient, Iowa. He was the fifth child of Sarah Elizabeth (Ritchey) and Albert Theophilus Vance, a farmer. The family moved to a farm in Pleasant Hill Township in Webster County, Nebraska, near the Kansas state line, when Vance was still very young. While there, he played semipro baseball, and it is believed he earned the nickname “Dazzy” for the dazzling fastball he demonstrated during this time. He then went on to sign with a minor league baseball team out of Red Cloud, Nebraska, a member of the Nebraska State League, in 1912.
Vance bounced around a couple more minor league teams for the next couple of seasons. In 1914, he had a stretch in which he pitched four games in six days and strained his arm as a result. “Something went wrong with my right arm,” he would say. “I no longer could throw hard, and it hurt like the dickens every time I threw.”
In the spring of 1915 his contract was purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He lost his major-league debut on April 16th and was promptly dealt to the New York Yankees. After losing all of his three decisions, the Yankees sent Vance back to the minors.
Vance’s arm injury was confirmed in 1916, and the Yankees ensured that he was given medical treatment. He continued to work on his pitching in the minor leagues, bouncing between a number of teams. Vance reappeared in the major leagues only once for the Yankees, pitching two games in 1918 and earning an abysmal ERA of 15.43 in those appearances. After two more years of traveling through the minors, Vance found himself in New Orleans in 1920, pitching for the Pelicans of the Southern Association.
During his time in New Orleans, Vance played in what would turn out to be a career-changing poker game. According to the story, Vance banged his arm on the edge of the table while raking in a pot and felt an intense pain. When the arm was still hurting the next morning, Vance went to a doctor, who diagnosed an underlying injury that had not been discovered by all the medical professionals who had examined him previously. Surgery was performed, though precisely what surgery remains unknown. Nevertheless, following the operation, Dazzy was able to pitch again painlessly. In 1921 with the Pelicans, he struck out 163 batters and finished the season with a 21–11 record. The Pelicans then sold his contract to the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) in 1922, and this time, Vance was in the majors to stay.
In 1922, Vance produced an 18–12 record with a 3.70 ERA and a league-leading 134 strikeouts. On September 24, 1924, Vance became the sixth pitcher in major league history to pitch an immaculate inning, striking out all three batters on nine total pitches in the third inning of a game against the Cubs. 1924 turned out to be his best individual season, as he led the National League in wins (28), strikeouts (262) and ERA (2.16), earning himself the Triple Crown Award for pitchers and winning the National League Most Valuable Player Award. Vance beat out fellow Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby – who hit .424 that season – for the MVP award.
Vance then pitched a no-hitter on September 13, 1925, against the Philadelphia Phillies, winning 10–1. By the 1930s, however, Vance’s play began to decline, and the Dodgers traded Vance to the St. Louis Cardinals before the start of the 1933 season. He would later play for the Cincinnati Reds before returning to the Dodgers. On September 12, 1934, Vance hit his seventh and final major league home run at 43 years, 6 months, and 8 days, the second oldest pitcher to do so to this day. (The oldest is Jack Quinn in 1930, at the age of 46 years, 10 months and 26 days.)
Vance retired from baseball after the 1935 season. He led the league in ERA three times, wins twice, and established a National League record by leading the league in strikeouts in seven consecutive years (1922–1928). He finished his career with a 197–140 record, 2,045 strikeouts, and a 3.24 ERA.
Dazzy Vance was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. He died of a heart attack in 1961 in Homosassa Springs, Florida.
Dorrel Norman Elvert “Whitey” Herzog was born on November 9, 1931 in New Athens, Illinois. As a left-handed outfielder, he was originally signed by the New York Yankees, but was traded to the Washington Senators in 1956 and went on to make his major league debut with the Senators in April of that year. As a player, Herzog played for the Senators (1956-1958), the Kansas City Athletics (1958-1960), the Baltimore Orioles (1961-1962), and the Detroit Tigers (1963).
After a couple of years with the Athletics as a scout and a coach, Herzog joined the New York Mets, where he went on to become the director of player development. He left the Mets at the end of the 1972 season, thus embarking on his managerial career. Herzog served as manager for the Texas Rangers (1973), the California Angels (1974), the Kansas City Royals (1975-1979), and the St. Louis Cardinals (1980-1990). Over the course of his career as a manager, Herzog led six division winners, three pennant winners, and one World Series winner (the 1982 Cardinals) while compiling a 1,281–1,125 (.532) career record.
Herzog was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans’ Committee on December 7, 2009. Following his induction, the Cardinals retired the jersey number 24, which he wore during his managerial tenure with the club. Whitey Herzog died on Monday, April 15, 2024 at the age of 92.
George Brett, 1990 (public domain / Missouri State Archives)
I have recently started watching the 1985 World Series. It’s something I’ve meant to do for quite a long time and am finally getting around to. Currently, I am two games in, and the Cardinals are leading the Royals, 2-0.
I am fascinated. I have, of course, seen highlights and heard stories about the 1980s Royals, but there is something about sitting down and actually watching full games that is so much more visceral. Seeing guys like George Brett, Frank White, Ozzie Smith, and others in actual game action just makes it all so much more real, and I find myself wishing that full game footage like this existed from the Babe Ruth years.
What’s more, even knowing how this series is going to shake out in the end, I still find myself getting worked up over the events of each game. When the Royals scored first in Game One, I couldn’t help but get excited. When the Cardinals came back to take the lead in the next two innings, I became upset. That’s the power of baseball, I suppose.
On December 28, 1998, Mark McGwire was picked as The Associated Press male athlete of the year for 1998 for breaking Roger Maris’s single season home run record and for helping save the game of baseball. His home run mark not only served to help the St. Louis Cardinals in their season, but also helped to win back fans for the whole sport following the 1994 players’ strike.
In a Players’ League game between the Buffalo Bison and the Chicago Pirates on September 15, 1890, Bison pitcher Bert Cunningham threw five wild pitches in the first inning at South Side Park. This performance established a dubious regular-season record, which would later be matched by Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel during a 2000 playoff game against the Mets.
Cunningham was nevertheless inducted into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 1996.
Bert Cunningham with the Louisville Colonels, 1897 (public domain)
On August 15, 1955, in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Braves pitcher Warren Spahn hit both a triple and a home run, contributing 3 RBIs to Milwaukee’s 12-1 victory over the Red Birds. Spahn also pitched a complete game, giving up only one walk with 8 hits and 4 strikeouts.
On July 30, 1933, Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals struck out 17 en route to an 8-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs. Dean also helped himself by driving in two RBIs in the Sportsman’s Park contest, which was completed in an hour and 42 minutes.
On July 12, 1906, Phillies outfielder Sherry Magee established a franchise record by stealing four bases in a game against St. Louis at Robison Field. In spite of Magee’s performance, Philadelphia lost to the Cardinals, 7-6. Magee’s mark would later be matched by Garry Maddox (1978) and Jayson Werth (2009).
On May 30, 1922, Cubs outfielder Cliff Heathcote and Cardinals outfielder Max Flack exchanged uniforms after being traded for one another between games of a doubleheader. Both ballplayers would both get hits for their new teams in the second game of the Cubs Park twin bill, in which Chicago won both games, 4-1 and 3-1.
Max Flack, 1918 (public domain)Cliff Heathcote, 1918 (public domain)
