Back in spring training 2005, the Seattle Times’ Larry Stone put together a long oral history of the ’95 season by talking with a host of players from that year. You can read all of it on the Times’ site, but I’m going to present a few excerpts below, with a focus on perspectives that are unique and probably neglected by Mariners fans as they remember the season.
REX HUDLER, ANGELS INFIELDER: “What happened was, Lach (manager Marcel Lachemann) was not skilled on the motivational side of things. He didn’t have a way of rallying us verbally. He was a hard worker, a very prepared manager — I loved Lach — but he didn’t have the motivational skills, and looking back all these years later, that’s what we missed, someone to say, ‘Don’t worry, guys. We’ll be OK.’ We couldn’t get out of it. It was the nastiest funk I’ve ever seen in baseball. Just my opinion, but we needed our manager to step up, and Lach couldn’t do it. He went into his shell, went into withdrawal. He let us figure it out ourselves. They had Lou, who had been through this before, and he had the intangibles. He knew how to handle his boys. We had a manager who had never been there before.”
LUIS SOJO: “Bases loaded with one out (actually two). The first thing I said, ‘You have to put the ball in play.’ Langston had pitched an unbelievable game, him and Randy Johnson going at it. I said to myself, ‘This is your moment. Concentrate on what you’re doing.’ It was kind of a lucky shot, but it worked. I’ve never heard a place as loud as the Kingdome after that play. We weren’t able to talk for the next 20 minutes.”
REX HUDLER: “That’s the only nightmare that had a hard time going away — that ugly bleeder Sojo hit to clear the bases.”
DOUG STRANGE, INFIELDER: “I still can’t believe I didn’t swing at the pitch. First, I can’t believe he threw a forkball. If it had been one inch higher, I would have swung for sure. … As a player, we were used to tons of people watching us. It’s part of the gig. You’re in the spotlight. But during that at-bat, I remember stepping out of the batter’s box and saying, ‘I can’t believe how loud it is.’ “
DON MATTINGLY, YANKEES FIRST BASEMAN: “The bunt by Cora, that’s the play that stands out for me when I look back. I didn’t get him, but I thought he was out of the (base) line. It was one of those things. He got the bunt down.”
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: “I was so nervous, being on deck, trying to think about every scenario in my mind — months removed from high school. It was crazy. All that stuff was humbling and a great experience.”
