10 - 8 This Date in Sports History 1995 Mariners - a podcast by Mike Damergis

Both teams finished the strike-shortened 1995 season with 79 wins. The Seattle Mariners were making their postseason debut on the strength of an amazing divisional comeback. The New York Yankees made it to the postseason for the first time since losing in the 1981 World Series, and the only time with Don Mattingly on their roster, as the AL Wild Card. The series featured at least ten runs per game and two extra-inning games. Ken Griffey, Jr. was the star, hitting five home runs. The total number of home runs from both teams at the end of the series was 22, a record for a postseason series despite only having five games.

Griffey also was one of two key participants in perhaps the most iconic moment ever for Mariners fans, DH Edgar Martínez's two-run double in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 5, on which Griffey scored the winning run from first base. The result of the series, and what became known as "The Double", is considered a redemptive moment for long-suffering Mariners fans, and often credited with ensuring that Major League Baseball remained in Seattle.

Seattle's win marked the fourth time in history that an expansion team won its first postseason series, after the New York Mets in their first championship season, in 1969, Montreal in 1981, and San Diego in 1984. Florida and Tampa Bay have since accomplished the same feat.

Even though the Yankees made it to the post-season for the first time since 1981, they were still reeling from having the best record in the American League taken away from them by the strike.[11][12] Yankees Manager Buck Showalter sat in "admitted misery" throughout that fall, as he "ached for Mattingly, the one player he believed deserved a postseason more than anyone else in the game."[13] Mattingly had led active players in both games played and at bats without ever appearing in the postseason then

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