Here’s a photo from my Dad’s photo album of his youth. In July of 1997 he made a short trip down to San Diego from his native Seattle to visit a good friend of his who was stationed there in the Navy. While he was there he took in at least one Mariners vs Padres game.
The photo didn’t have a date but I was able to start narrowing it down due to the sleeve patches on the Padres jerseys as being 1997 as part of the league-wide celebration in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. Then I pulled up starting lineups from each game that season in which the Mariners had traveled to San Diego. The only result was a short, two game series over July 2-3. So, I narrowed it down to two possibilities. I noticed that the second base umpire in the photo looked a lot like Joe West so I referred to the box score, sure enough he was listed as being the second base umpire for the first game of the series on July 2nd. With Griffey as the only Mariner in the shot, I looked at the defensive lineup for San Diego and saw that the first baseman that night, Archi Cianfrocco, was right handed as was the defender in the photo. The next night would find left hander, Wally Joyner, manning first. So after a bit of research I was able to narrow down the photo to a summer night on July 2, in the midst of Junior’s MVP campaign.
Also notable was that Dad had another photo of Randy Johnson staring right at him in the outfield during warmups. Over the course of the night Dad would see five future Hall of Famers and a slew of legends and all-stars play in the game.
