October 6, 2001: Seattle Mariners catch the 1906 Cubs with record-tying 116th win

In the fall of 2001, the Seattle Mariners were the biggest story in baseball, bigger even than Barry Bonds’ 73 home runs. The Mariners started the season hot and stayed that way, clinching a playoff spot early. But in the last series of the regular season, a four-game homestand against the Texas Rangers, they still had one team to catch, the 1906 Chicago Cubs, who had won 116 games, more in a regular season than any team in history.

On Saturday night, October 6, the next-to-last day of the season, the M’s caught the Cubs with a 1–0, no-room-to-breathe win over the Rangers at Safeco Field in Seattle.

“No baseball team in history has ever won more games than the Seattle Mariners!” venerable Mariner broadcaster Dave Neihaus shouted into his microphone, straining to be heard over the din of 45,607 fans.

There was a bigger—at least weightier—story involving baseball that fall: What role did the sport have in our lives in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC? Baseball and just about everything else had a September 11 context in some way.1 Mariners manager Lou Piniella’s career was closely linked to New York City. He played for the Yankees for 11 seasons, managed the club, and served as general manager for a short time. “Right now everyone’s thoughts are elsewhere. And rightfully so,” Piniella said just days after the attack. “The commissioner (Bud Selig) made the wise choice of curtailing the schedule. By delaying the restart it’ll give everyone the time to prepare mentally and refocus.”2

“The season is kind of secondary right now. And it should be,” Edgar Martínez, who was born in New York City but raised in Puerto Rico, said. “Everyone is thinking about the people who died in New York and everywhere else. I know a lot of people in New York. I feel for those people going through such a bad time.”3

How it all affected the players and thereby results of games can never be known, but there’s no doubt that the tragedy was on their minds. Piniella, for one, had to juggle the practical matter of resting players for the playoffs, the team’s growing desire for the win record, and the effects of the terrorist attacks.

 “We’re going to get ready for Cleveland [the Mariners’ presumptive opponent in the ALDS],” Piniella reflected after the season resumed. “We’re going to get ready for our first-round opponent. That is assured. Now, do we want to lose our edge and struggle down the stretch? We’d like not to. But are we going to overplay our players to accomplish that? No.”4

For the October 6 game, Piniella rested first baseman John Olerud and right fielder Ichiro Suzuki.5 Seattle and Texas were known for offense that season. Paradoxically, the Mariners won number 116 by getting the best of a pitching duel, and the heavy-hitting Rangers were shut out for the only time all season, denying them a place with the 1932 Yankees and 2000 Cincinnati Reds as the only AL/NL teams to complete a season without being shut out.6

Bret Boone, acquired in the offseason to play second and add more punch to the lineup, accounted for the game’s only run, belting a homer in the first inning off Texas pitcher Doug Davis. He won the AL RBI title with 141, led the Mariners with 37 homers, and finished third in the AL MVP voting.

Davis, 11–10 that year, had his best outing of the year, allowing four hits and pitching a complete game. As well as he pitched, the five hurlers the Mariners sent to the mound were even better, holding Texas to two hits.

Piniella used the October 6 game to line up his staff for the playoffs. Denny Stark, recently up from class-AAA Tacoma, where he put together a Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year season, got the spot start. He threw three scoreless innings, giving up one hit, then gave way to regular starters, Paul Abbott and Joel Piñiero, who each threw two innings. Jeff Nelson pitched a perfect eighth, and Kazuhiro Sasaki sealed the win in the ninth.

From the Mariners’ perspective, the game got off to a solid start. Stark got the first two batters on ground outs. That brought up Álex Rodríguez, who led the AL that year in runs and home runs and, if such a category existed, would have run away with the Safeco Field MVB (most vehemently booed).7

When Stark struck him out to end the first inning, the roar from the stands was deafening.

In the Mariners’ half of the first, Boone hit his home run with two outs. Martínez then singled, and that was half the day’s hitting output. First baseman Ed Sprague and catcher Dan Wilson singled in later innings.

In the second, the Rangers had an opportunity to at least tie the score when Rafael Palmeiro led off with a double and moved to third on Rubén Sierra’s fly to center. But Stark got a strikeout and a groundout to strand Palmeiro.

Seattle made no mid-inning pitching changes, and the cleanly played game took just two hours and 19 minutes.

In the Mariners’ fourth, Sprague singled then Jay Buhner lined out to third baseman Mike Lamb, who made the game’s only error, allowing Sprague to reach third with one out, but the Mariners couldn’t bring him in.

In the fifth, Buhner made the defensive play of the game. With runners at first and third, Ranger Bill Haselman sliced a liner toward the right-field line. Buhner, now 36 years old and in the final year of his 15-year career, went to his knees to make a sliding catch that saved at least one run and, with two outs and runners going, possibly two.

“You have to play your instincts, and it was just one of those deals where I was shading him to right,” Buhner told Tacoma News Tribune reporter Don Ruiz after the game. “I didn’t want to dive. If I would have had to dive head-first out there, you would have had to come get me on a gurney.”8

Piñiero, Nelson, and Sasaki were perfect over the final four innings. Piñiero, who was awarded the win, struck out four of the six he faced in two innings. Sasaki closed the Rangers out to earn his 45th save of the year.

It was plenty loud when Rodríguez struck out to end the Rangers’ first inning, but nothing compared to when Sasaki threw a disappearing splitter to strike him out swinging on a foul tip to end the game. The replay showed Wilson stabbing, glove down for the diving pitch and barely snapping it before it hit the ground. Rodríguez jerked his head around to see if Wilson caught it. Wilson himself had to check; then, he showed home-plate umpire Dana DeMuth as the Mariners’ fans made the ballpark shake.9

“This has been a good education,” Rodríguez said. “It just shows you that it’s all about pitching. They have great pitching and great defense, and they put those things together to have a great team. They don’t do anything to overwhelm you; they just beat you. They’ve invested heavily in their bullpen, and it has paid huge dividends.”10

There was no celebratory scrum after number 116. They still had a game to play to break the record, they still had the playoffs, and in on-field celebration moments since September 11, they had already shown a sense of respectful decorum. They high-fived and offered reciprocal bows to Sasaki, and Piniella fist-bumped the Mariner Moose, but they were already looking ahead.

In the postseason, they beat the Cleveland Indians in the ALDS, but in the ALCS, they lost to the Yankees, who were at least temporarily America’s sentimental favorite.

Piniella put it in perspective for a Tacoma News Tribune story after winning number 115 to break the American League record. “The amazing thing about baseball is that you’re always grabbing for something,” he said. “As a player, as a team, it never stops. After you win 115 or whatever, you have to win 116. If you win 116, then you have to win 117. And then you’ve got to win [in the] first round of the playoffs, second round of the playoffs and the World Series. There’s always something to shoot for.”11

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Refreence.com, MLB.com, Retroheet.org, and the Associated Press.

Notes

1 At Safeco Field, the September 11 attacks meant added security, including bag searches at the gate, more police officers and police dogs, and anxiousness if a plane flew over the stadium. By the October 6 game, the Federal Aviation Administration had banned flights over stadiums. There were patriotic displays and “God Bless America” added to the seventh-inning stretch. On September 13, Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the season would restart September 17. The Mariners resumed their original schedule on the 18th, with six postponed games added at the end. Instead of the regular season ending September 30, it ended October 7. The October 6 night game in which the M’s caught the Cubs was originally a day game set for September 15.

2 Bob Sherwin, “M’s try to come to grips with attacks – ‘The season is kind of secondary right now,’” Seattle Times, September 15, 2001.

3 Sherwin, “M’s try to come to grips.”

4 Steve Kelley, “Balancing Act is Next Piniella Trick,” Seattle Times, September 21, 2001.

5 In its 2001 record season, Seattle was said to be a team without a superstar, but that may have been because they were so well balanced and had so many players performing well. It may also have been because the country was still getting to know Ichiro in his first MLB season. He had been a superstar in Nippon Professional Baseball, hitting .353 over nine seasons. In 2001, he was the American League’s Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player at the age of 27. He led the league in batting average, stolen bases, and hits.

6 The 1932 Yankees only played 154 games while the 2000 Reds completed the full 162. The 2020 Dodgers avoided being shut out, but that season was shortened to 60 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

7 A Mariner draftee who debuted in the Majors in 1994 at the age of 18, Rodríguez was a 24-year-old superstar—and a free agent—after the 2000 season. Mariners fans read some of his statements as a possible willingness to stay with Seattle. When he signed a 10-year, $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers, the biggest contract in sports history at the time, many fans thought all he saw were dollars. When he came to Seattle, they made sure of it, throwing fake bills that fluttered down from the upper deck and booing every at-bat.

8 Don Ruiz, “116: M’s Tie Alltime Wins Record – One More: Mariners Attempt to Stand Alone at Top by Winning Regular Season-ending Game for No. 117,” Tacoma News Tribune, October 7, 2001: C1. Buhner was out most of the season with a particularly painful injury in his left arch. After surgery, he came back late in the season and played in the outfield sparingly, mostly in left. On October 6, he started in his old spot, right field, for the first time that season.

9 “Mariners Win 116th Game of 2001,” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/video/mariners-win-116th-game-of-2001-c25578043.

10 Evan Grant, “Rangers Absorb Shutout Defeat,” Dallas Morning News, October 7, 2001.

11 Don Ruiz, “For the Records: 115! – M’s ascend to top of AL,” Tacoma News Tribune, October 6, 2001: C1.