Tombstone
Born: November 1976 – Affiliation change from Bellingham Dodgers
Affiliation Change: September 1994 (Bellingham Giants)
First Game:
Last Game: September 4, 1994 (W 2-0, W 4-3 @ Spokane Indians)
Northwest League Champions: 1977, 1980 (Co-Champions), 1986 & 1992
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Owners:
- 1977-1989: Local ownership group of ~30 people
- 1989-1994: Jerry Walker & Bill Tucker
Major League Affiliation: Seattle Mariners
Attendance
Between 1981 and 1994, Bellingham Mariners attendance ranked either last or next-to-last in the Northwest League in every season but one. The exception was 1992 when the Baby M’s placed 6th out of 8 clubs.
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Source: The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (3rd ed.), Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, 2007
Background
Formed in November 1976, the Bellingham Mariners were the first full minor affiliate announced by the new Seattle Mariners expansion team in the American League. Bellingham, Washington sits on the coastline of Washington State, 90 minutes north of Seattle and 90 minutes south of Vancouver, British Columbia. The city had a U.S. census population of 39,375 in 1970, though that number has doubled in the years since.
The Mariners replaced the departing Los Angeles Dodgers, who operated their own Class A Northwest League farm club at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium from 1973 until 1976.
Debut Season
The Baby M’s debuted in the summer of ’77. The Northwest League had a unique set-up that summer. Three clubs with Major League link-ups – Bellingham, Eugene and Walla Walla – played in the “Affiliate Division”. Three other teams without parent clubs – Grays Harbor, Portland and Salem – played in the “Independent Division”. The division winners met in a best-of-three playoff series to determine the league champion.
18-year old outfielder Dave Henderson, the Mariners’ 1977 1st round draft selection and the first player drafted in the history of the Seattle franchise, played splendidly for Bellingham. Hendu hit .315 in 1977 and paced the club in OPS (.981), hits (79), home runs (16) and RBI (63).
21-year old pitcher Greg Biercevicz, Seattle 15th round draft pick in 1977, dominated the Northwest League that summer. He went 11-1 with a 0.90 ERA in 13 starts. Unlike Henderson, who debuted with Seattle in 1981 and became a postseason legend with the Boston Red Sox in 1986, Biercevicz never made it to the Major Leagues.
Bellingham edged out the Walla Walla Padres for the Affiliate Division crown on the final day of the season. In the finals, they would face the massively popular independent club, the Portland Mavericks. Game 1 in Bellingham saw Biercevicz on the hill against Portland’s Jim Bouton, the former New York Yankees 20-game winner and author of the polarizing memoir Ball Four. The M’s teed off on Bouton while Biercevicz continued his dominance in a 6-2 Bellingham victory.
The Mavs took Game 2 in Portland, setting up a winner take-all Game 3 on August 31, 1977. Bellingham got out to a first inning lead and held it, winning 4-2 before 7,805 hostile fans. Henderson, ever the postseason hero, iced the championship with his 17th homer of the season in the 6th inning.
Later Years
Bellingham went on to win three more Northwest League titles during the Mariners era. The 1980 squad was declared co-champions with the Eugene Emeralds after rain washed the decisive Game 3 of that year’s championship series. The M’s won outright championships in 1986 and 1992 as well.
Bellingham produced two future Hall-of-Famers during the Mariners years. Ken Griffey Jr. made his pro debut for the Baby M’s in June 1987. His eventual ascendance to Cooperstown was easy to envision, thanks to his pedigree as Ken Griffey’s son and as the #1 overall draft pick in Major League Baseball that summer.
Harder to imagine, no doubt, for local fans was that an undrafted 20-year old third baseman named Edgar Martinez would amount to anything as a pro baseball player. Martinez played for Bellingham in 1983 in his first summer as a pro. He hit just .173 with no home runs with 24 strikeouts in 104 at bats. But Martinez found his groove in the minors the next summer and made it up to Seattle in 1987. He spent his entire 18-year career with Seattle and entered the Hall of Fame in 2019.
The End
The Seattle Mariners severed ties with their original farm club in September 1994 after 18 seasons. Team owners Jerry Walker and Bill Tucker, who purchased the Bellingham club from its original sprawling group of 30-odd local shareholders in 1989, managed to secure a new player development contract with the San Francisco Giants for the 1995 season.
After the 1996 season, Walker and Tucker moved the club Keizer, Oregon where a new $7M ballpark beckoned. The former Bellingham Mariners franchise plays on today in the Northwest League as the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.
In Memoriam
Outfielder Dave Henderson (Bellingham ’77) died of a heart attack on December 27, 2015 at age 57. New York Times obituary.
Links
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13 Responses
Trying to purchase a copy of the Bellingham Mariners 1977 Program. One was sold on eBay in 2013.
I’m in it.
Any help would be appreciated.
I HAVE A COUPLE SIGHNED BASEBALLS FROM 1977 BELLINGHAM MARINERS ONE HAS THE WHOLE STARTING LINE UP AND ANOTHER HAS IT SIGHNED 1977 BELLINGHAM MARINERS”TO THE LADY I LOVE” (RIZ) ROD??Y AND 9 SIGHNED MIKE MORE ,,DAVID HENDERSON ,ROD CRAIG ,BARRY KNIGHT,RON MU???MAN,BUD ANDERSON,CALVIN KING,AND ANOTHER.HORSEHIDE COVER OFFICIAL NORTHWEST LEAGUE A1010 CUSHIONED CORKCENTER ANCHORED AND BALANCED WINDING BASEBALL.IM WANTING TO SELL IT IF ANYONE IS INTRESTED [email protected] OR (206)376-6811 THE NAME IS A’ZEL TY
Hi Mike, hope all is well. I do have mine and yes you are definitely in it. Great memories. Good luck finding one. Not sure if it’s possible to duplicate a program but I can check.
Rich Kelly
Hi Rich,
Mike Ornest here.
Please call or text me.
310-435-6433
Hi Rich,
More than happy to pay for a copy or just the page I’m on. I would really appreciate it.
Mike
310-435-6433
I HAVE A COUPLE SIGHNED BASEBALLS FROM 1977 BELLINGHAM MARINERS ONE HAS THE WHOLE STARTING LINE UP AND ANOTHER HAS IT SIGHNED 1977 BELLINGHAM MARINERS”TO THE LADY I LOVE” (RIZ) ROD??Y AND 9 SIGHNED MIKE MORE ,,DAVID HENDERSON ,ROD CRAIG ,BARRY KNIGHT,RON MU???MAN,BUD ANDERSON,CALVIN KING,AND ANOTHER.HORSEHIDE COVER OFFICIAL NORTHWEST LEAGUE A1010 CUSHIONED CORKCENTER ANCHORED AND BALANCED WINDING BASEBALL.IM WANTING TO SELL IT IF ANYONE IS INTRESTED [email protected] OR (206)376-6811 THE NAME IS A’ZEL TY
I played in 1977 on the champions Bellingham Mariners. Sure was fun beating those guys in their home town of Portland.
Hi Rudy,
Hope you and your Family are well. I started at Bellingham in ‘77 but spent the season playing at Grays Harbor. Would get a kick out of getting a copy of the page I was on in the Bellingham Program.
My Cell is +13104356433
All the best,
Mike Ornest
Hi Mike
I don’t have one. Wish I did.
I was a young kid living in Spokane back in 1987, my dad took me to a baseball game, it was the Spokane Indians vs the Bellingham Mariners, my dad told me to keep my eye on this new upcoming player named Ken Griffey Jr, somewhere in the middle of the game my dad hands me his glove and says “I’m going to go get us some hot dogs, #24 is coming up to bat, if he hits a homerun over here… you better catch it” my dad leaves and I’m sitting there with my dad’s glove on waiting for Ken Griffey Jr to come up to bat, and he does, he hits a home run, and I caught it! I was so excited, then an older guy with a mullet,lol , that was sitting behind me, reached right into my glove and took it from me, other people sitting in the stands told him to give it back, and he refused, I told him that my dad was gonna beat him up, and he laughed and chuckled and said “what dad kid”. When my dad came back with the hot dogs, he clearly saw that I was bothered, he asked what was wrong and I told him, even the people sitting that witness it confirmed the the situation, and just like I told the man with the mullet, my dad beat him up and retrieved the ball, after the game my dad was able to gain access to the locker room area, Ken Griffey Jr signed my ball, years later when he and his father played for the Seattle Mariners, he signed that same ball again, and his dad signed it as well.
OH MY GOD.
Amazing story! Thanks for sharing.
My brother James Barry Knight was on the 1977 team.I’m not sure how or the game with the Maverick championship games, he was pitching batting practice and got hit with a line drive to the face, but before he left the field he got Kurt Russell to autograph a baseball for me, I’m his little sister. Many years later my kids got my Kurt Russell baseball and lost it.
I remember him getting hit in the face. I did too, in 1978 in Stockton, California broke my jaw in a game by a pitch not a good feeling.