Vermont Mariners

Eastern League (1988)

Background

The Vermont Mariners were a One-Year Wonder in the Class AA Eastern League, born of a shotgun marriage between Burlington’s Eastern League franchise and a rather disgruntled Major League sponsor, the Seattle Mariners.

At the end of the 1987 season, the Mariners and the Cincinnati Reds swapped double-A farm clubs. Cincinnati had sponsored the Eastern League’s Vermont Reds since 1984. Seattle had backed the Southern League’s Chattanooga Lookouts from 1983 to 1987. The move was a win for the Reds, who got to move their Class AA operations closer to home. Seattle, on the other hand, was clearly not psyched about the switcheroo.

“It’s not a real good deal for the Seattle Mariners,” Mariners Vice President of Baseball Operations Dick Balderson told The Burlington Free Press in September 1987.¹Iole, Kevin. “It’s official: the Reds will leave Vermont”. The Free Press (Burlington, VT). September 16, 1987 “I want to make it clear I have nothing against Burlington or Vermont. It could be the best place in the country for a minor league baseball team. But it is too far from Seattle to make it a place where we want to have our team.”

Junior & Omar

So it will come as no surprise that the Mariners lasted just one season in Burlington, Vermont. But it was quite a season!

Midway through the 1988 season, Seattle dispatched the greatest minor league prospect in a generation to Burlington. 18-year old Ken Griffey Jr. officially joined Vermont on July 1st, but he arrived with a stress fracture in two discs in his back suffered in Class A ball earlier that spring. It was mid-August before he was cleared to play but Griffey ultimately suited up for 18 games for Vermont that summer.

Also on the club: 21-year old shortstop Omar Vizquel. Vizquel would go onto become one of the great defensive shortstops in Major League history after debuting in Seattle the following summer at age 22. Among his accomplishments, he played more games at shortstop than any player in history, became the oldest man to play short in the Major Leagues at age 45 in 2012, and won 11 Gold Gloves at the position, second only to Ozzie Smith. Vizquel remains the subject of contentious Hall of Fame debate, though his lack of power and off-field allegations have diminished his odds.

Journeyman designated hitter Jim Wilson finished tied for the Eastern League lead in homers with 17 that summer.

The End

The Mariners finished the 1988 season with the second best record in the Eastern League (79-60). They advanced to the league championship series, where they fell 3 games to 1 to the Albany-Colonie Yankees.

Just as the M’s embarked on their playoff run the club’s departure from Vermont was made official. The Seattle Mariners were not the only folks unhappy to be stuck in Burlington. So was franchise owner Mike Agganis, who originally brought the club to Vermont in 1984 from Lynn, Massachusetts. On September 1, 1988, as the M’s contested a first round playoff series against the Pittsfield Cubs, Agganis confirmed what had long been rumored. He would move his team to Canton, Ohio for the 1989 season where a new $3 million ballpark was under construction.

Local businessman Ray Pecor tried to purchase and relocate an available Eastern League franchise to replace the Mariners in Burlington for the 1989 season, but league officials vetoed the transaction. It would take Pecor five more years, but eventually he acquired the Montreal Expos farm club in the short-season New York-Penn League and pro baseball returned to Centennial Field in 1994 with the arrival of Pecor’s Vermont Expos.

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