The Seattle Mariners are blasting from and/or into the past. On Friday, August 7th, the Mariners have announced they will be hosting a home run derby following their game against the Tampa Bay Rays. While the structure is not entirely clear or perhaps even fully solidified, the list of participants appears to be an entertaining medley of recent Mariners retirees. At the helm in… some capacity, are three M’s legends with ample home run hitting qualifications. Commissioner of the event will be Ken
Griffey Jr., a man be beloved enough to be forgiven blatant title inflation. Captains of what presumably will be a draft structure are Jay Buhner and Nelson Cruz.
The commissioner and team captains will sadly not be hitting. They’ll be selecting from a list of sundry and various Mariners whose careers in the bigs range from a single season to 19 years in the U.S..
- OF Mike Cameron – 278 career home runs
- OF Ichiro Suzuki – 117 career home runs
- 1B/3B Ryon Healy – 69 career home runs
- C/1B/2B Austin Nola – 24 career home runs
- 1B Bucky Jacobsen – 9 career home runs
- OF Stefen Romero – 4 career home runs
- LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith – 0 career home runs
It’s a delight to see several of these players take swings again, with the obvious draw being a chance to watch Ichiro attempt to slug the baseball. It will be, conversely, quite something to watch Hyphen take on his broadcast compatriot Healy, who must be the active favorite alongside Nola, both having the most recent big league plate appearances. Don’t sleep on Romero, though, who was playing in Mexico up through 2023 and hit 96 big flies from 2017-2021 in Japan. Cameron, Ichiro, Healy, Nola, and RRS are all active Mariners employees of some sort, making their participation easier to bank on, and Jacobsen recently announced an “extended leave” from the Chuck & Buck morning show on KJR radio in Seattle to focus on his health. Hopefully this bodes well for his health.
