Seattle Mariners unveil Edgar Martinez statue outside T-Mobile Park
Aug 11, 2021, 5:03 PM | Updated: 5:05 pm
Edgar Martinez in front of his new statue outside T-Mobile Park in Seattle. (Photo courtesy of Shannon Drayer/710 ESPN Seattle)
(Photo courtesy of Shannon Drayer/710 ESPN Seattle)
Another Mariners great now has a statue outside T-Mobile Park after an Edgar Martinez statue was unveiled Wednesday, Aug. 11.
Forever immortalized.
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners)
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The statue is on the south side of T-Mobile Park in Seattle, along the street that bears his name. His pose captures what the Seattle Mariners call the “single most famous hit in Mariners history,” known to fans as simply “The Double.” That hit came on Oct. 8, 1995, in Game 5 of the American League Division Series against the New York Yankees.
“Trailing by one run in the bottom of the 11th inning, with Joey Cora on third and Ken Griffey Jr. on first, Edgar drilled a one-strike pitch down the left field line of the Kingdome to score Cora and Griffey for a 6-5 win over the Yankees and a trip to the American League Championship Series,” the Mariners described in a release about the new statue. “It was the culmination of an improbable late season surge that saw the 1995 Mariners come from 13 games back in the standings to beat the California Angels in a one-game tiebreaker and make their first-ever trip to the playoffs.”
The Mariners had already retired Martinez’s uniform number and inducted him into the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
The sculpture was created by Lou Cella, the same Chicago-based artist who made the statues of Dave Niehaus and Ken Griffey Jr., and who has created or co-sculpted dozens of statues of sports figures, including legendary Washington Huskies coach Don James.
