Edgar Martinez News

There are 26 names on the baseball Hall of Fame ballots that were mailed last week to voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, including one we've been waiting for five years to see.

The ballot for the 2010 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame was announced on Friday, andA 26 players will be waiting on the phone call to join the most elite group in baseball.

Walk up to the front doors of Seattle's baseball mecca and you can't miss it. While Safeco Field itself might someday be known as The House the Entire 1995 Seattle Mariners Team Built, the street that runs along its south side is called Edgar Martinez Drive, and for good reason.

Five years after Edgar Martinez's last major-league at-bat - he grounded into a double play off Texas' Doug Brocail, which is like remembering Orson Welles for 1986's "Transformers: The Movie" - Martinez is stepping back into the batter's box.

When members of the Baseball Writers Association of America receive their Hall of Fame ballot within the next week, former Mariners DH Edgar Martinez's name will be on it for the first time.

Ichiro on Thursday won the Silver Slugger award, emblematic of being the best hitter at his position in the American League.

Ichiro, left, and Ken Griffey Jr. slap hands as teammates carry them off the field after the team's 4-3 win over Texas put the final touches on the Mariners' turnaround season.

I've written numerous columns over the years on Edgar Martinez and Cooperstown, and I promise I'll write many more, because the magic moment is coming: Edgar has had his requisite five years out of the game and will be on the ballot for the first time in December.

I loved Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez when they were Mariners, but Martinez was a cut above in many ways.

The day after the World Series is a day I dread, especially if the Yankees win. Denied the anticipation of a real baseball game until April, fans are left to debate the pros and cons of an open-market system that ensures the Yanks can install a highly paid star at every position.

Recent moves created five openings on the Mariners' 40-man roster and it will be interesting to see how general manager Jack Zduriencik goes about filling them.

Let me rewind to the 1995 ALDS between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees.

It has been exactly 14 years and six days since that fateful evening in October when the Mariners toppled the mighty New York Yankees to advance to the 1995 American League Championship Series.

When the Seattle Mariners play at Safeco Field, Will Anderson can often be found selling tickets on the corner of First Avenue South and Edgar Martinez Way.

It's another day at the ballpark for Raul Ibanez, and there's nothing leisurely about it.

You had to be there, exactly 10 years ago today. To really understand how much this city responded when the Mariners made it into the playoffs for the first time in 1995, you had to have been here to feel the palpable shift after 18 years of bad baseball.

Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, better known as "Big Papi", has transformed from just another average baseball player to a superstar, and in the process helped Boston to two World Series Championships .

For the first time since his ailing back sent first baseman Russell Branyan to the disabled list at the end of August, he's back in the swing of things.

David Ortiz is fired up during Game 1 of the 2007 American League Championship Series, in which the Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians on the way to their second world championship this decade.

Jarrett Mentink, Ph. D is off and running on a new adventure. Mentink and his "Kids In the Clouds" publishing company just released a book on Seattle Mariners star Ken Griffey Jr., which is written for children but also contains a good deal of Griffey and Mariners history that older readers would enjoy.