Day Thirty: Jay Buhner
I don't think there has ever been a bigger compliment paid to a Mariner than the amazingly smart and hilarious scene between Larry David's Steinbrenner and Frank Costanza. Here we have a writing team of smart baseball minds giving us comedy on so many levels. The father does not care that the son is dead, he merely wants to berate The Boss about poor trades. And which trade would it be? Why Jay Buhner of course! The single greatest steal that the Mariners have ever pulled off. And Seinfeld gloriously recognizes it. This episode aired in January of 96, so it is post "The Double" and pre Yankees Renaissance. Jay Buhner is looming large in The Capitol of Baseball. Not to mention the fact that he had also just pummeled two giants homers in game 3 of the ALCS on the national stage as well. "He had over 30 home runs last year! 100 RBI! He's got a rocket for an arm!" And it's all true. Bone was all of those things. And Ken Phelps was not. Seinfeld immortality came for several Mariners (former and current), but there was never a more sophisticated doffing of the cap to the squad that had just sent the Bombers home that last October than the great line from one of the greatest Seinfeld episodes, "The Caddy." And Bone was so much more than that, but it all that he was makes so much more sense in reference to the Seinfeld scene. Of course it was Buhner. It was always Buhner one way or another.
I pulled this 1989 Gold Cup card out of a pack purchased at Wheel Leisure (RIP) back in the summer of 89. I was transfixed by the Gold Cup logo on some of these cards and I pinned them all to the wall of my bedroom. I have a Damon Berryhill and this Jay Buhner with thumbtack holes through them to this day. Those were my two favorite cards from this set. And I bought a lot of 50 cent packs that year at Wheel Leisure. Jay Buhner was a fixture on my wall, but in all honesty he wasn't a fixture in the Mariners lineup until several years later. And he didn't become an absolute beast until that fated year of 1995. In many ways, Jay's career is the Mariners. It rises with Griffey, becomes superhuman at the zenith of Griffey's powers, and fades into retirement with the arrival of Ichiro. Basically, if a team didn't have Jay Buhner on the 25 man roster you can guarantee it wasn't historic. He and Edgar are the only ones to ride through the whole thing. No wonder they are basically gods in this town. But like I said, it wasn't until 1991 that Bone got his chance to shine.
Even from those early 25-30 homer seasons, it was clear that Jay Buhner was an all or nothing kind of hacker. He has one of the most iconic and absurdly heavy metal batting stances of my lifetime. He was such a reckless hitter that my dad used to always say that he was perpetually 0-2 (which isn't exactly true, because at his peak Buhner was always a high OBP guy. It's what we tend to forget about those awesome Mariners teams of the 90s. They all took pitches and worked pitchers down. Oh how I miss them.). He sure did strike out a bunch though, that much is historically accurate. But he also hit dingers like an Oakland Athletics beer leaguer. And he wore weird sunglasses, shaved his head, had pine tar all over him, was really hulking, and was Ken Griffey Jr's best friend. He was the heart and soul of the Mariners. And it was his rallying cry in August of 1995 that led the charge to the unlikely AL West pennant that changed our lives.
It is little wonder that Jay seems trapped in the past these days. Why he seems to be the guy they always bring into the booth to talk about the good ol days. Because he was the engine that made that whole thing go. Those were his teams as much as anybody else's and he is a civic and regional, and Seinfeld treasure that no matter how stupid he sounds on the broadcast (like he really sounds like he has no concept of how baseball is played), and no matter how many times he tells us to buy cars or go to GI Joe's Outdoors store, no matter how many anecdotes he gives about playing with Junior, no matter what--he is the fucking man. Bad to The Bone!
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