Griffey Has Game Fit for Kingdome

SEATTLE â€”  The player most responsible for ending the Seattle Mariners’ days in the Kingdome made sure their final game in it would be a memorable one.

Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 27th homer and robbed Juan Gonzalez of a three-run shot with a spectacular, over-the-fence catch as the Mariners defeated the Texas Rangers, 5-2, Sunday before a sellout crowd of 56,530.

“It was great,� teammate Edgar Martinez said. “We’ve been watching him play like that for years. It just amazes me he always comes through in a situation like today. That shows the class of player he is. He’s the best.�

With his father, Cincinnati Coach Ken Griffey, watching from the broadcast booth, Griffey gave the Mariners a 3-2 lead with a three-run homer in the first inning.

“I wasn’t trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark. I just got lucky,� Griffey said during a postgame ceremony on the field.

Then with two men on in the fourth, the nine-time Gold Glove winner leaped over the 8 1/2-foot wall in center to snare Gonzalez’s 395-foot drive for the final out of the inning.

“It was a great play,� Mariner Manager Lou Piniella said. “You could tell by the way he was going back he had it timed. It was just a matter of if he could get to it.�

The Mariners played their 1,755th and final game at the Kingdome before moving into their new home, the $517-million Safeco Field, on July 15. Griffey’s play and Seattle’s 1995 AL West championship run helped gain support for the city’s new baseball stadium with a retractable roof.

Griffey missed Friday night’s game because of a sinus infection and declined to talk to reporters after Sunday’s game. But right fielder Jay Buhner was happy to speak for him.

“It was kind of strange,� Buhner said. “It seems like it was scripted into the whole deal. It was almost like it was supposed to happen.�

The Kingdome’s first sellout crowd of the season watched the Mariners defeat the AL West-leading Rangers for the second consecutive game after losing 14-4 on Friday night.