John Marzano died two years ago today at his home in Philadelphia. He’d spent his last three years as a player, 1996 through 1998, with the Seattle Mariners. To help remember him, here are some quotes and anecdotes from his time with the Mariners. With his fairly marginal status as a long-term backup catcher, Marzano was a little like his near-contemporaries Pat Borders and Jamie Quirk, but his personality made him stand out.<\/p>\n
In 1998, when Marzano came in for an injured Dan Wilson for his last stretch of extended playing time in the majors, Lou Piniella said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Put it this way. Marzie was well-rested.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More gently, he added: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He has done a nice job. He calls a good game, handles the pitching staff and is getting sharper each game he plays. What we get offensively is a bonus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
At the time, Marzano said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I know this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to last and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all looking forward to getting Danny back. I mean, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an All-Star catcher. I told him I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just keeping the plate warm.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Earlier, in May 1998, Marzano hit one of his two big-league triples and a double (he was thrown out trying for a second triple on that hit) against Roger Clemens in Toronto, driving in four runs to lead the Mariners to a win. Marzano, who was in the midst of his last and possibly greatest season, said of Clemens: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I caught him for six years and those are some of my favorite memories. But this\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto have a big game against him, to help us beat him\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis as good as it gets for me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Marzano was a realist, but not a pessimist. In early 1998 the Seattle Times<\/em> ran a feature on the friendship of Marzano and Ken Griffey. Marzano said of meeting Griffey in 1996 upon arriving in Seattle: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He started getting on me in practice. I thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHe doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s getting into.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 A lot of people clam up in a situation like that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t clam up. Hey, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m from South Philly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n But Griffey was willing to take the jibes Marzano issued in return. Marzano: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I got here, I expected him to be off limits, the superstar. That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Griffey: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take it serious when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talking about you, because he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take it serious when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about him. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the way he is\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t teach that. He was blessed with a gift to make people laugh.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Piniella said of Marzano: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The players like him, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no question. The chemistry factor is important, but it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the prime consideration. I like the way he handles our pitchers. And with expansion, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tough to find catchers now, it really is.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Lee Pelekoudas, then the Mariners VP for baseball administration, said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of player every team should have. A team needs a guy like him that keeps it loose, that everybody likes. And it seems like his defense is getting better each year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n In late May, 2005, Marzano came down from South Philly, where he did postgame shows for the Phillies and hosted a weekly radio show, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153View From Marz,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to help broadcast some Mariners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 games in Baltimore. He remembered a game on July 20, 1996: it was the last time Edgar Martinez played third base until his final game in 2004. Pat Borders, playing for the Angels, hit a pop-up and, as Marzano explained: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I looked up, then looked at Edgar and he was looking straight at me. I thought Edgar had been indicating I should take it. So I looked back up and then went after the ball, and bang.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Marzano and Martinez both went for the ball and collided: Edgar suffered bruised ribs and was out for about three weeks, returning as a fixture at DH for close to a decade. Meanwhile, Marzano said, laughing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was lying there bleeding, I needed 40 stitches, and everyone ran to Edgar. Only one guy came to me. Junior. He leaned over me as I lay on the ground, my eyelid hanging off, and told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcEdgar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hurt. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re screwed.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p>\n Marzano concluded: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And you know what, those injuries, Edgar missing a month in his great years, it was all for nothing. They had called the infield-fly rule.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Part II: An Old Story<\/p>\n Marzano was coached as a teenager in the late \u00e2\u20ac\u212270s in South Philadelphia by Gabriel Di Feliciantonio, aka Spanky. Marzano\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dad, John Jr., died from a heart attack in 1990, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spanky\u00e2\u20ac\u009d became Marzano\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father figure from that time onward. Spanky said of life in South Philly: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can only be three kinds of things if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re from South Philly: a baseball player, a singer or a gangster. Fortunately, he chose the right one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Recalling days gone by, Spanky said that a 14-year-old Marzano was hit in the eye by a ball while warming up before one championship game. Marzano went to the hospital for stitches but had returned to the ballfield when, with dusk looming and no lights available, the umpires said the game was in its final inning.<\/p>\n Marzano\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s team was down 7-5 with two outs, having loaded the bases for one last shot at victory. The team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weakest hitter was due up: Spanky looked around for a pinch hitter, but there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anyone on the bench. He heard a shout: it was Marzano, running in from the parking lot with the stitches on his forehead breaking and blood seeping out from the wound. He was ready to play, and Spanky ignored the blood and decided to put Marzano in there.<\/p>\n Marzano swung and missed once, then swung and missed again. The blood was running down into his eyes and he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the ball to hit it. But on the third pitch, he swung, connected, and the ball sailed out beyond the right-centerfield fence. Marzano lifted his fists up over his head as he rounded the bases in glory.<\/p>\n Arne Christensen runs Misc. Baseball<\/a>, a blog assembling eclectic items about baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history, and 1995 Mariners<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Marzano died two years ago today at his home in Philadelphia. He’d spent his last three years as a player, 1996 through 1998, with the Seattle Mariners. To help remember him, here are some quotes and anecdotes from his time with the Mariners. With his fairly marginal status as a long-term backup catcher, Marzano […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[298,6193,733,6199,5064,6194,5740,5073,3211,6190,6196,6189,6195,403,6197,6198,2103,1446,6192,6191],"class_list":["post-4371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-anecdotes","tag-backup-catcher","tag-big-game","tag-clam","tag-contemporaries","tag-good-game","tag-john-marzano","tag-ken-griffey","tag-lou-piniella","tag-marginal-status","tag-nice-job","tag-pat-borders","tag-pessimist","tag-playing-time","tag-quirk","tag-realist","tag-roger-clemens","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-seattle-times","tag-star-catcher"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t