Cubs, Mariners and brutal rainstorms

I had a feeling last Saturday would be a strange day when my daughter Jenny went to Safeco Field to root for the Chicago Cubs.

Sure as shooting, it turned out that way. We had the biggest rain storm I've seen in my 68 years in Granger.

The rain and wind were so loud you could barely here the thunder. I'm guessing the three squalls that hit the Valley brought more water than we usually get in a year. They knocked out our irrigation water at the Sunnyside Irrigation District level.

The funny thing was this all happened during the Cubs-Mariners game Jenny was watching in the stadium, and I was watching on TV.

"Well, I hope my losers beat your losers," she texted.

Pat made it home from work during the first aqua attack. She suggested we open doors and let the wind clear out some stale air, but we had to shut them quickly. The rain was falling sideways, in sheets.

The worst of it was the momentary blackouts that accompanied each squall. My computers and TV shut off. The computers came right back on, but the TV, which is on DISH, took about 10 minutes to acquire a signal each time.

I solved that problem by calling Jenny on our cells. Wasn't a problem after all. The Mariners were having blackouts of their own. They lost the game, 5-3, in extra innings.

"Yay, my losers won," Jenny texted.

Jenny stopped by on the way home to Walla Walla on Sunday. We didn't talk about Mariners-Cubs but about the stadium experience. She went to the Dave Niehaus Monument in center field and the Mariner Hall of Fame.

"Dan Wilson was an even better catcher than I remembered," she said.

Yes, those were the days, 1995-2001. Edgar Martinez hit "the double" in '95. Ichiro showed up in 2001 and ignited a season that ended with 116 victories, tying the 1906 Cubs for most in history.

Ichiro won Rookie of the Year and MVP and was one of eight Mariners to make the all-star game, which was played in Seattle.

The 1995 season was the 19th for the Mariners. All of us who witnessed it were so blown away with emotion that we forget they were only 79-66 and squeaked into a AL West first place tie on the last day then won a single game tie-breaker.

The Mariners defeated the Angels 9-1 to make the postseason for the first time in franchise history. In the postseason, they defeated the mighty Yankees in the best-of-five ALDS after being down 2 games to 0.

In the 11th inning of a dramatic fifth game in the Kingdome, Edgar delivered a hit into the left field corner that will always be remembered as "the double." It chased Ken Griffey Jr. home from first base with the winning run, and Niehaus went berserk in a way Mariner fans of that time will never forget.

It's hard to believe that great Mariner run began 18 years ago and that I was only 50. It seems like it happened yesterday. Perhaps it's because I replay those days every time the Mariners start to crumble.

I wonder how Cub fans endure. There's nobody left to remember 1906.