Mike Blowers

Mike Blowers, born April 24, 1965 in Wurzburg, German, enjoyed an 11-year major league baseball career, including three stints with the team he grew up watching and following, the Seattle Mariners.

At Bethel High School, Blowers earned All-South Puget Sound League first team honors as a junior and senior, and he was the league’s MVP as a senior after hitting .411 and belting seven homers. An outstanding athlete, Blowers also lettered in basketball and golf at Bethel.

Blowers played two seasons at Tacoma CC, receiving first team all-league and all-state honors in 1985 after hitting .389 with seven homers. In his one season at Washington, 1986, Blowers earned first team All- Pac-10 Northern Division honors as a shortstop. Starting each of the Huskies’ 48 games, he led the division in all of the “triple crown” categories: batting average (.383), home runs (16) and RBI (59). The home run and RBI totals were school records that lasted 13 and seven years, respectively.

Blowers was drafted three times – including Seattle in the 1984 free agent draft – before signing as a shortstop with the Montreal Expos in the 10th round of the 1986 draft, Converted to third base a year later, Blowers was eventually traded to the New York Yankees and made his major league debut on Sept. 1, 1989, against the Angels. The Mariners made a deal for Blowers in 1991, and after spending most of the ’92 season at Calgary in the Pacific Coast League, he made the 1993 Mariners squad out of spring training as a non-roster invitee.

Blowers set career highs in hits (113), doubles (24), home runs (23) and runs batted in (96) during the Mariners’ magical 1995 run to a division title and a spot in the American League Championship series. That year, he hit three grand slams and drove in 33 runs during August, matching the feat he first accomplished in 1993.

He later played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, again with the Mariners, and finally with the Oakland Athletics before retiring from Major League Baseball.