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Thank you, University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley, for providing this book for review consideration in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished You Gotta Love These Guys: Fifty Years of Seattle Mariners Baseball by David F. Schmitz.
The book is scheduled to be published on November 1, 2026.
You Gotta Love These Guys provides an excellent look at the history of the Seattle Mariners, covering not only what happened on the field but also the ownership decisions, financial difficulties and stadium issues that shaped the franchise over its first fifty years.
The book begins well before the Mariners entered the American League in 1977. It examines Seattle’s baseball history, including its years as a minor league city, the arrival of the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and their departure for Milwaukee after just one season. This background helps explain the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Mariners and the challenges the new franchise faced.
One of the book’s most interesting stories involves the selection of Ken Griffey Jr. with the first overall pick in the 1987 draft. Looking back at Griffey’s all-time great career, it might seem that choosing him was an obvious decision. But that was hardly the case. Owner George Argyros preferred college pitcher Mike Harkey, who was expected to reach the majors sooner and would likely be less expensive to sign. General manager Dick Balderson and scouting director Roger Jongewaard were determined to select Griffey, even at the risk of losing their jobs.
Even after Argyros agreed on Griffey, the Mariners almost lost out on the best player in franchise history the day before the draft. Argyros only wanted to spend $140,000 while the Griffeys were asking for $200,000. Acting CEO and team president Chuck Armstrong, who was handling the negotiations, explained to the Griffeys that, since the team was in a trust at that time, he could only go to $160,000 and they had an hour to accept or the team would move on to their next choice. After the Griffeys called Armstrong back, Argyros insisted that they had to have it in writing. Armstrong told him that the family’s word was good and “We’re going to do this.”
Their persistence helped change the course of Mariners history.
Another important turning point came with the hiring of Lou Piniella as manager. Piniella was initially reluctant to take the job, particularly because of Seattle’s distance from his home in Tampa and the franchise’s history of losing. The book recounts how the Mariners persuaded him to accept the challenge and how his arrival helped transform the team.
The 1995 season receives particular attention, and deservedly so. The Mariners’ remarkable late-season run and postseason success did more than provide Seattle fans with unforgettable baseball memories. They helped save the franchise’s future in the city at a time when their future in Seattle was on life support. The Mariners needed that run to generate the political support for the legislature to provide the funds for the building of what was then called Safeco Field. Without that, it is almost certain the team would have made, most likely to Tampa Bay.
The book also covers the extraordinary 2001 season, when the Mariners won 116 games despite having lost Griffey and Alex Rodriguez in successive offseasons, along with the subsequent disappointments and the franchise’s eventual return to postseason contention.
What makes this book particularly successful is that it does not simply move from season to season, recounting wins, losses and individual accomplishments. It places those events within the larger history of the organization, showing how decisions made away from the field could be just as important as what happened during games.
You Gotta Love These Guys is an excellent history of the Mariners and a valuable addition to the literature on baseball franchise history.
Mr. Book gave this an A. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews and Mr. Baseball History’s Substack.
Mr. Book finished reading this on October 20, 2026.
