Life as Edgar Martinez’s teammate: A conversation with Mike Blowers

From day one of covering the Mariners I have been fortunate to have the very best possible resource available to me almost 24/7, and that is Mike Blowers.

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From sitting next to him in the press box in the early days and having him point out every nuance of the game – as well as accurately tell me what was going to happen next – to doing pregame and postgame shows with him, asking “‘splain this, Blo” or “What do you think of…” has yielded immeasurable knowledge and often the missing puzzle piece to concepts or stories I have wanted to relay to listeners and readers.

With Edgar Martinez going into the Hall of Fame on Sunday, Blo was a natural to go to for his perspective as a teammate and longtime friend of Edgar. I have had countless conversations with Mike about Edgar through the years, but this one needed to be recorded for writing. A straight-up interview felt strange to me so I asked Mike if we could just have a chat. He was up for it and it just so happened that the best time to do it was on a recent drive back from the stadium to the team hotel after a postgame show in Anaheim.

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In transcribing the conversation I realized this might be something others would like to listen to, so here we have a conversation in cars – baseball style.

Topics Blowers goes into depth on:

• What Edgar did when Blowers had to replace him at third base due to injury.
• The crazy drills Edgar came up with to get better, the “next-level thinking” he employed and what Blowers took from that.
• The incredible relationship between Edgar and manager Lou Piniella and how Lou would utilize Edgar as a coach during games.
• What an Edgar struggle looked like.
• How Edgar dealt with the challenge of DHing when he wanted to be a full-time player.
• The famous calm that Edgar possessed and the impact it had on others.
• What it was like to go into a playoff series with three future Hall of Famers on the squad.

You can listen to the full conversation in the player embedded in this post, or download it in podcast form here.

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