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50 free Seattle Mariners trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Seattle Mariners exist because Seattle sued the American League, spent their first fourteen seasons without a winning record, and then produced one of the great runs in baseball: Griffey, Edgar, the Big Unit, The Double, and a 116-win season that still ties the all-time record. This Mariners trivia quiz covers all of it, from the 'name the team' contest winner who never claimed his prize to the 2022 playoff-drought breaker and the 2025 division title. There are questions on the ballparks (Kingdome, Safeco, T-Mobile Park), the uniforms, the retired numbers, Dave Niehaus, Louie Louie, Buhner Buzz Cut Night, the King's Court, the Vedder Cup and the franchise record book, running from easy questions for casual fans to expert ones about perfect games and ownership changes. Play it before first pitch or use it to settle bar arguments about the 1995 ALDS. Every answer was checked against baseball reference material and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question carries a citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year did the Mariners join the American League as an expansion team?
1977
The Blue Jays arrived in the same expansion. Seattle's earlier team, the Pilots, had lasted a single season in 1969.
Q 02The Mariners franchise was created as the result of what?
A lawsuit
After Bud Selig moved the Pilots to Milwaukee in 1970, the city, King County and Washington state sued the American League for breach of contract.
Q 03Which future US senator, then state attorney general, led the legal action that created the Mariners?
Slade Gorton
He was state attorney general at the time. King County built the Kingdome confident that baseball would return.
Q 04Roughly how many names were submitted in the 1976 'name the team' contest that produced 'Mariners'?
More than 600
The winning entry came from Roger Szmodis of Bellevue, whom the club was never able to reach to hand over his prize.
Q 05What is the Mariners' mascot?
The Mariner Moose
The team's nickname, the M's, appeared in its primary logo from 1987 to 1992.
Q 06Which three colours has the team worn since 1993?
Navy blue, northwest green and silver
The teal shade is officially named 'Northwest Green'. Royal blue and gold, the original colours, live on in alternate uniforms.
Q 07The 'M' in the original 1977 'Mariners' jersey wordmark was shaped to resemble what?
A trident
The gold trident also served as the cap logo, and a version with a white star background debuted for the 1979 All-Star Game.
Q 08Who hit the first home run in Mariners history, in April 1977?
Juan Bernhardt
The DH connected in the team's fifth game. That season the Mariners went 64–98, exactly the 1969 Pilots' record.
Q 09Which pitcher is the only player to have played for both the Seattle Pilots and the Mariners?
Diego Seguí
He pitched for the 1977 Mariners in his final major-league season, eight years after the Pilots' lone campaign.
Q 10How many seasons did the Mariners play before posting their first winning record?
Fourteen
The first winning team came in 1991. Along the way the Kingdome hosted the 50th All-Star Game in 1979.
Q 11Which video-game company bought the Mariners after the 1992 season?
Nintendo
CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi took a 49 percent share despite never having attended a baseball game; he wanted to thank Seattle for its role in the company's success.
Q 12Owner Jeff Smulyan proposed moving the Mariners to which city in 1992 before selling the team?
Tampa
Smulyan's group had bought the club from George Argyros in 1989 for $76 million.
Q 13Which manager led the Mariners for a decade from 1993 and won two AL Manager of the Year awards?
Lou Piniella
He had just won the 1990 World Series with Cincinnati. Oddly, the Pilots had drafted him in 1968 before trading him to Kansas City.
Q 21What number did Ken Griffey Jr. wear, retired by the Mariners in 2016?
24
He was elected to the Hall of Fame in January 2016 and holds the club career home-run record with 417.
Q 22Edgar's No. 11 was retired in 2017. How many other major-league teams did he play for?
None
He first appeared on the Hall ballot in 2010, and the number 11 went unissued from his 2004 retirement until he returned as hitting coach in 2015.
Q 23Who threw the Mariners' first no-hitter on June 2, 1990, the night the Kingsmen played 'Louie Louie' live?
Randy Johnson
That night cemented the seventh-inning 'Louie Louie' tradition, which ran through 2021 and returned in remixed form in 2025.
Q 14Whose 11th-inning walk-off double scored Ken Griffey Jr. from first to beat the Yankees in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS?
Edgar Martínez
'The Double' is credited with helping keep baseball in Seattle. Griffey had missed much of that season with a broken wrist.
Q 15How did the Mariners clinch their first-ever division title in 1995?
A one-game playoff against the California Angels
Griffey had broken his wrist crashing into the centre-field wall in May and still returned for the stretch run.
Q 16How many games did the Mariners win in 2001, tying the all-time MLB single-season record?
116
They matched the 1906 Cubs and broke the 1998 Yankees' AL mark of 114, then lost to New York in the ALCS.
Q 17In 2001 Ichiro became the first since Fred Lynn in 1975 to win which three honours in one season?
MVP, Rookie of the Year and a Gold Glove
He set the MLB single-season hits record of 262 three years later, in 2004.
Q 18Ichiro's 262 hits in 2004 remain a major-league single-season record. What did he bat that year?
.372
His .321 career average with Seattle is the highest in franchise history, and his 2,542 hits and 438 steals are both club records.
Q 19Whose right-field seating section at the Mariners' ballpark was nicknamed 'Area 51'?
Ichiro Suzuki's
The number had been withheld after its previous owner left in 1998 and was issued to Ichiro at his request in 2001.
Q 20Which two Mariners have both had the No. 51 retired in their honour?
Ichiro Suzuki and Randy Johnson
Ichiro's ceremony came in August 2025, days after his Hall of Fame induction; Johnson's followed in May 2026.
Q 24Which song replaced 'Louie Louie' as the seventh-inning song in 2022?
'Can't Hold Us' by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
The team stopped playing it after Macklemore's comments at a benefit concert in September 2024.
Q 25Which Mariners pitcher threw the franchise's first perfect game, against Tampa Bay on August 15, 2012?
Félix Hernández
Earlier that season the Mariners had been on the wrong end of Philip Humber's perfect game and had thrown a six-pitcher combined no-hitter.
Q 26What was the K-card-waving cheering section for Félix Hernández's home starts called?
The King's Court
Fans held up 'K' cards; when the section expanded to the whole ballpark it was called the Supreme Court.
Q 27The 'Maple Grove' fan section, with a potted tree named 'Stick Rizzs', celebrated which Canadian pitcher?
James Paxton
Fans held up 'Eh' cards at two strikes. The Grove ended when he was traded to the Yankees after 2018.
Q 28Which 1994 promotion gave a free ticket to any fan willing to have their head shaved before the game?
Buhner Buzz Cut Night
T-shirts read 'Bald Is Buhnerful'. It was revived for its 30th anniversary in 2024, with Jay Buhner shaving the team's catcher.
Q 29Which food tradition did Mariners broadcaster Mike Blowers start in 2007?
Rally Fries
The fries usually came from Ivar's, the Seattle seafood restaurant with a stand in the ballpark. The promotion ended in 2012.
Q 30Who was the Mariners' play-by-play announcer from 1977 until his death in November 2010?
Dave Niehaus
Macklemore wrote the tribute song 'My Oh My' for him and performed it at the 2011 home opener.