Greatest Moments in Marlins History: #86 Interleague Play

Oct 5, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland (left) speaks with Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations for major league baseball Joe Torre before game two of the American League divisional series playoff baseball game against the Oakland Athletics at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome back to the Greatest Moments in Marlins History. Today we are looking at a game that took place on June 13, 1997. Yes that did fall on a Friday, so would this game be spooky for the Marlins? For moment 86 we are going to talk about the first ever Interleague game for the Marlins. Oh, and by the way, it was against the defending World Series champions, the New York Yankees.

1997 was the first year that Interleague play started in baseball. The Marlins first ever American league opponent was the 1996 World Series Champion New York Yankees; but the Yankees were coming to our house. We were not about to lose to them in our first Interleague game and in our house.

The Yankees took an early 1-0 lead in the 6^th off a Bernie Williams single that scored Chad Curtis. The Marlins wouldn’t get a score until the bottom of the 9^th when with 2 outs Moises Alou singled in Kurt Abbott to tie the game. They eventually went into extra innings, but that would all end in the 13^th when Charles Johnson drew a bases loaded walk to end the game! A walk-off bases load walk to end the first Interleague game in Marlins history. That is awesome! What makes it better is we beat the Yankees 2-1!

What a great moment that was. Join me tomorrow as we see another great moment. Until then… Let’s Go Marlins!