Mariner's recognition for team Pilots after 40 years

It was an incredible day that ended with recognition at the Seattle Mariners game. A couple hundred longtime baseball fans experienced the Pilots, Seattle's first Major League Baseball team during 1969, who fell victim to bankruptcy after playing just one season.

They sat before 13 members of the old franchise in a Hilton hotel conference room and chuckled for several hours during the team's 40-year reunion. After all this time, after all the bitterness over having the team for just one season, the appreciation of those trailblazing players remains.

They were a motley crew of players who either just wanted a shot to play in the big leagues or needed to prove they still could play at this level, went 64-98 their lone year at a Sick's Stadium that was literally being renovated as the fans filled into the game. They spent the year playing stupid stuff pranks ideas on each other and trying to figure out what to do whenever the water stopped working at the ballpark.

It's the kind of story that a novelist couldn't imagine, but for the Pilots, it's just one of many funny tales. It's hard to believe that so much camaraderie could come from such a short period. The Pilots were a one-season wonder, perhaps even a one-season fiasco. They weren't around long enough to be considered a one-hit wonder. But they made an impression. And they'll stay alive in "Ball Four," in the minds of fans and in a new documentary expected to be finished in October.

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