Today is the anniversary of the Seattle baseball club officially being christened “Mariners.” In 1979, the organization ran a contest to name their nascent team: over 15,000 entries were submitted, several of them “Mariners.” However, the team opted to give the prize—season tickets and an all-expenses-paid trip to see the team play on the road once—to a man named Roger Szmodis, saying they liked his explanation the best:
“I’ve selected Mariners because of the natural association between the sea and Seattle and her people, who have been challenged and rewarded by it,” wrote Szmodis in his prize-winning entry.