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I would imagine that my high school experience was wildly different from most Major League Baseball player’s. Something tells me that 16 and 17-year-olds with dreams of stardom probably weren’t ripping gravity bongs or slugging Four Loko. However, one thing that I have in common with the following group of Major League Baseball players is a high school experience in the beautiful state of Washington.
According to Baseball-Reference, there are 29 people who both attended a Washington high school and played at least one game for the Seattle Mariners. There is also one man, Tom House, who was born in Seattle and went on to play for the Mariners, but somewhere along the way his family moved south, causing Tom to graduate from Nogales High School in La Puente, California.
The state as a whole is fairly well-represented here. While only one player came from a high school in Seattle proper, we have several from the Eastside suburbs, a few from the Tri-Cities area, a couple from across the sound, and a handful from the southern and eastern reaches of the Evergreen State. Unfortunately, as several of these players suited up for less than 40 games, they are mildly forgettable and likely were given a shot on the merits of their birth certificate rather than actual skill. Each player is listed with their alma mater and the year(s) they played for the M’s.
Note: Baseball-Reference only lets you sort by “Place of Birth” rather than specifically by high school. It is likely that there are a few Mariners who were born in a different state, or even a different country, but went to a high school in Washington, which would unfortunately circumvent this search. I was able to think of one of them off the top of my head (he’s the first guy on the list), but if there are others who I may have forgotten, please let me know and I can add them to the quiz!
UPDATE (10:20 a.m.): Thanks to a few astute commmenters and Twitter responders, we’ve added a few people who, as I suspected, were born in different states but did indeed graduate from a Washington high school before making the Mariners.