SeaTown Sports Top 100 (#70-#61)
Brian and Kevin count down the top 100 professional Seattle sports athletes of all time.
In celebration of surpassing 100 subscribers, SeaTown Sports is counting down the top 100 professional Seattle sports athletes of all-time. This list will not include individual athletes like Apolo Ohno or Michael Chang and it does not include any college stars who did not play in Seattle professionally (think Steve Emtman or Kelsey Plum). Also, you won’t see any Seattle Kraken athletes on the list. We just haven’t seen any individual performers at a high enough level in the past three seasons in the deep. Kevin and Brian hope this list provides an opportunity for fun discussion as our readers keep engaging with us moving forward.
#70 - Mark Langston, Mariners
Key Accomplishments: 1x All-Star, 2x Gold Glove, 3x AL leader in strikeouts, 4th in career Mariners pitcher WAR, 5th in wins and 4th in strikeouts in Mariners history.
Unfairly, Mark Langston may be known by many Mariners fans as the centerpiece of the trade that allowed Seattle to acquire Randy Johnson from the Montreal Expos. There was a reason he was the main part of that trade, Langston was good. As a Mariner, Langston led the American League in strikeouts on three separate occasions, racking up totals of 204 in his rookie season (1984); 245 (1986); and 262 (1987). He finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting, losing out to his teammate, Alvin Davis.1
After spending a partial season with the Expos in 1989, Langston signed as a free agent with the California Angels, and spent eight seasons in Anaheim where he made three more All-Star teams and collected five more gold gloves.
#69 - Lofa Tatupu, Seahawks
Key Accomplishments: 3x Pro Bowl, 1x 1st-Team All-Pro
If you didn’t own a Matt Hasselbeck or Shaun Alexander jersey in the pre-Legion of Boom era, you probably owned a Lofa Tatupu jersey.
In Tatupu’s first three seasons in the NFL, he emerged as the Seahawks’ best player on defense, averaging 112 tackles in those seasons. In his rookie season, he led the team in tackles (104) and helped lead the Seahawks to its first-ever Super Bowl in 2005. As a younger player, he became the team’s leader on defense, calling the team’s defensive signals.
Tatupu also reportedly decided to sign an extension with the Seahawks for less money, to enable the team to sign other defensive players to long-term extensions.
#68 - Freddy Garcia, Mariners
Key Accomplishments: 2x All-Star, 5th in Mariners career pitcher WAR, 9th in ERA, 4th in wins, 6th in strikeouts in Mariners history.
Garcia, like Langston, is often not in the conversation as one of the all-time great pitchers in Seattle, and maybe that’s fair, because others like Randy Johnson, Felix Hernandez, and Jamie Moyer, had more impressive careers. Still, Garcia’s 4.5-year stint with the Mariners deserves some props.
Like many of his teammates on the 2001 team, Garcia had perhaps the best season of his career. Garcia compiled an 18-6 record and led the American League in ERA at 3.05. He also led the AL in innings pitched that season (238.2). Garcia was a workhorse for the Mariners rotation, totaling over 200 IPs in four separate seasons.
#67 - Rashard Lewis, Sonics
Key Accomplishments: 1x All-Star, 1st in three-pointers, 8th in steals, 4th in points, 7th in blocks in Sonics history, averaged over 20 points per game for three straight seasons.
I was shocked to learn that Lewis had only made one All-Star team in his nine seasons with the Sonics. He seemed like too much of a perennial star, not to have at least one more All-Star team. But making the NBA All-Star team is difficult because each conference is only allowed 12 players.
I was also shocked to learn that Lewis is the franchise’s career leader in three-point field goals made, especially when Ray Allen, one of the greatest three-point shooters of all-time, was a Sonic. But Lewis’ longevity in Seattle helps him in that regard.
Lewis’ 2004-2007 peak in Seattle, was also his career peak. During that run, he averaged over 20 points and 5 rebounds per game, each season. He was also a critical piece to the 2004-05 team that was the franchise’s last playoff run before moving to Oklahoma City.
#66 - Michael Bennett, Seahawks
Key Accomplishments: 3x Pro Bowl, Super Bowl XLVII champion
Bennett is the first Seahawk from the Legion of Boom era to enter the SeaTown Sports 100. Spoiler alert, there will be many players from that era on this list. Those teams were that good.
You probably did not know this, but Bennett’s 2013-2017 stint with the Seahawks was his second. His first stint was in 2009 as an undrafted free agent signing. The Seahawks waived Bennett that season to make room on the roster for offensive tackle Kyle Williams. Bennett then signed with Tampa Bay and flourished as a Buc, totaling 22.5 sacks in four seasons.
In his second stint with the Seahawks, Bennett played a key role as one of the team’s top pass rushers. It did not matter where he lined up because he just seemed to have the knack for being disruptive in every opposing offense’s backfield.
#65 - Stefan Frei, Sounders
Key Accomplishments: 112 shutouts (tied for 2nd in MLS history), CONCACAF Champions League 2022 MVP and Best Goalkeeper.
Frei is in his 11th straight season as the Sounders’ goalkeeper. This remarkable run of consistency is an accomplishment. In the Sounders’ 2022 Concacaf run, Frei started all eight of the team’s games, allowing just five goals, finishing with four shutouts and 26 saves.
The Concacaf performance was not an outlier. In the Sounders’ MLS Cup win in 2016, Frei earned MLS CUP MVP honors, making seven saves in Seattle’s championship victory over Toronto. His save on Jozy Altidore’s header in that game was “one of the best saves in MLS Cup history,” according to Sam Tejskal at MLSSocer.com.
#64 - Harold Reynolds, Mariners
Key Accomplishments: 2x All-Star, 3 Gold Gloves, 10 seasons in Seattle
Harold Reynolds played 10 of his 12 seasons in Seattle after the Mariners drafted him in 1980. By his fifth season with the team, in 1987, Reynolds became one of the team’s dependable hitters and a threat on the base paths. Reynolds stole an AL-leading 60 bases that season. In 1988, Reynolds earned the first of his three consecutive gold gloves at second base.
Reynolds may be known most for his broadcasting career. After stints with the Baltimore Orioles and the California Angels, Reynolds retired and started working for ESPN in 1996 on its Baseball Tonight. Now, Reynolds is an analyst for the MLB Network.
I am not sure why President George H.W. Bush is giving Reynolds a Mariners cap in this picture, but I’m interested to see if anyone reading this has theories.
#63 - Bret Boone
Key Accomplishments: 2x All-Star, 4x Gold Glove, 2x Silver Slugger, 3rd in AL MVP in 2001, 10th in WAR, 7th in slugging, 10th in runs, 9th in HR, 9th in RBI in Mariners history.
“Boonie” joins his 2001 teammates Freddy Garcia, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Mike Cameron, and John Olerud on the SeaTown Sports 100.
Bret Boone could hit for power. Perhaps, only Nelson Cruz could match Boone’s power numbers as a Mariner post-2001. In the storied 2001 season, Boone led the AL with 141 RBIs, and he also hit 37 home runs and slashed .331(!)/.372/.578. No Mariners hitter has topped his 141 RBIs since 2001, which sits at No. 4 all-time in single seasons in Mariners history.
Along with Boone’s bat, he also was incredible defensively. He earned gold gloves at second base in 2002, 2003, and 2004.
#62 - Michael Sinclair, Seahawks
Key Accomplishments: 3x Pro Bowl, 2nd all-time in sacks in Seahawks history
Defensive end Michael Sinclair played ten seasons in Seattle and was a menace for a three-year run between 1996 and 1998. During that period, Sinclair tallied 41.5 sacks, leading the AFC in sacks in 1998 with 16.5. Between 1996 and 1998, no one had more sacks than Sinclair, nor did anyone have more forced fumbles than Sinclair. This is especially impressive considering names like Reggie White and Bruce Smith played during this era.
#61 - Jim Zorn, Seahawks
Key Accomplishments: 1991 Ring of Honor; 1976 AFC Rookie of the Year; 3 consecutive years of 3,000 passing yards; 1978 2nd-team All-Pro.
Zorn served as the Seahawks’ starting quarterback for the team’s first eight seasons, he then returned as the team’s quarterback coach from 2001 until 2007.
Any description of Zorn’s success in Seattle merits a mention of his primary target, Seattle legend and Hall of Fame receiver, Steve Largent (he’ll be showing up a lot higher on this list). The pair played together from 1976 until 1983, when Dave Kreig replaced Zorn as the team’s starter midway through the 1983 season.
Zorn was Russell Wilson before Russell Wilson. He was considered one of the best scrambling quarterbacks of his era. He has more rushing touchdowns as a Seahawk than names like Rashaad Penny, Christine Michael, and Thomas Rawls.
Alvin Davis is ranked #80 on our list.
Just subjectivly and without crunching any numbers, I think you underrate Langston a bit. Didn't he set a salary record when he signed with the Angels? I know he was a better player than Reynolds, but I think you know that, too. Just a matter of definition there. But as the list is putatively the top "athletes", I didn't expect his broadcasting to count. I suppose one could exclude that but say that being a great athlete transcends actual impact on the field (that it includes ambassadorship, being a good representative, etc.) and tha Reynolds is thus deserving, even without factoring in his broadcasting.
"Most famous" would be another approach. But then readers don't necessarily need a list to tell them who is most famous. The point of this list is largely to remind us of some players we haven't thought about recently, I assume, and also, of course, to weigh in on the topic of relative greatness.
It is interesting how strong the list is. Once we're talking about a top 100 in a market, I'd think we'd be talking about some obscure guys. But we're not. It's going across the sports that makes the list so strong.
And going across sports must also tax your knowledge. I don't envy you. Quite a lot of homework involved with this. We all learn that our local talk show host has a weak sport or two. Ditto our ESPN SportsCenter anchor, even if he or she is just reading off a prompter.