Seattle.Mariners.MLB.com

By Jim Street / MLB.com

Scott Bradley caught Randy Johnson's no-hitter on June 4, 1990. (Rick Stewart/Allsport)

"If we weren't so bad then," the former catcher said, "they wouldn't be so good now."

Bradley figures the bad teams he played for enabled the Mariners to draft high and select players like Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, laying a foundation for what is now one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball.

Now 42 years old and the father of three sons -- Kevin (8), Kyle (6) and Scott (5) -- Bradley is the head baseball coach at Princeton University, a position he has held for the past five years. His teams have won the Ivy League's Gehrig Division championship each of those five seasons and seven straight overall.

Life is good.

"I absolutely love it," he said. "I always wondered what my niche would be after I finished playing. I coached in the minor leagues for a couple of organizations (Atlanta and Colorado), but being a professional baseball coach wasn't a lifestyle that appealed to me."

Not sure where his career path would go, Bradley, a University of North Carolina graduate, wound up back in college, taking an assistant coaching job at Rutgers University and then moved to Princeton, where his older brother, Bob, was the head soccer coach.

Scott's 2000 team reached the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1996 and landed the most first-team All-Ivy League selections in school history (six). The 2001 club also played in college baseball's big dance, although each time the Tigers were eliminated in the first round, losing to fourth-ranked Houston on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning in 2000 and to No. 7 Central Florida last season.

Bradley says he still keeps in touch with several of his former Mariners teammates and, thanks to a satellite dish, gets to watch virtually every Mariners game if he so wishes. He pointed out that Chris Larson, one of the Mariners' owners, is a Princeton grad and freshman pitcher Rufus Worth Lumry III is the son of one of the Mariners' minority owners.

Although Bradley spent most of his MLB career with the Yankees (1984-85), Mariners (1986-92) and Reds (1992) as a backup catcher and pinch-hitter -- he batted .257 with 18 home runs and 184 RBIs in nine seasons -- one game he caught from start to finish gave him a once-in-a-lifetime thrill.

He was behind the plate the night Randy Johnson pitched Seattle's first no-hitter, June 2, 1990.

"I am kind of hoping that Randy doesn't throw another no-hitter because when he goes into the Hall of Fame, I can tell my grandkids that I caught his no-hitter," Bradley said, laughing. "On the field, that was the highlight of my career.

"It was the first one I had ever caught and as the catcher, you feel you had a big part in it."

He still remembers the final pitch of the game, a 98 mph fastball that was so far out of the strike zone that he almost had to jump to catch it as Detroit catcher Mike Heath swung wildly and missed badly.

Bradley also remembers that he called numerous breaking balls -- sliders -- because Johnson's mechanics weren't what they are now and he had a tendency to be wild with his fastball. "He walked six batters that night, three of them in one inning," Bradley said.

After the final out, Bradley and other Mariners mobbed Johnson in the middle of the diamond.

"I couldn't quite be like Yogi [Berra] and [Don] Larsen," said Bradley, referring to the Yankees' Hall of Fame catcher jumping into Larsen's arms after the pitcher completed the first and only perfect game in World Series history in 1956. "I couldn't jump that high."

Bradley still has an autographed baseball from that memorable game as well as the poster commemorating the first no-no in franchise history.

That night signaled a beginning of better things to come for the up-to-then woebegone franchise.

"My wife, Mary, is from Seattle and we still come out there to visit," Bradley said. "To look at SAFECO Field and see how much of a baseball town Seattle has become, with people wearing Mariner caps and jackets, is really something. You laugh at the days in the Kingdome when there would be 3,000 fans."

Some of Bradley's fondest memories include growing up in an organization that didn't win very often yet created a closeness in the clubhouse.

"We were a bunch of young guys in the same stages of our lives and our careers," he said. "None of us were making huge money at the time. Guys like Mark Langston, Mike Moore, Spike Owen, Harold Reynolds, Bill Swift, Phil Bradley ... we all were very good friends, and still are. It isn't often these days when the majority of players on a team are the same age the way we were."

Those days are long gone now, and Bradley spends his time being a husband, father and coach.

"I'm at a great school with great kids and get to teach baseball," he said. "These kids play baseball for all the right reasons. And they never ask to be traded."

Ah, the good old days.

Jim Street covers the Mariners for MLB.com and can be reached at mlbjstreet@aol.com. This story was not subject to the approval of MLB or its clubs.