Bankhead and Shields Make Trade Look Good

Danny Tartabull hit .270 with 25 home runs and 96 RBIs for the Seattle Mariners last season. It earned him a few votes in American League rookie of the year balloting. It did not, however, keep him from being traded.

On Dec. 10, the Mariners traded Tartabull and minor league pitcher Rick Lueken to the Kansas City Royals for pitchers Scott Bankhead and Steve Shields and outfielder Mike Kingery. The trade was immediately questioned. Scott who and Steve what? Baseball observers wondered how the youthful and struggling Mariners could part with one of their most promising young hitters.

Then Bankhead missed much of spring training with a sore right shoulder. On April 4, he made his last start of the exhibition season and gave up seven runs and 11 hits in four innings. Imagine what Mariner fans might have been thinking about their team’s new acquisition.

Then think about what might have gone through those fans’ minds when they picked up the paper Thursday morning to find that Tartabull went 2 for 4 for the Royals in a 9-3 win over Chicago.

But Bankhead and Shields made their Seattle debuts Thursday night against the Angels, and the results might help make it a little easier for the Seattle faithful to start forgetting about Danny what’s-his-name.

Bankhead pitched 6 innings and allowed only one run on five hits to record his first victory as a Mariner as Seattle beat the Angels, 7-2. Shields entered in the seventh inning with two on and struck out hot-hitting Mark McLemore. He finished things up to pick up his first major league save.

For one night, at least, the trade that seemed so self-destructive for the Mariners looked like the steal of the century. Said Bankhead: “Yeah, I guess this probably makes Seattle feel good about it.”

Bankhead allowed two hits in the first six innings. He retired the Angels in order in the second, fourth and fifth. And, when he got in trouble in the seventh, he handed the ball to Shields, who gave up a meaningless single to Brian Downing in the eighth and a home run to Jack Howell in the ninth before sending the Angels off to Oakland with their first loss of 1987.

Afterward, both Shields and Bankhead said they were happy to be part of the rebuilding process at Seattle.

“I was a little shocked by the trade at first,” Bankhead said. “But I’d only been in Kansas City for about three-quarters of a year. I didn’t have any deep roots in Kansas City. I felt like coming to Seattle would give me an opportunity to get more innings and maybe pitch a little higher in the rotation.”

Said Shields: “I was excited about the trade. You’ve got to go where the opportunity is.”

Ah, Seattle. Land of opportunity for young ballplayers, assuming they can survive baseball’s winter trade winds. Bankhead is eager to see how the folks of the Northwest treat him, in light of whom they lost to get him.

“I haven’t been to Seattle yet, so I don’t know how the fans are going to react,” he said. “I know Danny was a pretty popular player there. But I’m not Danny Tartabull. I’m not going to hit and put those kinds of numbers up.”

Seattle Manager Dick Williams, for one, would prefer not to hear that name mentioned anymore. “I’m sick and tired of hearing about Tartabull,” he said. “That’s all we’ve been hearing about.”

Angel Manager Gene Mauch was well aware of what the Mariners were giving up when they traded Tartabull. But the events of Thursday night may have convinced him of what Williams has been trying to tell everybody; that Seattle got a little in return.

“I thought Tartabull was one of the better-looking young hitters I’ve seen,” Mauch said. “But if Bankhead and Shields are both that good, it’s going to make that deal look pretty good.”