Time of the Ancient Mariners

The magic lingers in Seattle, where the Mariners . . .

--Have sold 13,900 season tickets, a club record.

--Are guaranteed a sellout for the season opener and a near sellout for the next game.

--Have sold 120,000 video highlights of the 1995 season, when they thundered back from a 13-game deficit and erased 18 years of futility, saved major league baseball in the Pacific Northwest, ultimately overtook the Angels in the American League West, defeated the New York Yankees in a rousing playoff series and frightened the Cleveland Indians before losing in the league championship series.

In the process, the Mariners convinced the state legislature, if not the electorate, that a $320-million investment in a baseball-only, retractable-roof stadium was sound economically. Construction will begin next year--providing the financial package holds up. The stadium is scheduled to open in 1999.

That glow also lingers here in the Valley of the Sun, but there is some hard reality amid the magic.

Financial considerations prompted management to change the chemistry--and lineup--of late summer. A solid nucleus remains but the team that will try to pick up where it left off is not the same.

The Mariners will have a new first baseman, third baseman, shortstop and left fielder, the 43rd since Ken Griffey Jr. became the center fielder in 1989.

There will be four new starting pitchers and at least two new relief pitchers.

Said Griffey: “Every year with this team, you know somebody will be gone. What makes it difficult is that you compare it to Cleveland and how they added players to a championship team.

“I realize that’s a different market, but any time you lose key players, like we have, it’s tough. And it’s always the players who face the questions. I mean, we don’t sign the checks or make the decisions.”

Added right fielder Jay Buhner: “Was I disappointed they didn’t keep the team together? I was, am and always will be. We had a great mix, no question about it. The nucleus is still here, but we don’t know how it fits together.

“They kind of depleted the bullpen and overhauled the rotation. Our pitching has been hit hard this spring. We need to go out and get another starter, and I probably feel [the changes] more than anybody because I lost all of my protection. I lost the guy who hit in front of me [Tino Martinez] and behind me [Mike Blowers].

“I mean, any time you lose 207 ribbies it hurts. I don’t care how you replace it.”

In breakthrough seasons, third baseman Blowers and first baseman Martinez combined for those 207 runs batted in and 54 home runs.

Martinez was traded to the New York Yankees for pitcher Sterling Hitchcock and third base prospect Russ Davis and received the type of contract--$20.25 million for five years--the Mariners said they couldn’t afford.

Blowers, eligible for arbitration, went to the Dodgers for two fringe prospects and tripled his salary at $2.3 million.

Starting pitchers Tim Belcher and Andy Benes and left fielder Vince Coleman left as free agents, reliever Jeff Nelson went in the Martinez deal, and the Mariners gave up another key reliever, Bill Risley, in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays for young pitchers Edwin Hurtado and Paul Menhart.

Now, aside from incomparable Randy Johnson and veteran Chris Bosio, who will open the season on the disabled list after undergoing knee surgery, an inexperienced rotation of Hitchcock, Hurtado, Menhart and Bob Wolcott has a combined major league record of 20-18, and the Mariners--under fire from Buhner and others in their clubhouse--have been scrambling to find help in a pitching-depleted market.

“I know some of our players weren’t happy that we didn’t keep the club together, but I wasn’t either,” General Manager Woody Woodward said, referring to financial restrictions imposed by ownership. “It wasn’t easy making the moves we did, but we are probably a better club right now than we were at the beginning of last season.

“Are we as good as we were at the end? No, but in the long run we can be better if Russ Davis and Alex Rodriguez do what their credentials suggest, and if our young pitchers develop as we think they can.”

Free agent Luis Polonia will replace Coleman in left, and free agent Mike Jackson, a valuable set-up man, will try to fill some of the Nelson-Risley vacuum.

The touted Rodriguez, 20, takes over at shortstop, and free agent Paul Sorrento, who hit 25 homers and drove in 79 runs as a platoon first baseman with Cleveland, replaces Martinez.

The Mariners, still boasting batting champion Edgar Martinez as designated hitter and the still blossoming Buhner--40 home runs, 121 RBIs--in right, hope to compensate for the loss of Blowers and Tino Martinez by:

--Having Griffey, who was sidelined for 73 games because of a broken wrist, for a full season.

--Moving Sorrento out of a platoon role.

--Handing the developing Rodriguez and Davis starting roles.

For Davis, 26, it is an opportunity he never had with the Yankees, where Wade Boggs stood in his way. Blowers was at something of a similar developmental stage when acquired by Seattle from New York in 1988.

Said Woodward, “I traded for Mike Blowers when no one else in baseball wanted him, but Davis has a chance to be a better player.”

Woodward said it had been his hope to keep the 1995 team intact, adding a quality free-agent pitcher and re-signing Blowers and Martinez, but the $40-million payroll projection was rejected by the owners, who told Woodward that Kingdome revenue prevented expansion of a $34-million payroll, already highest in club history.

In fact, the Mariners were at a point in late summer, still 13 games out on Aug. 2, when they typically would have dumped salaries if it hadn’t been for the new format and a chance at a wild-card playoff berth, which led to the unprecedented addition of Benes and Coleman. Woodward, searching for a pitcher making between $1 million and $2 million, is confident he will have the same midsummer authority to improve the team if it has a playoff opportunity.

The overriding concern is that basically untested rotation, and what Manager Lou Piniella said “is a need to reestablish ourselves out of the chute.”

“We may have some confidence and momentum as division champions, but we have no basis for complacency,” Piniella said. “I’m confident we’ll be competitive, but our young pitchers need to be more consistent than they have this spring.

“The Angels have a chance to be a super team. They should definitely be favored in our division. We can’t afford to fall 13 games behind again because no team in this division will squander that kind of lead again.”

Piniella, the league’s manager of the year, recently received a four-year contract extension, as did Griffey, who will be paid $7 million this year and $34.5 million over the extension.

Will the fan support evaporate again if the Mariners’ competitiveness does? Time will tell, but the Mariners will always have the memory of their late-season magic, or as Buhner said:

“It’s like a first love. It will never happen in that special way again.”