Something Old Quickly Spoils Something New

Build it and they may stick around, but who knows?

Seattle taxpayers, who put up $372 million of the $517 million for Safeco Field, were just informed by Mariner ownership they must pony up another $60 million, or the team will be unable to keep Ken Griffey Jr. or Alex Rodriguez--or both.

Of course, the public likes the new ballpark but you wouldn’t call the current mood giddy.

“This is supposed to be a positive time, a new chapter to this organization,” Jay Buhner told the Philadelphia Daily News’ Sam Donnellon. “And I’m sick and tired of all the negative crap around here and I’m sick and tired of being stuck in the middle as ballplayers. It’s unfair to us and they owe us an apology, as far as I’m concerned. I know they owe Junior and A-Rod a big apology.”

Said Rodriguez, “I always thought the stadium would bring everybody together, not drive people apart. . . . If we both end up leaving because of the stadium situation, that would be the most ironic thing I’ve ever seen in baseball.”

Stay tuned, A-Rod. Your career is yet young.

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Mr. Happy: The stadium issue was one reason for Griffey’s bad-mood All-Star weekend. If the press wasn’t asking about his participating in the home run derby, it wanted views on Safeco’s deeper fences or his future in Seattle, none of which he was keen to discuss.

“Every time something happens, it’s always the players,” he says. “Every time it doesn’t go the club’s way, guess whose name gets dropped in it: mine.”

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Trivia time: Which of these four was the first choice in baseball’s 1965 amateur draft: Steve Garvey, Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson or Rick Monday?

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Arabia’s team: The Denver Nuggets may not have much of a following in this country but Saudi Arabia is another story.

One of the losing bidders Monday for Ascent Entertainment Group’s Denver sports empire was Saudi Princess Thara Al Saud, who recently had announced, “I have followed the Denver Nuggets for a long time and believe they are a very viable franchise with tremendous potential yet to be realized.”

The Nuggets won 21, 11 and 14 games in the last three seasons. Distance must enhance their charm.

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Just kidding: It’s not that you can believe everything they say in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

“Baseball goes back so far that a lot of its history is sketchy,” the museum’s director of information, John Ralph, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “We don’t know a lot more than what the people believed at the time. But that’s part of the attraction, letting the imagination run.”

Among the controversial claims is the one that says the first game was played in Cooperstown, N.Y., site of the Hall.

“Cooperstown is more like the symbolic home,” Ralph says. “It may be more folklore than fact, but there’s no more appropriate place on earth.”

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Trivia answer: Rick Monday, who was selected by the Kansas City Athletics.

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And finally: Chicago Bulls’ Coach Tim Floyd, returning from vacation after Phil Jackson had hired away assistants Tex Winter and Frank Hamblen: “I was gone for 10 days. I decided I better get back or I’ll be coaching by myself next year.”