Tomko Taken by Surprise

Brett Tomko wasn’t ready for any of this.

Television wanted him, and all he had to wear was this ratty T-shirt he wore to the Laker game the night before.

He pulled into the parking lot of a health-food store--only athletes shop for clothes at Met-Rx--when the telephone on his dashboard rang.

It was his former general manager in Cincinnati, who told him to pack for Seattle, but not Anaheim.

He had spent the previous 24 hours believing he was coming home, to Anaheim, to a stadium only seven or eight miles from where he grew up in Placentia, from where he pitched at El Dorado High.

A decade before, he bought tickets at that ballpark to watch Ken Griffey Jr. play baseball. Now, browsing through a rack of turtlenecks, Tomko had been traded for him. Well, he and three other guys.

“I just assumed I was going to the Angels,” he said. “So, it was kind of a shock.”

Standing Thursday afternoon in a hallway in a Hollywood studio for a television sports talk show appearance, a limousine waiting on the corner outside, Tomko appeared at peace with the biggest bit of upheaval of his young life.

He hoped his parents wouldn’t be too disappointed that he would pitch a little further up the coast. Freshly bulked up from a rigorous off-season program, he hoped he would make a strong first impression in Seattle. He wondered, too, if it all might change again.

“I’m going to listen,” he said of the news reports. “I mean, I thought I was going to stay a Red. I was told I most likely wouldn’t be traded. It happened.”

It all happened too fast for him to have gathered much perspective. Drafted in 1995 by Cincinnati, it was the only organization he had ever known.

“I don’t know how to feel yet,” he said. “All of a sudden your life is turned upside down. It’s the biggest trade ever, and I’m going somewhere else. I’m sure tonight, when I’m trying to go to sleep, I’ll think about it and try to relax a little bit. Then I’ll wake up a Mariner.”

Probably.

But, Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman offered outfielder Jim Edmonds to the Reds for Tomko less than a week ago and, lately, Stoneman has trolled Edmonds through Colorado, Texas, New York, Seattle and Oakland, among other spots.

It is assumed that Stoneman will take another shot at Edmonds-for-Tomko, this time with Mariner General Manager Pat Gillick.

In a brief conversation Thursday, Gillick told Tomko that he would remain a Mariner.

Tomko, of course, has heard that before.

“Who knows?,” Tomko said. “Something might happen.”

If it does, he’ll be dressed for it.