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Tuesday, April 29, 2003
M's walk in aura
New York visit always special event
Next month, the Village Theatre in Issaquah will perform "Damn Yankees."
The classic play has very little to do with the New York Yankees, yet the title has become a catch-phrase.
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 | David Wheeler / P-I | |
They won the World Series again? Damn Yankees.
They signed that guy everybody wanted? Damn Yankees.
People hate the Yankees for the same reasons some people hate Starbucks and Microsoft. It's not that their products are bad, it's that they're so good at what they do nobody else has a chance.
The Yankees have never looked more like bullies than they do this season. Their payroll is reportedly $164 million -- a hefty $45 million more than the next-highest team. Their starters began the season 16-0. They're batting .298 as a team. They've hit 48 homers and allowed 10.
Playing the Yankees has rarely been easy, and the plot is always complicated. The Mariners begin a three-game series at Yankee Stadium today, and there are as many viewpoints as there are men in uniform.
The skipper
Bob Melvin was a Yankee for nine games.
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| Melvin | ||
The journeyman's first at-bat in pinstripes came on May 21, 1994, and it was one to remember. Batting seventh as the designated hitter, Melvin hit a three-run homer in the first inning of a 5-4 victory over Baltimore.
The victim? Left-hander Arthur Rhodes, Melvin's former Orioles teammate and future Mariners charge.
Two months later, the Yankees let Melvin go. Six and a half years after that, he got the sweetest revenge as bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, who defeated New York in seven games in the 2001 World Series.
"We went through baseball's biggest dynasty to win that thing," he said. "They'd won three (World Series) in a row and were trying to make it four in a row. It was fun beating them, and they always have a target on their back, whether they're good or bad.
"They're the most storied franchise in baseball history, and everybody likes to beat the Yankees."
Heading to New York with a 2-0 series lead, part of the Diamondbacks game plan was to keep players from feeling the weight of Yankees history. Arizona lost all three games at Yankee Stadium, each by one run.
"When we were going in, Curt Schilling said Aura and Mystique are dancers in a nightclub," Melvin said. "When we left, (Mark Grace) said, 'I believe in aura and mystique now.'"
The new Yankee
When the 2003 season started, Charles Gipson was back home in Orange, Calif., feeling lousy and considering his options.
After 12 seasons in the Mariners organization, the overachieving 63rd-round draft pick was cut loose over the winter. He went to spring training with the Chicago Cubs, who decided he didn't fit into their plans, either.
Then the Yankees called.
"My first reaction when my agent called about the Yankees was, OK, they need somebody to back up and wait in Triple-A, so I wasn't that excited at first," Gipson said yesterday, riding through New York City in a taxi. "A few hours later he called back to explain the situation, and then I was pumped. It's a chance to go to the World Series and play for a team that's known throughout the world."
After seven games at Class AAA Columbus to get back in the groove, Gipson was called up on April 21. He's the 25th man on the roster, something he never wanted to be in Seattle, but it's a little easier to swallow when you've faced unemployment and suddenly find yourself on the best team in baseball.
Gipson has appeared in just one game, successfully bunting a runner ahead Friday. Today's game against his former team will be his first in a home uniform at Yankee Stadium -- and putting on the pinstripes means more than just getting dressed.
"It's cool, man, pretty overwhelming," he said of seeing himself in the mirror in a Yankees uniform for the first time. "There is honor in wearing it. You think of all the great players who wore the same uniform, and this amazing feeling comes over you. But then you just suit up and go play the game."
The rookie
Yankee Stadium is really a pretty ordinary ballpark. Massively renovated in the mid-1970s, it is bigger than most but otherwise similar to ballparks of the era.
What makes it special is what has happened there since the Yankees bought 10 acres in the west Bronx from the estate of William Waldorf Astor in 1921. Ruth and Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. The celebrations of 26 world championships.
For the thousands of rookies who have stepped onto the field, it is not like playing anywhere else. For some, it is intimidating. For others, it is a validation they are big-leaguers. For all, it is humbling.
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| Bloomquist | ||
Mariners rookie infielder Willie Bloomquist isn't quite sure what to expect.
"I'm sure it will be a fun experience, a great experience," the 25-year-old Port Orchard native said.. "I'm not much of a history guy, but you think of all the great events there. The people who have played there are the guys who shaped baseball. Yankee Stadium is the cathedral of baseball."
If it's a cathedral, it's the rowdiest cathedral in the world. Yankees fans are the most vituperate and abusive in baseball -- and proud of it. There will be 57,000 of them intent on letting Bloomquist and his teammates know exactly what they think.
"That's what they tell me," he said. "I'm sure it will be as crazy as always, but hopefully I can block it out and just do my job."
The man in the spotlight
The first time Ichiro Suzuki came to Yankee Stadium, in 2001, he and teammate Stan Javier headed straight for Monument Park, a collection of plaques and monuments behind the outfield fence honoring the greatest departed Yankees.
Ichiro, a student of baseball history, said he had always wanted to go to Yankee Stadium.
On Oct. 22, Ichiro's rookie season ended there, the Mariners falling to New York in the American League Championship Series. It capped a season of extraordinary success and media attention for the rookie of the year.
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| AP | |
| First-year slugger Hideki Matsui has given the Yankees a Japanese media throng rivaling that of Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki in his rookie year. | ||
This year, it is Hideki Matsui's turn. The outfielder, considered Japan's best player, came to New York for a three-year, $21 million contract and a chance to duplicate Ichiro's success.
Matsui is a big hit in the Big Apple, while Ichiro is having his worst professional season. Ironically, Ichiro's batting average is five points higher than Matsui's.
"He established his status in Japan like I did," Ichiro said. "None of the Japanese players who hit the long ball have come over here. I am in awe of his determination to play here. He has a brave mind to come over here.
"I don't know him personally, but what I heard about him is that his attitude toward baseball is great and sincere, so I hope he can have great years in coming years.
"At same time, looking at him as a Mariner, the Yankees are a tough team to beat and we always want to beat him. So I don't want him to be successful (when we play) because we want to beat him."
The first meeting of the two Japanese stars will bring a media presence that might be unprecedented even for the Yankees. Both teams have large Japanese media contingents, and even more are being dispatched from Japan to cover the series. The attention on Matsui has diminished the media pressure on Ichiro this season, but for three days, all bets are off.
"I don't know what will happen," Ichiro said, "but hopefully those days will go by fast."
The expatriate
There's someone in Seattle -- in fact, if you can believe it, someone in a Mariners uniform -- who thinks of the Yankees not with resentment or jealousy but with real affection.
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| AP | |
| Jeff Nelson continues to have a warm feeling for Yankee Stadium, where he won four World Series rings between stints with the Mariners. | ||
"When you win four World Series with them, you remember them fondly," Mariners reliever Jeff Nelson said. "When I was over here before and went to Yankee Stadium as a visitor, it was always my favorite city. I always felt comfortable pitching there. I don't know why.
"Then I became a Yankee, and had what was probably the greatest part of my career."
Nelson was traded to New York by the Mariners before the 1996 season, and it wasn't difficult to buy into the Yankees culture. The spring training complex is filled with inspirational quotes, historic photos and reminders of past championships. The Yankees also regularly bring retired players around. The message: Once a Yankee, always a Yankee.
Bad for baseball? Not from the perspective of a guy with four giant, jewel-encrusted rings bearing the Yankees logo.
"George Steinbrenner deserves everything he's gotten," Nelson said. "He's the most powerful owner in all of sports. He's put a great team together because he wants to win for the city, because he cares a lot about the city and thinks New York deserves a winner, just like every city thinks it deserves a winner. If he can do it every year, why not?"
OUTRAGEOU$
The Yankees this season are spending more than $37 million on their No. 1 through No. 5 starters -- more than double what the Mariners are paying the five members of their starting rotation. It costs the Yankees, on average, $127,006 more for one of their starters to retire a batter than it costs the Mariners for their starters to record an out:
| YANKEES | SALARY | MARINERS | SALARY |
| Mike Mussina | $12,000,000 | Freddy Garcia | $6,875,000 |
| Roger Clemens | $7,061,181 | Jamie Moyer | $6,500,000 |
| Andy Pettitte | $11,500,000 | Joel Pineiro | $440,000 |
| Jeff Weaver | $4,150,000 | Ryan Franklin | $425,000 |
| David Wells | $3,250,000 | Gil Meche | $325,000 |
| TOTAL | $37,961,181 | TOTAL | $14,565,000 |
| ERA | 3.16 | ERA | 3.87 |
| COST/BATTER RETIRED | $221,995 | COST/BATTER RETIRED | $94,989 |
P-I reporter David Andriesen can be reached at 206-448-8061 or davidandriesen@seattlepi.com
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