Star Spangled attention

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, September 15, 2001

When the Gospel Outreach Youth School choir sings the National Anthem before the Seattle Mariners’ game Tuesday at Safeco Field, a rare sight will unfold.

A full team of Mariners will stand along the top step of the dugout, place their caps over their hearts and gaze with meaning toward the American flag.

It’s a scene that should happen every time that song is played.

But when you’re a ballplayer and you hear it about 200 times from March to November, it’s easy to think other matters are more important. Like stretching that last muscle before the game, or going over the scouting report one more time, or whatever players do in those last 10 minutes before a game.

What many of them rarely do is show up in the dugout for the Anthem. Usually there are a couple of players, a few coaches and the batboys.

It’s not just the players, either.

Upstairs in the pressbox, writers stand at attention but they don’t always pay attention. Some talk to their bosses on the phone, or they think about getting a story finished, or they wonder if the Anthem singer will hit the high note.

“You take it for granted sometimes,” said Mariners second baseman Bret Boone. “I think it’s because we do it every day.”

After what happened Tuesday, when terrorists crashed not only into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania but also into the freedom that allows guys like Boone to earn millions of dollars, nobody in a baseball uniform will take it for granted for a long time.

“I hear that National Anthem now and I think about it,” Boone said. “Like everybody who’s a human being with a conscience, when you hear that song you think of the people down there in the middle of all that rubble. People putting their lives at stake trying to find survivors. You think of it when you see the faces of those firemen and policemen.”

On Tuesday, there couldn’t be a better group to sing the Anthem than the Gospel Outreach kids from Olympia. They’ve sung it before Mariners games the past few years and have done it without the melodramatics that make you believe other artists are performing it to promote themselves more than what the song represents.

Boone promises it will have meaning this time.

“We live in the greatest country in the world,” he said. “We’re free to do what we want. We should be very thankful.”

They should be on the top step of the dugout, lined up as the New York Yankees have been before every game the past several years.

“In New York, it was a mandatory thing by (manager) Joe Torre to have everybody out there,” said Mariners relief pitcher Jeff Nelson, who played the previous five seasons with the Yankees. “It’s a team-by-team thing but I’m sure this time it’ll be different, and rightfully so.”

When Boone hears it on Tuesday, he knows he won’t be thinking about his next at-bat.

“When they sing the Star Spangled Banner, it’s going to mean so much,” he said. “Not only for what’s just happened, but for what has happened in the history of this country. It shows what this country is all about, what this country has been through and how we’ve become the country that we are.”

Looking over his shoulder

Boone said he rarely has thought about how safe he is at the ballpark, but he knows that feeling may change when the Mariners’ season resumes Tuesday.

“I know the security will be up and there will be a lot of steps that normally aren’t taken to be extra sure,” he said. “But we play in front of people all the time and I don’t think I’ll feel any more vulnerable than I did before. You never know who’s out there.

“After what happened the other day, I never thought anything like that could happen. There was always that threat before this happened. I might be a little more aware of where my family is, and I’m not a guy who usually looks around and makes sure they’re there.”

On Thursday, when the Mariners flew back to Seattle from Los Angeles, they got a taste of what airline passengers everywhere must sense these days. The team took a special Alaska Airlines flight just for them, but they had to walk through the airport terminal and check their own bags.

“We live in a place where you’re not used to having to look over your shoulder,” Boone said. “Now we’re well aware of it. It hit home going through the airport, how lucky we are in the way we travel. We don’t worry about stuff. We’re not used to going through the terminal. We’re walking through the airport, and I’m looking around. I found myself looking at everybody who was on that flight asking myself, ‘Do I know everybody on this flight?’”

Painful flashback

Last week’s terrorist attacks brought back painful memories of the Vietnam war to Mariners president Chuck Armstrong.

Armstrong, a deck officer on an aircraft carrier during his tour with the Navy, remembers sending pilots off on their missions and, too many times, not being able to welcome them back.

“I remember being at sea a couple of times when our pilots didn’t make it back,” Armstrong said. “We would have burials at sea, but a lot of times there wouldn’t be a body to bury.

“Unfortunately, this brought back a lot of those memories.”