If Pat Borders were still playing in the minor leagues, he’d love baseball just the same.
If he were playing church league softball at home in Florida, spending more time with his wife, six children (soon to be seven) and 400-acre vegetable farm, well, his feelings for baseball wouldn’t change.
Borders can’t get the game out of his system, and he’s happiest when he can strap on the catcher’s gear in a baseball dugout, whether it’s in the minors in Nashville or the majors in Seattle.
He could have taken his 16 major league seasons and his World Series MVP trophy back to Florida and raised kids and crops. But that wouldn’t be Pat Borders. He needs baseball and that’s why, with his best major league years long behind him, he continues to enjoy himself whether he’s at Buffalo, Durham, Tacoma, Nashville or Seattle.
When he began this season with the Brewers’ Class AAA team in Nashville, it marked the seventh straight year he’d played at least part of a season in the minors.
“How many guys enjoy the game more than Pat? I don’t know of any,” said Mariners manager Mike Hargrove, who was Borders’ skipper eight years ago in Cleveland and now with the Mariners after they acquired him this month from Nashville.
Then Hargrove thought of one.
“Ernie Banks?” Hargrove offered. “Pat absolutely loves this game and he loves to compete. That’s what I think is cool about him.”
OK, Borders’ love of the game has its limits. At age 42, he says his body feels the rigors of everyday work more now, especially in the minor leagues.
“It’s fun, but it’s really hard,” he said. “At my age, it’s not the physical part of playing that is harder, but it’s the lack of sleep.”
Minor leaguers don’t travel on charter flights that leave when they want them to. They often will play a night game and get a wakeup call a few hours later to travel to the next outpost.
“The way the travel times are in the minor leagues, sometimes you wake up at 3, 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning after playing a night game, then you travel all day and play a night game again. You don’t get a lot of sleep, and at my age I need my sleep.”
So why keep doing it?
“Because the good days, when you actually do get a little bit of sleep, far outweigh the bad ones,” he said.
This is Borders’ fifth stint with the Mariners – he played in Seattle in some portion of each season since 2001. He started last year the same way, with the Mariners’ Class AAA team in Tacoma, before the M’s called him up for 19 games at midseason.
Borders wound up back at Tacoma before the Mariners made a late-season trade that landed him back in the majors. They sent him to the Minnesota Twins, who needed a veteran backup catcher, in exchange for B.J. Garbe.
Borders not only filled in with the Twins, he played in the postseason for the first time since 1993 when he starred with the Blue Jays.
“Getting to the playoffs is always a nice adrenaline rush,” he said.
The offseason came and Borders, again, wouldn’t leave the game. He signed a minor league contract and went to spring training with the Brewers, starting the season at Nashville.
“I was having fun there like I always have, thinking whatever happens happens,” Borders said. “If I move up (to the majors), great. But if not, I was still going to have a good time.”
After the Mariners lost catchers Dan Wilson and Wiki Gonzalez to injuries, they needed a veteran to back up Miguel Olivo. One of the first names they discussed was Borders’, and they got him on May 19 in exchange for cash considerations.
Borders came to Seattle with a knowledge of the game that would aid the developing Olivo and steer a Mariners pitching staff that was struggling.
“There’s not a lot in this game that Pat can’t say been-there, done-that about,” Hargrove said. “He’s been in all situations. If I was a pitcher, there would be some comfort in knowing the catcher who’s calling the game will get me through whatever we get into. He understands the game, he understands pitching, he understands how to get hitters out and he understands what it takes to win.”
All that, and he mixes well in the clubhouse. The veterans and rookies alike listen to what Borders says.
“Pat has never been a real boisterous, rah-rah kind of guy,” Hargrove said. “But you do know that when he does open his mouth, you’d better listen to what he has to say. There’s a certain confidence that other people gain from that.”
Veteran pitcher Aaron Sele said Borders enjoys the game like former players Kirby Puckett and Mark McLemore did.
“He’s one of those guys who always has a smile on his face,” Sele said. “I think you might even put him above those guys because they didn’t have to go to Triple-A and play down there. When you’ve had as much success as he’s had, with the World Series rings and MVPs, and go back to Triple-A, it’s a rude awakening.
“You forget about the 3 o’clock wakeup calls at the hotel, which a lot of the time is a Motel 6, which is next to the freeway where you haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep. Then you jump on the bus for a hour-and-a-half trip to the airport because the airport that’s farther away is cheaper for the team. Then you’re on planes for six hours, get to the ballpark, strap on the gear and play.
“It takes a special person to still enjoy it and still be successful at it.”
Sele says Borders asks for no special privileges and works as hard as anyone in the clubhouse.
“He’s a great catcher and a great teammate,” Sele said. “He’d probably be more proud of being called a great teammate than anything.”
And Borders would be just as proud playing in Nashville and Tacoma instead of Seattle.
“I don’t think there are too many guys in the game who would do what he has,” Sele said. “That’s something special. He’s something special.”
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