Opponent: Baltimore Orioles
When: 1:05 p.m.
Where: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore
TV: Fox (Channel 13)
Radio: KIRO (710 AM)
Probable starting pitchers: Seattle right-hander Paul Abbott (13-3, 4.20 ERA) vs. right-hander Jose Mercedes (7-15, 5.82).
Cameron’s crowd: There are family obligations and then there are family obligations – and it’s hard to imagine anything tougher than trying to get 72 members of your clan into Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Mike Cameron was up to it Friday.
“Shoot, that’s not even all of them,” Cameron said. “I told ‘em, ‘I can’t get you all in.’”
Using tickets allotted for the team – begging a few off teammates, then buying others on his own – Cameron left 72 tickets to the Mariners-Orioles game Friday night. If that sounds like just a little too much family, Cameron begs to differ.
“My folks, all my aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces,” Cameron said. “Most of them came from the Atlanta area to Tampa Bay last year. This time, they all wanted to come to Baltimore.”
If he brought all 72 members of the family into the clubhouse and lined them up, he was asked, would Cameron be able to identify each one by name?
“Oh, yeah, except maybe my youngest nephews and nieces, because they’ve grown up a bit since I saw them last,” he said. “Once a year we all try to get together. Not everybody can make it, but most of the family does.
“It might be a holiday or a ballgame, but we find a way to get together.”
Last year in Tampa, he kept the ticket total just under 50. This season, it kept expanding.
“This is my personal record,” Cameron said. “And believe me, it could have been worse. Not everbody could get here.”
M’s meet the president: Catcher Tom Lampkin has connections, and on Friday he and teammates John Olerud and Ed Sprague got a tour of the Pentagon – and during a White House tour spent 25 minutes with President Bush. “When we were leaving, someone told us we’d gotten more time than the Secretary of Defense,” Lampkin said. As for Bush, who once owned the Texas Rangers, “he knew all about the team and our season,” Lampkin said. “He even asked us about the labor negotations coming up.”
Buhner could pinch-hit: Jay Buhner’s first at-bat of the season is likely to come as a pinch hitter this weekend. Once he’s activated today, Buhner doesn’t figure to start in Baltimore – the Orioles are starting all right-handed pitchers. But if a left-handed reliever comes in to face, say, left-handed hitting Al Martin, he’s likely to face Buhner instead.
Because he tends to stiffen up quickly, Buhner doesn’t tape is left foot until after batting practice, then takes heat treatments, gets a rub and tapes the foot.
English homework: Ichiro Suzuki’s English is improving, though he still prefers to have a translator on hand for most interviews. Still, he reads English well enough to read advance scouting reports on pitchers he still hasn’t faced – and spent time before the game Friday reading up on rookie Calvin Maduro.
“It’s easier to read than speak,” Suzuki said of the language.
Segui aching: Ex-Mariner David Segui, now with the Orioles, has leg problems again. On the disabled list for three weeks with a strained left knee, Segui was activated but has missed the last seven games.
Larry LaRue
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