SEATTLE – In lieu of a better form of fun they can have in the final days of a last-place season, the Seattle Mariners are down to individual moments of euphoria.
On their way to a 4-3 victory Thursday at Safeco Field over the Texas Rangers, there was this joy:
* Ryan Franklin gave up six hits and three runs over seven innings in his final start of the season. He won for the eighth time, doubling the number of victories last year.
* Ichiro Suzuki slapped a first-inning single, leaving him two hits from reaching 200 for the fifth straight season.
* Mike Morse made the greatest catch of his fledgling left-field career, reaching over the padded wall and into the seats to catch a pop foul down the left field line in the first inning.
* Center fielder Jaime Bubela, who played for Class AA San Antonio this year and was attending college in Texas a few weeks ago when the Mariners called him up, recorded his first hit as a major leaguer.
* And the Mariners won a close, well-played game when Richie Sexson got three hits and drove in two runs, giving him 121 RBI this season; Adrian Beltre drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth inning and made two spectacular stops at third base on blistering grounders; Franklin kept the Rangers’ bats quiet for seven innings and relievers George Sherrill, Rafael Soriano and Eddie Guardado did for the final two.
But enough about good baseball.
It’s too late for the Mariners to have anything but fun with the time they have left, and Bubela provided the perfect opportunity in the sixth inning.
He lined a single up the middle in the sixth inning for his first major league hit and before he reached first base, Mariners trainer Rick Griffin was in the dugout scheming.
For 10 years, Griffin has gotten a special pleasure from pulling a fast one on rookies when they’ve gotten their first big-league hits.
His specialty is to tuck the game ball in his pocket, then grab another and write “pertinent” information on it. Usually, he gets the date wrong, misspells a few words, crosses them out and spells them correctly, and generally makes a mess of the ball.
Then he’ll give it to the player and wait for his response.
Shin-Soo Choo didn’t get the joke after his first big-league hit on May 3.
“He got a little aggravated at us,” Griffin said.
On June 3, when Griffin had decorated a ball after Mike Morse’s first big-league hit, the rookie looked at it sheepishly, as if his favorite toy had been ruined but he was going to love it anyway.
“It doesn’t matter what’s on the ball,” Morse said. “I will always know it as my first major league hit.”
Bubela’s turn came Thursday when he blistered a single up the middle.
Griffin climbed to the top step of the dugout and called for the ball. The Rangers threw it to him, and he began his work, writing:
“10-6-04”
“First major league hit”
“Approx. time 5:31 (crossed out). 5:34 p.m.”
Other Mariners, including Jamie Moyer and Dan Wilson, took their turns with the pen. One of them drew a diagram of a baseball diamond and the path of the single, wrongly showing it went to right field.
There also was a splotch of bubblegum on the ball next to an inscription “picked up while rolling slowly through the infield.”
When Bubela returned to the dugout after the inning, Moyer presented him with the “decorated” ball.
The rookie looked at it and smiled. In the warmth of his best baseball moment, it took him awhile to realize he’d been had.
“I was hoping that it wasn’t the real one,” he said. “It’s all in fun and some of the stuff they wrote was pretty funny. I’ll keep this one, too, but it’s not the same.”
The hit came off Rangers veteran left-hander Kenny Rogers, in Bubela’s eighth major league at-bat.
“It’s a big weight off my shoulders,” he said. “People were always talking about it. ‘Get your first one.’ Now there’s less pressure.
“I’m living my dream and I still haven’t come down yet. It’s been exciting and fun, and just to be a part of this team and to get to know these guys, it’s special.”
Griffin, meanwhile, basked in the glow of another well-done prank.
“I’ve been doing it for 10 years, and it’s still fun,” he said. “You’ve got to have fun, one way or another.”
Especially in a season like this.
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