By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
ANAHEIM, Calif. – As he does every morning, Pat Gillick rose early Tuesday and by 6:30 a.m. was on the treadmill in the hotel where the Seattle Mariners had spent the night.
Before he’d completed a third of his usual regimen, it became apparent this was not every other morning.
“They had CNN on the television, and once you see something like that – the World Trade Center burning – baseball becomes secondary,” Gillick said. “It’s a real low point for all of us. It’s a shocking event.”
Even before major league baseball canceled games Tuesday in response to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., members of the Mariners gathered in their hotel lobby, gathered around a big-screen television.
“There are so many people involved, it’s like everyone knows someone who may have been working there,” catcher Dan Wilson said. “On the one hand, it’s so far away it’s hard to fathom.
“On the other hand, it’s not hard to imagine what it must be like to be in New York or Washington. This will change our lives, how we travel, how we view things.”
For hours on end, players, coaches, managers and general managers came and went through the hotel lobby, as if no one wanted to be alone. They sat at small tables, watching through the morning and into the late afternoon.
“I can’t even talk about this,” Mark McLemore said at one point.
“It’s a sad day here in America,” Lou Piniella said. “None of us know what to say. It’s a terrible thing.”
Piniella was asleep Tuesday when his wife, Anita, telephoned and told him to turn on his television.
“It was indescribable,” he said of the city in which he played for parts of two decades. “I went through two or three emotions – sorrow, anger. My heart just goes out to so many people who were caught up in this today.
“Baseball seems very distant.”
“It’s hard to imagine playing right now,” Wilson said.
More than likely, the major league schedule will be postponed again tonight, and the Mariners expect to fly a chartered plane from Southern California home to Seattle some time today.
“Whenever we play again, and I have no idea when that will be, I think a long moment of silence would be appropriate before the game,” Gillick said. “I don’t think any of us is thinking about baseball at the moment. I think all of us want to find some answers to all this, to have some appropriate response.”
“You watch it unfold, I’m just glad they cancelled the games,” Piniella said. “I hope the cancel them again (today). This is a tragedy for so many people – I don’t know when the game will matter again.
“Like anyone today, I was horrified by what I saw. It would have been horrible no matter where it happened, but to happen in New York … it’s just unbelievable.”
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