Run-producing Boone is a Hall of Famer with the glove, literally

SEATTLE – Bret Boone might not make it into the Hall of Fame, but he is already represented there.

Betcha didn’t know that, did you?

Yup. His glove made it.

That’s right. A piece of leather he wore on his left hand is enshrined at Cooperstown, N.Y.

“I was going to keep that glove for myself,” he said, “but they wanted it and I said, ‘Sure, I’d be honored to give it to you.’ “

The year was 1997. Boone, playing for Cincinnati, set a major league record for second basemen with a .996 fielding percentage, making only two errors in 136 games.

The dirty shame of it: He didn’t even win a Gold Glove. The guy who did, Craig Biggio, made 18 errors.

Where’s the justice? There is none when it comes to the fielding award.

“The Gold Glove to me is false,” Boone said after the Mariners’ 6-2 win over the Yankees on Sunday. “It’s not a Gold Glove. It’s a political honor. I played four or five years as good a defense as I can play (and didn’t win it). The year I won it (1998) was my worst year out of the five years. It’s an honor to win a Gold Glove, but sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are. It’s reputation. It’s political.”

Is he bitter? Wouldn’t you be, if you were he? Just a little?

“To me, it’s not all about errors,” he said. “I think to be a great fielder, you’ve got to take chances, take risks. Sometimes a guy makes 10 or 12 errors, but took chances to make plays and someone else takes the safe way. I think errors get blown out of proportion and they’re a bit overrated.”

Anyone who has seen Boone play second base for the Mariners in the first two months of the season knows that he doesn’t take the safe approach. He doesn’t wave at ground balls that appear out of his reach. He aggressively goes after them.

His glove work has been outstanding. Oh, there was that glaring slip-up that helped the Yankees to their 14-10 victory over the M’s on Friday night. But, hey, those things happen.

Who’ll remember it after what he did Sunday? With the bases loaded in the first, Boone ripped a Roger Clemens fastball to right-center for a three-run double to give Aaron Sele all the support he needed for his sixth win.

Clemens’ first pitch to Boone was a ball, his 12th straight delivery that hadn’t found the strike zone. He was looking for a fastball on the next pitch, got it and drove it. “Easy to explain,” he said, “not easy to do.”

The hit will be the conversation piece – that and Sele’s pitching – around water coolers today. The six balls Boone handled flawlessly? Eh. That’s what he gets paid to do.

That’s the best piece of advice he got when he joined the Cincinnati Reds after the M’s traded him in November of 1993.

“Coming up through the minor leagues, it was more offense, offense, offense,” he said.

A gentle reminder of the importance of defense was given him by Reds shortstop Barry Larkin. “My first year in Cincy, he said, ‘Always remember, this is what they pay us for, around the bag,’ ” he said. “The more I played, the more I realized how important the middle infield is to team defense from the standpoint that you can win games with your glove. Not to take away from the other positions, they’re all very important, but the middle infield is where all the big double plays are turned, where a lot of games are won.”

Many games are also won with the bat, of course, and Boone has provided some awfully big hits in the first 43 games of the season. How big has his bat been? He’s played in 42 games and has driven in 43 runs, only 31 less than he had all last year with San Diego.

Here’s how good he is with the pressure on. In bases-loaded situations, he is 3-for-9 (.333) with 12 RBI. That’s a microcosm of what the M’s as a team are in such situations: 16-for-48 (.333) with 42 RBI. “I like coming up in those situations and so far I’ve been coming through a lot,” he said.

Boone carries himself very confidently. Cocky? Yeah, there’s some of that in his body language. Maybe that’s what comes from growing up in a baseball family. His grandfather, of course, was Ray Boone, an All-Star infielder. His father, Bob, now the manager of Cincinnati, set a major league record for games played by a catcher (Carlton Fisk later broke it). Then came Bret, who made the Boone brood the first three-generation family in major league history.

The importance of defense was surely pounded into Bret’s head by his father.

“No, my dad left me alone,” he said. “He just led by example. That’s one thing growing up is I had a pretty good role model. Not how to play or stats, throw that out the window. Just how he went about his business, how he played, how he carried himself.

“That, to me, is the most important thing (I got from) my dad. That’s the first thing I think of (when I think of him). ‘That’s a big league player, right there. That’s a pro.’ “

By now, Bret’s son, Jacob, 2, had snuggled up in his dad’s arms.

Fourth generation player?

“There he is,” Bret said. “Lot of pressure on you, huh?”

Jacob didn’t say anything. He just stood there with his big baseball cap engulfing his little head.

Somehow, it looked natural.