Mariners Entertain High Expectations On Opening Day 1997, Seattle Considered Serious For Series
Welcome to the last day of the 1997 baseball season in which every organization in major league baseball believes it has put together a championship team.
Opening night is a beginning, though for some teams it will mark an end.
“Right now, every team has the same expectations,” Mariner Mike Blowers said. “They’re no different in Seattle than in Pittsburgh - we all expect to win.”
Listening to the conversation, Paul Sorrento added his perspective.
“Opening night expectations are easy,” he said. “Keeping those expectations alive in June, July, August … that gets tougher.”
In a season that has yet to see a pitch - or separates pretenders from contenders - virtually every team in baseball today believes it can beat expectation in playoff shares this season.
In the Kingdome tonight, the reigning champs of the game, the New York Yankees, will begin defense of their crown.
And the Mariners begin their pursuit of a dream that once seemed impossible and now seems to have captured the fancy of the nation’s sporting press. Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Sport Magazine, a half-dozen other national magazines, all made a case this spring for a new champion in baseball.
The Seattle Mariners.
“High expectations? No doubt,” Blowers said. “But every team has them this time of year. We all expect to win, and that doesn’t mean much.”
The butt of jokes for parts of three decades, the Mariners have somehow become favorites to those who have yet to see them take a swing, throw a pitch, catch a ball this year. The reasoning is simple, and those in the Mariners clubhouse understand it.
“If you look at the offensive numbers we put up last year, it was scary,” Sorrento said. “Put up those numbers, you’ve got to get to the playoffs. We didn’t, and the front office knew why. What we did this off-season was keep that offense and add pitching - and that changed the expectations.
“You put that offense with good pitching …,” Sorrento shrugged, grinned. “Now all we have to do is take it on the field.”
Ah, that.
“We got a taste in ‘95, this team got a feel for what playing in October is like,” closer Norm Charlton said. “We’ve beaten teams and seen them get to the World Series - seen them win the World Series.
“This team has assembled a club with the thought of winning the whole thing. That doesn’t mean it will happen, but a lot of us know we have that opportunity. You don’t say it. You get too cocky and opening night three guys get hurt and you’re in deep trouble.
“But we feel it,” Charlton said.
The man who will throw the first pitch, newcomer Jeff Fassero, remembers the expectations each April in the Montreal Expos’ clubhouse. This year, he said, he’s seen a different group of players and a different approach to the same expectations.
“That air of expectation is here, but what I see with this club is a lot less tension,” Fassero said. “These guys know what they’re capable of doing. They don’t feel they have to do more than they’ve done in the past. I can’t tell you what a difference that is.”
Lou Piniella has won World Series as a player and a manager, and he learned more than 20 years ago the teams that earned titles realized quickly that to get to a Series, they had to come to the ballpark every day for six months prepared to win.
“A veteran team like this, you have to remind them maybe once, twice a season where their focus is, and that’s over a long, long season,” Piniella said. “These guys come to play because they like to win. They’ve seen what it takes. Do we have expectations? You bet.
“But we’re not looking past opening night. You look ahead to October and April and May have a way of beating the hell out of you.”
“We’re not going to surprise anyone this season,” Blowers said.
“We’ve got a great lineup, and with Randy (Johnson) back, we go into every series this season with a couple of pitchers that every team in baseball knows can beat ‘em,” Jay Buhner said. “But you still have to play the games. You have to stay healthy, you have to do your job every day for six months just to get the chance to play into October.
“We know what we’re capable of, but nobody in here is going to start popping off about it. Things happen in this game that humble you in a heartbeat.”
Ken Griffey Jr. knows all about expectations, has played with them most days in his career. Those of others, he said, are rarely those he carries.
“Ask any team in baseball if they want to win and you know the answer,” he said, making a face. “So it’s not wanting to win that makes the difference. We’ve got a good team and we want to play. We want to prove it on the field.
“Everyone thinks they know our expectations, but it’s like when I broke my hand in ‘95. You know what my expectations were coming back? Not to hit 40 home runs, or 30 - but just to play baseball again. I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to do that.
“I broke the other hand last year, my expectations were the same. You may want to do something, but you don’t know whether you’ll be able to, so you start with just playing the game,” Griffey said. “That’s what we want to do this year. Play the game hard, every day, see what happens.”
xxxx OPENING DAY Yankees at Mariners 5 p.m.; ESPN TV; KXLY-AM radio.