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On the Diamond It's great being a Mariner, but it's not that easy these days
Updated: Tuesday July 10, 2001 8:39 AM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com SEATTLE -- Mike Cameron leaned on his bat, sweat beading on his forehead, looking for the nearest getaway. The Seattle Mariners' outfielder is an All-Star for the first time. He's on the best team in baseball in a city that has gone spikes over cap for its team and now, by amazingly good coincidence, is the host the 72nd All-Star Game. It's a great time to be a Mariner, he knows. A great time. But that doesn't make it very easy. "It's not easy," Cameron said Monday afternoon at batting practice for Tuesday's All-Star Game, a small smile slipping onto his face, "just 'cause the fact there are so many things going on. I can't really explain it." In the middle of Mariner-mania, nothing comes easy. Fans are pressing. The media wants a part of everyone. The furor surrounding Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese sensation, threatens to engulf everything. Everyone is picking and prodding and dissecting yet, in the middle of it all, the Mariners are trying to keep calm and keep their extraordinary start going. They are trying to stay focused on winning. And all the fuss surrounding them at the All-Star Game isn't helping much. Monday, after an hour meeting with a mass of media in the morning, the Mariners and the rest of the American League and National League All-Stars scrambled over to Safeco Field. There they were met with more media, more balls to sign, more hangers-on. And, of course, a stadium full of cheering fans. Ichiro came out for batting practice in front of that crowd and hit the first three pitches he saw for home runs. The thousands and thousands in the stands were oohing and ahhing like it was a 6.8 on the Richter scale. In his next round, he hit five consecutive out. That set the crowd off. "We're trying to concentrate on what we're doing, but there are so many things going on," said Cameron. "You have Ichiro over here, you got something over there ... there are so many things you can't control." Still, the Mariners are doing just fine. Eight of them are in the All-Star Game -- four of them starters -- and they head into the second half with a cushy 19-game lead on the Oakland Athletics. But playing is the easy part for this team. It's the other stuff. "I'm just trying to get through all the interviews and get out of here," Seattle first baseman John Olerud, an All-Star starter, said as reporter after reporter queued up with just one more question. "We [the Mariners] just have to keep it going. When you're playing well, everything goes well. The team gets along, all that. "We just have to keep concentrating on what we're doing." As hundreds of players and media members and others scurried around behind the cage in the bright Seattle sunshine Monday afternoon, Cameron took a few hacks in the cage, did a dozen TV interviews, more radio than that, talked to dozens of print and Internet media, shook hands, met some players and answered more questions. He then sprinted into the dugout for a quick drink of water. And then, his day far from done, he hopped up on the top of the dugout on the first base side of Safeco to greet fans and sign a few more autographs. It's not easy being an All-Star in Seattle these days. But it beats the alternative, for sure.
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