M’S Live The Days Of Their Malaise

No boring fire station or lame museum for the students of Paradise Valley Christian School. In lieu of a mundane field trip Wednesday, they took a field-of-dreams trip.

The bus rolled up to the Peoria Sports Complex shortly after 9 and the kids made a beeline for the backstop of diamond M-1, where their heroes du jour, the Seattle Mariners, were getting in some batting-practice hacks.

In the cage flailing at the offerings of pitching coach Bobby Cuellar was Jay Buhner, Sports Illustrated cover boy and noted fan favorite.

“Hey, Buhner,” yelled a boy, “you’re gonna miss it!”

Whack!

“Strikeout!”

Whack!

“So what!”

Whack!

“Lucky!”

Over in the dugout, Ken Griffey Jr. helped himself to a drink of water, separated from this adoring mass by a few inches and some stiff chainlink.

“Sign this,” demanded a lad. “You made $40 million last year and you can’t even sign?”

Finished with his cuts, Buhner walked toward the backstop.

“Where are you kids from?” he asked.

“Paradise Valley Christian School,” several sang out.

“Is that a reform school?” Buhner wondered.

When we last saw the Seattle Mariners, well, they sure as hell weren’t being heckled by the underclassmen at Paradise Valley Christian. They were cracking clutch hits and pitching on a nanosecond’s rest and refusing to lose and then breaking down in tears. They were the Northwest’s fall romance.

Now the Southwest is getting its chance. Goosed by last year’s division pennant, the marquee names of Griffey and Buhner and Edgar and Randy and the comfortable Peoria ballpark, M’s games have become as big a Cactus League draw as the Cubs. More than 11,000 showed up to watch the two play last Sunday; the 7,234 average is third in the majors and a mere 3,000 improvement over 1995’s labor-scarred attendance.

But until Wednesday, frankly, the M’s looked romanced out.

Snapping a string of five listless losses, the Mariners pounded out 17 hits in a 9-5 victory over Milwaukee. Of course, the Brewers themselves are the soft underbelly of the Cactus League. Still, the Mariners had to load the lineup as if it were opening night and the score was 9-3 until Bobby Ayala … oh, never mind.

“It feels good to win, I know that,” said shortstop Alex Rodriguez. “I know these games don’t count, but a losing streak is a losing streak.”

But losing is the least of it. There is a muddled feel to this Mariners spring, a bouillabaisse of malaise.

Griffey and Buhner are struggling to find their strokes and earlier in the week complained that a roster too large to begin with had cost them precious time in the cage; now they’re taking extra B.P. Two projected starting pitchers - Chris Bosio and Paul Menhart - are hurting and will miss some early turns. Closer Norm Charlton is getting rocked and he’s not alone - Seattle’s spring ERA is the fluffiest in the bigs. Joey Cora’s routine throws to first are, for some reason, not-so-routine.

Fans flocking to see the never-quit M’s and instead witness 10 called third strikes in a desultory loss.

Don’t think manager Lou Piniella hasn’t noticed, to say nothing of the brats from Paradise Valley Christian.

“What happens with a team that plays well the year before - and it really happens in spring training - is that you lose the sense of urgency,” Piniella said. “When I played with the Yankees, it happened to us. You think, ‘We’ve got time, we did it last year, we can do it again.’ But in this game, you don’t turn it on and off whenever you want to.

“This club plays with emotion and a lot of adrenaline and we haven’t had much adrenaline here in spring training. Why? The way we finished up last year has a lot to do with it, but we also have a lot of new players in camp.”

Piniella cut five players - catcher Chris Widger the closest to being notable - to get the roster to 34 on Wednesday. Fifteen of those were not here this time last year. Nine players from last October’s playoff roster are gone, and others - Ayala, Felix Fermin - could follow.

“Our 25-man roster is going to have a 40 percent turnover,” Piniella predicted. “That means 10 people will be new. That’s a lot.”

Especially when winners are always expected to repeat.

The economic rationale for such turnover is sound enough, given Seattle’s circumstances, but it’s harder to justify emotionally.

“Guys you shared the good times with last season are gone and you’re going to miss them,” said Buhner. “It’s made spring training strange, different.”

Indeed, for a championship club, the Mariners are as unsettled as you can be.

“Guys are worried that they won’t make the team and other guys just don’t know each other,” Piniella said. “You can’t build chemistry in that atmosphere.

“We get the final product here, you’ll see that unity and feeling coming back.”

Maybe. But the Mariners’ unity was forged over the course of an entire season in 1995. Significant additions and subtractions were made each month, and probably will be again.

Already the M’s are inquiring about a starting pitcher - Mark Clark of Cleveland and Scott Kamienicki of the Yankees are on the wish list. It will be the first move and certainly not the last.

“We have 10 days to get things moving,” said Piniella, “10 days to put this club together and get ready. “Right now, we’re not close.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review