Meche enjoys ride at 55

SURPRISE, Ariz. – Fifty-five.

That number is making Gil Meche a rich man. It also gives him chills sometimes.

In millions, it’s the dollars Meche will get after the Kansas City Royals signed him to a five-year, $55 million contract in the off-season. In victories, it’s the number he has after six major league seasons with the Seattle Mariners. On his uniform, it’s what he has worn since he became a major leaguer in 1999.

In a mysterious way, maybe that number was destined to follow Meche.

“I got that number in ‘99 when I got called up, and when I got home that off-season my mom got out two Ziploc bags,” he said. “One of them had a little shirt that I had when I was a baby – white with a red collar and red on the sleeves. On the back of it was No. 55.”

That’s not all.

“Mom also kept my very first beach towel,” he said. “It had a baseball diamond with all the players in the field, and the pitcher was winding up with his back to home plate, and he was wearing No. 55.”

Cue up the creepy music.

Could the Royals have acted on some subliminal suggestion in grabbing Meche with their $55 million contract? Or did they just need pitching that badly?

Meche was smitten not only by the money, but by what he considers a serious effort by Royals general manager Dayton Moore to turn the perennially struggling club into a winner.

“Going into it, I didn’t really know where I’d go,” said Meche, whose signing is considered one of the key elements in setting a high-dollar bar in the free-agent market. “Kansas City came out of nowhere and they were the first to offer me a contract. They kind of made a statement with it and we worked off that.”

The Mariners never made an offer and, though Meche had hoped to remain with the club, he knew his days were done with the franchise that drafted him in the first round in 1996.

“They talked to my agent and said, ‘You’re still on our list of guys,’ ” Meche said. “But I kind of knew that I wasn’t going to go back. That’s why I said my good-byes on the last day of the season.”

The Mariners knew the market would be high for Meche, whose live arm had enticed other clubs for years in trade inquiries almost from the day they drafted him. The M’s decided the money it would take to retain him was more than it was worth to keep a pitcher with a 55-44 record and a career 4.65 ERA.

It ended an up-and-down Mariners career for Meche. His best season was his first full year in the major leagues, 2003, when he went 15-13. He was 10-5 with a 3.61 ERA in the first half, but he struggled in the second half, when he went 5-8.

“My best moment in Seattle was the first half of 2003, not just because I was pitching well but because the whole team was playing great,” he said. “There’s nothing like going out there knowing you were going to pitch really well. … It was tough leaving. But I felt like I needed a change just to see if I could step it up and be a different pitcher somewhere else, in a different environment and different people around me.”