Suddenly, Everybody’s A Ballplayer If They Once Wore Spikes, They’re Calling The Mariners

Jim Beattie was busy on the phone this week talking with guys who want to play major-league baseball. It seems like everyone who has put on a Little League uniform thinks he belongs in the big leagues.

“Generally, I try to return all my phone calls,” said Beattie, the director of player development for the Seattle Mariners. “In this case, I don’t know if I can.”

Beattie was busier than if he’d just announced the Mariners would be willing to trade Ken Griffey Jr.

What Beattie was up to was trying to find someone to replace Griffey in center field. Not only Griffey, but the rest of his Mariners teammates.

With Major League players still on strike and the start of spring training less than a month away, team owners remain determined to field teams this season.

And with no softening of the players’ stance, the only way that can happen is with replacement teams - composed of former professional players and current minor leaguers.

That’s why the phone in Beattie’s office was ringing incessantly.

There are apparently a lot of former pros willing to defy the players union and report for spring training next month.

The Mariners plan to bring in 80-100 players to their major-league camp - if you can rightfully call it that. Fifty to 60 of them would be players from their own minor-league system, 30-40 would be former pros. Camp would start Feb. 20.

“We’re going to be able to find guys who have played professionally,” Beattie said. “They’re out there.”

Beattie put the emphasis on “professional.” Which means if you never earned a nickel from playing baseball under the auspices of a major-league organization, you needn’t give him a call.

The minor leaguers the Mariners would use are mostly older Class AA and Class AAA players, guys who aren’t the organization’s hot-shot prospects.

There’s a concern that if teams were to start the season using some of their better minor-league prospects and then the strike were settled, the returning major leaguers would someday make it rough for these guys. High, inside pitches and high-flying spikes, those sorts of things.

Beattie said the Mariners don’t plan to use good prospects “unless a player is really interested in doing that. Most of them interested in doing that have been in the minor leagues six or seven years.”