Charlton Slams The Door On Painful Past

The mound was new, the memories old.

Norm Charlton took care of both Thursday night, exorcising the most painful night of his life with a save that pushed the Seattle Mariners ever closer to the first playoff berth in franchise history.

“It was a good night,” he said, “for a couple of reasons.”

Two years ago, on Aug. 7, 1993, Charlton walked to the mound in Texas - in a ballpark that no longer exists - and threw a pitch he will never forget. Not because of where it went, but because of what it did to his left arm.

That fastball cost the Seattle reliever the ulnar collateral ligament and sent him into nearly two seasons of baseball oblivion.

Charlton didn’t throw a pitch last season. He began the ‘95 season in the Philadelphia bullpen, and pitched badly enough - a 2-5 record, a 7.36 earned run average - to get released in July.

“I watched him throw 10 pitches in a tryout at the Kingdome,” manager Lou Piniella said, “and I thought, ‘Damn, he throws the ball better than any left-hander we’ve got.’ So we signed him.”

As a long reliever.

“It never entered my mind he’d close games,” Piniella said. “But I loved him. I’ve had him on my teams four of the last five years. I love his attitude, his competitiveness, his heart. As a manager, you can’t protect your players - they run into fences, they get hurt sliding. But you want to protect your pitchers.

“I hurt for Norm when he went down. No one knew if he’d ever throw another pitch.”

Charlton’s comeback has been well-documented. His saves Thursday and Friday were his 13th and 14 of the season as a Mariner, and came in a city filled with bad memories.

“This was a game that was huge for us, one we needed,” he said, “and it meant a lot for me to be out there again. A day hasn’t gone by in the last two years I haven’t remembered walking off that mound in the old stadium here.”

Now Charlton wants to replace it with another moment. And he knows he’ll have to fight everybody in the Seattle bullpen to get it.

“When we win this thing, there’s going to be a pitcher on the bottom of the pile during that celebration,” he said. “One guy is going to get the final out. I want to be that guy, so I want a close game.

“I want to be the guy out there. So does Bobby Ayala, Bill Risley, Jeff Nelson - think what that moment would be like! For it to come here, where I got hurt, would be even sweeter.”

Charlton laughed. In truth, he knows he will be part of any celebration - if one comes - and will enjoy a Seattle pennant whether he is the man who throws the final pitch or not.