Mariner Fans Say Thanks From Bottom Of Wallets

Season-ticket sales for Seattle Mariners games have topped 10,000 for the first time in the club’s 20-year history.

As of the end of last week, the Mariners had sold 10,104 full-season tickets for the 1996 season, said Bob Gobrecht, vice president of sales and marketing.

The Mariners’ previous record for season-ticket sales was set in 1994, when 9,707 were sold.

“The excitement generated by the 1995 season, and the Mariners’ commitment to continue putting an exciting and entertaining product on the field in the future, has translated into our record-breaking sales,” Gobrecht said Wednesday.

Camp notes

Fully healthy for the first spring in three years, Makoto Suzuki is throwing hard - very hard - and turning heads in camp.

“How big a media turnout would we have if I named him to our starting rotation?” Piniella joked. “He looks good.”

There are still more than a dozen Japanese reporters and camera crews in camp, documenting every drill he participates in and each pitch Suzuki throws.

Crowds at the complex to watch workouts are so much larger than in the past the Mariners are thinking of opening up other viewing areas - well more than 100 fans have tried to cram into two small bleacher areas the past few days.

When the team begins stretching out starting pitching candidates, letting them throw more and, once the games begin, pitch more innings, more than a dozen pitchers will be used in that role. Aside from the four known starters - Randy Johnson, Chris Bosio, Hitchcock and Bob Wolcott - the Mariners will get Suzuki, Edwin Hurtado, Paul Menhart, Rafael Carmona, Salomon Torres and Matt Wagner.

Some of those will wind up starting in the minors.