If It Comes To Irony, The Race Goes To Swift

Any trade can end up making a general manager look like a schnook.

Woody Woodward’s many critics would suggest, however, that it’s a look he courts.

And now we have living proof here in training camp.

Bill Swift.

Not the Olympic Bill Swift, the second draft pick of 1984. Not the rushed-to-Seattle-after-a-month-in-the-minors Bill Swift of the following year. Not the Bill Swift of 1991, the closer-by-default of the first winning team in Mariners history. Not the fulcrum-of-the-worst-trade-in-Mariners-history Bill Swift, and certainly not the coulda-been-Cy-Young-if-not-for-Greg-Maddux Bill Swift of 1993.

No, this is the involuntarily-retired, waited-until-the-day-before-camps-opened-to-hook-on, hope-his-arm-holds-up Bill Swift of 1998.

The Bill Swift who, in any case, the Seattle Mariners are grateful to have.

“He wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think he could help us,” said manager Lou Piniella, “but he might end up helping us maybe even more than we thought.”

You remember Might and Maybe.

They do battle every spring for the No. 5 spot in Seattle’s starting rotation.

In this camp, Bill Swift is Might and Felipe Lira is Maybe, and for a brief time Paul Spoljaric was If All Else Fails. The proper names change yearly, as they do in major league camps all across Florida or Arizona - camps which still exist, it seems, simply so clubs can find a No. 5 starter.

Many of them find ex-Mariners. Through cruel circumstance this spring, Dennis Martinez seems to have wrapped up the No. 5 spot in Atlanta - Atlanta - while Derek Lowe is winning by injury default in Boston.

Still, neither qualifies as the leader in the irony clubhouse. That would be Bill Swift back in Seattle.

“It’s a lot different from when I was here before,” Swift said. “All you were worried about then was getting to .500. Now they’re realistically thinking World Series.”

And thinking realistically that Swift can help them get there, even though both the Colorado Rockies and Baltimore Orioles released him last fall - the culmination of four mostly frustrating seasons soured by shoulder surgeries and pain.

The shoulder has been rebuilt and is, insist both Swift and the Mariners’ medical staff, sound. Piniella approved his addition to the spring roster after seeing him throw just 20 pitches in a tryout. His sinker showed some of the same old movement, and when he finally got a reading in the upper 80s on the radar gun in his third spring outing, Swift’s job prospects took a serious turn for the better.

In 10 innings, he has a 4.50 earned-run average. Only Jamie Moyer among M’s starters has been better. With Lira getting knocked around his last two outings, only a telltale twinge in his shoulder can keep Swift out of the rotation now - or so it appears.

“I haven’t been cautious, but they (management) seem to be - and that’s understandable, given my past history,” Swift said.

Yeah, well, everybody has a little history.

Some the Mariners would like to forget what happened on Dec. 11, 1991, when Woodward packaged Swift - who had led the team in saves - and pitchers Dave Burba and Mike Jackson and shipped them to San Francisco for left fielder Kevin Mitchell and pitcher Mike Remlinger.

Otherwise known as Mighty Hefty and Maybe Not.

Mitchell has munched and malingered his way into oblivion - never playing as many as 100 games in any season since the trade. Remlinger has been on the Triple-A shuttle in three different organizations.

Meanwhile, Burba did his growing up with the Giants and won 22 games in Cincinnati the past two seasons; he’s likely to be the Reds’ Opening Day starter. Jackson has been reliable as both a set-up man and a closer wherever he’s landed - including another short stint in Seattle in 1996, after which the M’s foolishly let him get away again.

And all Bill Swift did was win the National League ERA title in 1992 - and 21 games in 1993.

“They went after a guy they felt they needed at the time,” Swift said diplomatically. “I landed in a good situation.”

Now he’s landed in another. The M’s missed out on the best of Bill Swift, but Swift can still sample the best of times in Seattle. Give Woodward this: If Swift’s return unearths a smelly old skeleton, the GM will endure the aroma if there’s a chance it might help the team.

Helping the team is certainly part of Swift’s mission, but not all of it.

He could have signed with the Dodgers for $500,000, but took $175,000 less to stay in Arizona - where he makes his home - and rejoin the M’s.

“Practical reasons,” he said, “and sentimental ones.”

And motivational ones. He conceded that he’d like to prove a few people wrong - the Rockies and Orioles and 10 other teams that passed on him last fall.

Mostly, Bill Swift simply isn’t ready to be retired.

“This is what I love doing the most,” he said. “I feel the best I’ve felt in a long time. Staying healthy is everything. I don’t want to go through more rehabilitations.

“But right now, it’s still my life and it’s hard to just shut it down when I feel like this.”

A feeling he wouldn’t trade for anything.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos

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