Moyer lucky to escape sinking ship

He wasn’t the original Ancient Mariner, just the Most Ancient. So ancient that wisdom may have been slipping toward dotage when it finally came clear to Jamie Moyer.

Life’s too short.

Especially when you wear the colors of the Seattle Mariners – nadir blue, miscalculation teal and ship-sink silver.

Moyer washed up in Chicago on Monday with his new team, the Philadelphia Phillies – two days after the Seattle Titanics sent him overboard. The exchange was for a pair of minor-league pitchers who, now that they belong to the M’s, are certain to develop mysterious arm – or head – problems, though not before they put up some false-hope numbers in Double-A, or wherever. Oh, and the Mariners sent over some cash, too.

Probably offered to help the Phillies with some kooky TV commercials, as well.

Over the phone Monday, Moyer sounded almost reborn, which is nice for him but a sad reflection on both the M’s and the National League. The Phillies are a game under .500 – in other words, as mediocre as the Mariners were two weeks ago – yet just 2 1/2 games behind Cincinnati in the wild card standings. Of course, there are seven other teams within five games of that dubious prize, making it baseball’s version of Whack-A-Mole.

“It’s exciting to be with a club not far out with 40 or so games to go,” Moyer said. “Maybe we can do some damage and get in the playoffs.”

In contrast to his situation in Seattle, where the Mariners have murdered off all the maybes.

At 43, maybe Moyer can help the Phillies stay afloat. As it happens, his 4.39 earned run average was still the best in Seattle’s rotation, and his unsightly won-lost record of 6-12 was warped by six shutouts the M’s endured when he started.

Felix Hernandez may be the future, but – lamentably – Jamie Moyer was still Seattle’s ace.

And more. He was the Mariners’ all-time leader in wins and innings pitched, the salt of the clubhouse, the last link to the mid-1990’s incubation of baseball passion in Seattle – acquired in the middle of a pennant race, yet something far beyond the typical rent-a-player.

“I was at kind of a crossroads in my career,” he said of the 1996 deal that brought him to Seattle from Boston. “I walked in the door and was handed the ball by Lou (Piniella) and he said, ‘Go pitch.’ A lot of good things happened – not only to me as an individual. We won a lot of baseball games there.”

Moyer won 145 of them, impossibly, with a fastball that wouldn’t sink a centimeter into a sofa cushion. Changeups settled into catcher Dan Wilson’s mitt at 60 mph. Moyer maddened opposing batters with location and guile, and by doing his homework. And when he won 21 games at age 40, his name joined a short list that included Cy Young and Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Who only seemed like his contemporaries.

Seattle is home for him, his wife Karen and their six children, and a foundation they started that does infinite good, and yet he chose to leave. Which is just another demonstration of how desperate the Mariners’ situation has become.

If they got next to nothing in the deal, the M’s can at least use Moyer’s vacated starts to audition a prospect, since they’re going to need several next year. Gil Meche is eligible for free agency and will likely move on, and there seems to be no sign of life on Planet Pineiro. A combination of bad deals, bad luck, overly optimistic scouting and perhaps even a misbegotten approach to development has turned what was touted as an abudance of almost-ready-for-prime-time arms into a waste heap.

A year ago, as the M’s were losing 93 games, Moyer refused a deal to Houston, as was his right. But Seattle’s ongoing crash – 11 straight losses, several without a fight – pushed him over the edge. He didn’t ask for the trade, but he didn’t resist.

He said it was because of “the willingness of the Phillies to look to the future – Houston wasn’t willing to do anything.” And, yes, the Phillies agreed to a mutual option for 2007, though they can escape it with some of that cash Seattle so helpfully sent along.

More to the point, Moyer – his baseball clock ticking – couldn’t afford to invest in failure anymore, and that’s all general manager Bill Bavasi and manager Mike Hargrove have been able to sell.

“I played eight years there where the organization won,” he said. “The last two years have been difficult to go through. That’s part of the game – it happens and you deal with it. But it just didn’t seem like we were going to get out of that funk we were in.

“This is an opportunity to go somewhere and hopefully help a team win some games and get in the playoffs. And I thought, ‘Why not?’ “

Because the losing is getting old, if not downright ancient.