Cairo here to mentor

PEORIA, Ariz. – They gather like preschoolers around a librarian at story time. Young, awed Mariners, peering up to Miguel Cairo to ask about life inside baseball’s biggest fishbowl.

“What was it like to play for the Yankees?” they have asked the 33-year-old infielder, outfielder and baseball sage.

This time last year, Cairo was with New York, entering his third season with the game’s most fabled franchise.

“It was amazing. To get to play in a lot of full stadiums and to be a part of that organization, it was fantastic,” Cairo tells them.

“You learn a lot about yourself, on and off the field, how you’ve got to handle yourself and get it together with all that is going on around you.”

Seattle signed Cairo to a $850,000, one-year contract to be the twin of Willie Bloomquist — a speedy base-runner and defensive whiz who can play any infield or even outfield position. Last season, manager John McLaren hesitated to use Bloomquist earlier in games off the bench for fear of not having him for key situations later.

Cairo started at five positions for New York last season — first base, shortstop, second base, third base and left field — before the Yankees released him in August. Cairo then played 28 games for the St. Louis Cardinals before they let him become a free agent.

Seattle is his seventh team since he entered the major leagues in 1996 with Toronto, yet he remains most affected by his experience with the Yankees: 122 games in 2004, 81 games in ‘06 and 54 games last season. He had an interlude with the Mets in 2005, but said that experience didn’t match the pressurized one with the Yankees.

“It’s different when you wear the pinstripes,” he says.

Young Mariners such as shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt and second baseman Jose Lopez ask about life amid New York’s daily circus. Cairo was there through the innuendo surrounding Jason Giambi’s meeting with George Mitchell last year regarding the former Senator’s report on steroids in baseball. Cairo was there for the Yankees reunion of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, who are now both alleged to have used human growth hormone.

Pettitte admitted doing so, and said Clemens did too. Clemens is fiercely battling the allegations.

Ask Cairo if he is surprised by what has been coming out about his former New York teammates, and he shows his baseball intellect and experience.

“Next question,” he says.

McLaren, the bench coach in Seattle for Lou Piniella in the franchise’s heyday of the mid-1990s through 2001, sees Cairo as this team’s new Stan Javier – as a counselor and player-coach.

Javier was a reserve for the 2000 and ‘01 teams, when he was 36 and 37. Young Mariners such as Alex Rodriguez often sought him out for clubhouse advice.

“Yeah, same type of player,” McLaren said of Cairo and Javier. “Intelligent. Respects the game. Talks to young players.

“Those guys are from a special cut.”

Cairo is trying to accelerate the learning and development of Lopez, 24, and Betancourt, 26. Last year, the Mariners spent a combined $19.2 million to sign their middle infielders through 2010. They are still growing into what Seattle sees as their enormous potential.

“We’re talking,” Betancourt said of Cairo, through an interpreter. “He’s a player who has so many years in the league and has the experience in the infield. The things we talk about are learning how to play different hitters and what action needs to be taken” when the ball’s hit.

But Cairo is proving to be more than just a mentor. The man who entered professional baseball in 1991 – who has played in 1,092 regular season games and in five postseason series – still has speed. Cairo brazenly scored the go-ahead run in the sixth inning of a game last week against Milwaukee. He sped around third base and slid home ahead of a one-hop throw from short left field by Ryan Braun, last year’s N.L. rookie of the year.

“I really take pride in that,” Cairo said of his base running.

McLaren sees Cairo pinch-running for first baseman Richie Sexson and staying in games, or making spot starts for Lopez and Betancourt.

Cairo sees the revamped Mariners as giving him a chance at a World Series that has so far eluded him. He’s been to two league championship series, with the Yankees in 2004 and Cardinals in ‘02.

Is it a last chance?

Cairo laughs and says, “Stan Javier once told me, ‘Miguel, you are going to play until your body tells you you can’t.’ “