Feb. 20th: Portland Old Timers and Active Baseball Player Association Banquet

Mark your calenders for Feb 20th (date has been moved from Jan. 15th due to weather)...

The 71st annual Old Timers and Active Baseball Player Association banquest will be taking place in Portland at the Multnomah Athletic Club.

A social hour will be from 5:00pm to 6:45pm and a dinner will be served promtly at 7:00pm.

Tickets are $35, which includes your membership in the Active and Old-Timers Association.

Key note speaker this year will be Bill Krueger, A University of Portland product who pitched for the Seattle Mariners and several other Major League teams and is now a commentator for Fox Sports.

Bill Schonely will be the master of ceremonies.

For more information contact the Association at:

503-297-3120

M's have few pitching options

Bavasi may be forced to move salary such as Winn's to bid for highly paid starter

By DAVID ANDRIESEN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Mariners fans have unwrapped a couple of toys this holiday season, and they were expensive ones -- sluggers Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson.

The next item on the wish list is a starting pitcher, and the cupboards are seriously bare.

Want to take a guess how many free-agent, starting pitchers are out there who had an earned-run average under 5.00 last season?

One.

That would be Odalis Perez, late of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who has been a Mariners target. Given the state of the market -- only a dozen healthy free agents remaining, most of them less than desirable -- Perez is in a powerful position.

Perez recently told reporters that New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya was coming to meet with him in the Dominican Republic, but Minaya said yesterday he had no such plans. The Mets' rotation is full, and they appear to be loading up to make a run at the winter's biggest prize, outfielder Carlos Beltran.

Perez told The Associated Press he's excited at the prospect of playing with new Met Pedro Martinez and looking for a three-year contract in the neighborhood of $8 million per year. The last round of offers for Perez, in which the Mariners and Washington Nationals are thought to have participated, focused closer to $6 million per year.

Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi has said that in order to step into the bidding for a highly paid starter, he might have to move payroll. With rookie Jeremy Reed penciled in as an outfield starter, Randy Winn could be expendable and his $4 million salary put toward pitching. Bavasi said last week he won't move Winn "unless there's a heck of a deal."

As it stands, the Seattle rotation presumably consists of Jamie Moyer, Joel Pineiro, Bobby Madritsch, Gil Meche and Ryan Franklin, though the Mariners would like to shift Franklin to the bullpen.

On the current free-agent market, quality starters are tough to come by. Boston's Derek Lowe (14-12, 5.42) and Colorado's Shawn Estes (15-8, 5.84) are big winners but with inflated ERAs (Franklin had a 4.90) and prohibitive salary demands.

The only other pitchers on the list who won more than they lost last season are the risky Esteban Loaiza and a pair of former Mariners, Aaron Sele and Ismael Valdez. The results weren't great for Valdez in his 2002 Seattle stint, but his competitiveness was impressive, and he won 14 games splitting last season between San Diego and Florida. Sele, a North Kitsap High graduate who still lives in the area, might be receptive to a return.

Beyond that, Bavasi will likely explore trade waters, looking for a partner who wants to shed payroll and/or is interested in Winn.

Not long ago, the Mariners were among baseball's most sought-after trading partners, thanks to their abundance of up-and-coming young pitchers. The problem is, top prospects such as Clint Nageotte and Travis Blackley came up last season and failed to immediately deliver on their promise. That harmed the Mariners' own pitching outlook and gave them less to trade with.

Nageotte, Blackley and other young pitchers will get their chance to break into the rotation during spring training, but the Mariners are not counting on them. Spring could also produce a pleasant surprise among non-roster invitees. Last season, swingman Ron Villone made the team and led the Mariners in victories.

A long shot for the rotation would be right-hander Felix Hernandez, considered by many the top pitching prospect in baseball. Hernandez, 18, pitched at Class AA last season and will get a big-league spring training invitation as long as he doesn't go against the team's wishes and pitch in winter ball at home in Venezuela. But the team has been extraordinarily protective of the prospective staff ace and would be unlikely to let him start the season in Seattle.

Murphy on ballot for final time?

18-year veteran spent 15 years with Braves
By Mark Bowman /
MLB.com



Dale Murphy's career is similar to that of Roger Maris,
also left out of Cooperstown. (Lennoz Mclendon/AP)

ATLANTA -- Before the 13 consecutive division titles were bestowed upon them, Braves fans went through a forgettable stretch in which many of the memories were presented by the great Dale Murphy.

With every mighty swing, Murphy brought the same type of joy he could provide through his countless charitable acts around Atlanta. For Braves fans, there was nobody like this grand athlete from Utah. There was no doubt in their minds his greatness would some day be forever remembered in Cooperstown.

Other than Mike Schmidt and Eddie Murray, there were no equals for Murphy thoughout the '80s. But while Schmidt and Murray have already found their way into the Hall of Fame, Murphy now finds himself staring at the possibility of falling completely off the ballot.

"I hope he gets in there," Braves general manager John Schuerholz said. "I think he is a very deserving candidate and wonderful human being. He'd be a very wonderful recipient."

Unfortunately, there aren't too many writers who share in Schuerholz's belief. Murphy was named on just 8.5 percent of the ballots last year. When a total falls below five percent, the player is removed from the ballot and only has hope that the Veterans Committee might some day open the door for them.

Since 1999 -- his first season on the Hall of Fame ballot -- Murphy has seen his vote totals continually decrease.

"It's just flattering to be mentioned with some of these other great players," the always gracious Murphy said. "Nobody has ever thought that this was an easy club to get into."

Murphy claimed back-to-back National League MVP titles in 1982-83 and compiled more total bases than anybody during the eighties. He finished second to Schmidt in homers and Murray in RBIs during the decade.

"If the Hall of Fame is supposed to honor the greatest players of certain eras, then I don't know how you can leave him out," said Braves broadcaster Pete Van Wieren, who broadcast many of Murphy's game while the Atlanta legend spent 15 years of his 18-year career with the Braves.

During his career, which also included stints with the Rockies and Phillies, Murphy amassed 398 homers, 2,111 hits and 1,266 RBIs. The converted catcher won five Gold Gloves as an outfielder and didn't miss a game from 1982-86.

Murphy's most glaring statistical weakness is his .265 lifetime batting average that came as a result of some unproductive late years in his career. He hit .289 from 1982-87, then at the age of 32 -- and batted .238 from 1988 until the end of his career in '93.

With its short period of dominance, Murphy's career is similar to that of one Roger Maris, who also has been left out of Cooperstown. Ironically, these are the only two back-to-back MVP winners, who aren't in the Hall.

When asked about whether he feels slighted by the voters, Murphy points out that there's a reason ballots aren't cast in the middle of a player's career. If there were a statistical category for humility, he would have been at the top of every decade.

Murphy, who lives in Utah with his wife and children, continues to touch the lives of many like he did during his playing career. There have been countless stories about his desire to make others smile.

While Pete Rose's transgressions are keeping him out, Murphy's saint-like behavior isn't moving him any closer to the Hall's front door.

Greg Hughes, a current Braves and Turner Sports executive, remembers a Sept. 1997 day when a fever-ridden Murphy touched the life of a terminally ill child.

Serving as a Braves intern at the time, Hughes approached Murphy in hopes that the star would come out of the clubhouse to see the child before that day's game. After receiving some medical treatment, Murphy emerged from the clubhouse and immediately brought a smile to the child's face.

The child asked Murphy to hit him a home run. After responding with an "I'll try," the slugger went above the call of duty and drilled two home runs that Sunday afternoon.

"He never failed to come through for fans," Hughes said. "He was the greatest player ambassador for any sport that I've ever seen."

Mark Bowman is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.