Back In Full Swing -- M's Prospect Lennon Says He's Changed

TEMPE, Ariz. - In the world of first-round draft picks, such as Ken Griffey Jr., Roger Salkeld and Tino Martinez, Patrick Lennon is overlooked.

Indeed, the only news of his tortuous five-year climb through the farm system of baseball's Seattle Mariners has been bad. Gunshots were fired outside a Williamsport, Pa., nightspot in July of 1989. He was suspended for the rest of the season, and jailed for a time.

Most of his time since the Mariners took him out of Whiteville (N.C.) High School in the 1986 draft has been a series of brief, teasing peeks at potential, and omnipresent frustration.

He has spent more time with doctors than hitting coaches. Injuries - right elbow and hamstring, left knee, wrist, hand - have dropped him like a series of Nolan Ryan fastballs up and in.

But he is back, one of 50 Mariners to start full-squad workouts yesterday. Seemingly forgotten at age 22 in the passage of time and the emergence of others, Patrick Lennon is the stuff of spring training and growing pains - older and wiser.

``And changed,'' he said, found in a quiet corner of a crowded clubhouse.

This is all easily said before the season, these promises of guts, glory and giving your all in pursuit of a pennant. But there is something in Lennon's demeanor, a quiet sense of himself, and confidence therein, that was not there before.

``I feel I know who I am for the first time,'' he said, ``and I am happy with that person.''

This is solidity of a different sort. In 1988, Lennon showed up here built like the side of a ballpark. Told Seattle was looking for power, he opted for muscle - much too much muscle.

After seasons of batting .243 and .251 in Class A ball, it was another misstep, but nothing compared to the gun-toting business, and seasons of .259 and .262 in Class AA.

``I was fighting to get a grip of a number of things,'' Lennon recalled. ``Failure was the biggest.

``I was always the guy who made the big hit or the big play to save the game. When I was a No. 1 pick, I figured, `Yeah, that's about right.' Then nothing went right.

``Oh, it did for a spell or two. But I did not realize I was putting pressure on myself to keep being the big man on the team. That's what No. 1 picks are supposed to be, right? Heroes.

``When you pressure yourself, you are only asking for failure. I would strike out twice in a game and that third time up I was so down, the third strikeout was guaranteed.''

As Griffey, two years younger, went on to dazzle the American League and kids from coast to coast, Lennon lost his way and his love for the game. He started keeping bad company, and was with them that night in Williamsport when his world nearly came apart.

``Not `bad' as in bad people,'' he said. ``But bad for me. I needed people around me to be motivated toward success. They weren't.''

No sooner had Lennon served his time than he was faced with deeper trouble. His father, Alton, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

``That hit me so hard,'' Patrick said. ``My mom and dad divorced seven years ago. I went with my father. He was only 20 years older than me. We were more like brothers than father and son.''

Patrick faithfully drove his dad to a hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C., for chemotherapy treatments, a six-hour round trip three times a week. It did no good. Alton Lennon died last Easter Sunday.

``When I saw what he went through, his courage handling his fate, it made me stop and think what I was doing. It started my maturing,'' Patrick said.

Lennon, with a son of his own, Joshua, now 16 months old, was now father figure to two younger brothers, DeMondrick, 15, and Gaylin, 6. ``Mom remarried, but is going through another separation,'' Patrick said. ``I try to spend as much time as I can with my brothers. It brings me great joy to see Gaylin smile when he sees me.

``Going through this and becoming a father has made me more responsible. I have a number of people depending on me now.''

That showed in his performance last year, when he hit .288 with eight homers and 30 runs batted in in 44 games for San Bernardino and then went back to Williamsport to hit .293 with five homers and 22 RBI in 49 games.

``Patrick has everything scouts look for in a player,'' said Keith Bodie, who managed him in San Bernardino. ``He has a chance to be an impact player. He showed much of it for us, but he was really upset by the passing of his father. That's the type of thing it can take a long time to get over, but something that can help put things in perspective.''

Last September, his baseball season cut short by a broken hand, Lennon went on a work-release program that was part of his sentence. Jim Beattie, Mariner farm director, called Mickey Bowers, formerly a manager in the Seattle system and now part-owner of a car dealership in Williamsport.

``I put him to work washing cars,'' Bowers said. ``Then I asked him if he liked the idea of doing that for the rest of his life.''

Bowers and Lennon started to have some long talks. Patrick let loose a lot of feelings he had held in for years, and he found the right person to tell them to.

Bowers, a black man who is big and strong like Lennon, had had most of those feelings himself. ``Sometimes you get stereotyped,'' said Bowers, a former Phillie draft pick. ``They look at you and say, `Big, strong - got to be a tough guy.' You try to live up to what they see in you.''

Bowers encouraged Lennon to be himself and to let people know the real person he is. ``He's a caring, intelligent kid,'' Bowers said, ``and that's what he's got to let people know. You can be yourself and be a great ballplayer, too. And Patrick has everything you need to be a great one.''

Most of all, however, Bowers exposed Lennon to having lost a dream. ``My career did not work out, although I would like to get back into the game working with kids,'' Bowers said. ``I am infinitely sad having failed at that.''

Two weeks ago, Lennon called Bowers to thank him, and to let him know that he is focused, and will stay focused, on the dream.

``No one ever talked to me like Mickey did,'' Lennon said. ``He made me realize how much he missed what he had loved so much. He made me see that my chance, my career, was still in front of me. All you have to do is want it enough.

``And I found I wanted it more than anything else. For myself, for my family, I will make this work.

``Now I know that I will get those pitchers eventually . . . if they strike me out twice in a game, I will get them that third time.''