Buhner Gives M's A Course In Humor

PEORIA, Ariz. - If you ask Mac Suzuki his most memorable day in baseball, he might say the day he signed to play pro ball or the day he pitched his first game here.

Or the day he met Jay Buhner.

Early in camp, Suzuki was sitting in the training room with catcher Mackey Sasser when Buhner, his first day in uniform, walked up behind Sasser and threw up on his back. Playfully. Intentionally.

"To this day Mac won't sit on that training table," chortles Buhner, the Seattle outfielder who lists among his talents a powerful arm and bat, a drive to win - and the ability to vomit on cue.

At the mention of Buhner's name, Suzuki laughs and makes a face, uttering the Japanese equivalent of "Yuk," and says, "Every team has got a funny man."

Buhner puts it a little differently: "Every team's got to have a sicko."

While not reaching the point of sitting naked on birthday cakes, as former Yankee Sparky Lyle often did, Buhner certainly has a similar taste in humor. "All in the pursuit of team unity and humor," he said. "When I lost my partner Norm (Charlton), and Randy (Johnson) got married and went straight, I knew it was up to me to keep the team loose. I have plenty of collaboration, but most guys won't admit it like me.

"I can't tell you all my tricks, though. There are too many new guys on our team I still have to set up."

He has made special efforts for Suzuki, widening the kid's knowledge of English with a new word each day. "Mac is picking them up real good," Buhner said. "Sorry we can't put many of them in the newspaper."

According to his younger brother Ted, Jay was always like this growing up in Texas. "It comes from our dad and his brother," Ted said. "They both got sent to military school to calm their butts down."

In high school, Buhner played soccer, not the sport you'd expect from one as rowdy as he was. The position: goalie. "It's the only position you're allowed run into other players," he said.

Leah Buhner used to ask her husband why he was like this. "He told me, `It's just the way it is, babe,' " Leah said, sitting in Peoria Park for a game last week in which Buhner hit a homer and drove in four runs. "Jay is a wonderful husband and father. But he's hyper, sort of in suspended teenaged years. You think he's pulling tricks now in the clubhouse, you should have been home the year he was injured.

"He's wonderful with the kids (Brielle, 2, and Chase, 4 months). But thank goodness they aren't taking after him."

The gagging - much of in the form of retching - is all part of what the right fielder brings to the Seattle club. He is an all-star in all but title, a premier defensive player and bona fide cleanup hitter who plays hard gives unselfish support to close friend Ken Griffey in the batting order and in the clubhouse. Those are points the Mariner front office missed this winter when they failed to sign him to a multiyear contract.

The outfielder is well paid at $4.35 million, but the club stopped about $1 million short of signing him for three years, offering about $12.25 million to the $13.5 demanded by agent Alan Hendricks. "What were the Mariners thinking of?" a National League scout asked this week. "Buhner is a rare animal in baseball today, legitimate power playing a defensive position with skill. Cleanup hitters don't grow on trees."

Buhner might have compounded the confusion during contract talks, indicating he would be easy to sign then having Hendricks take a much tougher stance.

"Whatever happened happened, but I want to stay," Buhner said, all joking aside. "I'm glad the winter is over, happy to be part of this team and this lineup.

With no long-term pact, he runs the risk of sustaining a serious injury, while the club runs the risk of his having a big year and becoming too expensive to sign. "It's part of the coin flip," Buhner said, flippantly. "Big year or broken leg."

A few years back he would not have talked casually about injuries. He lost large parts of the 1989 and 1990 seasons to a variety of serious bangs and breaks. Of course, this was nothing new for a guy who survived three vehicle wrecks in two months as a high school senior in League City, Texas.

"I went through a windshield in one, and was riding in back of a pickup going 50 when it got hit," Buhner said. "I went 20 feet in the air and through a freak of the place I was riding, came down and landed on my feet. You gotta think someone wanted me to be here today with the Mariners."

Today, Buhner is one-third of an outfield that ranks as one of the best in the game. Along with Griffey and left fielder Anthony, there is talk of 100 home runs.

"I'd like to get off 27," said Buhner, who has hit that many two of the last three years, combined with 25 in 1992 to make him the first Mariner with 25 or more three straight seasons. "But talking of 100, I don't know. When we got Mitch (Kevin Mitchell in 1992) they talked of it but it didn't work out.

"I think we'll have a solid outfield, offense and defense, three guys who take pride in their performance, work together, can hit some, with three good arms.

"Some people call me the backbone of this club. That's nice to hear but it may be a bit much to say. I feel I'm an integral part, but everyone's got to pull their load."

If not the backbone, then surely the funny bone - although his new hairdo, to use the term loosely, was Leah's idea.

"I was losing all my hair anyway, my dad is near bald, so's my son," he said. "I came back with a super short cut one day and Leah said `why not cut it all off?' So I did except for the little piece at the top she calls the landing patch."

Sasser shaves far up the sides of Buhner's head several times a week, keeping it a gleaming white. "I ain't worried about doing a good job," the catcher said. "Don't look good to start."

According to Buhner, Griffey will sport that same head.

"Junior promised me this winter, `If you do it, I'll do it,' " Buhner said. "I took my hat off when I got to camp and Junior said, `Oh, crap.' "

Griffey says now he'll get the shave when he's done filming commercials for Nike.

"At some point this season," Buhner said, pointedly, "you will see Junior bald."