Seattle's Fan-Tasia -- `Bobble 6-3 On The Dp'? We're Fans, Sure, But We Still Have Some Catching Up To Do

No doubt you've run into one of us, 'cause we're everywhere these days.

We're the ones who ask the ree-lly stoo-pid baseball questions.

Like what's a BB? Who's AL? Did that coach just make the sign of the cross on his nose? Doesn't Randy Johnson get mad when they call him "The Big Eunuch?"

Thank heaven "The Big Unit" doesn't have to hear the stuff we're coming up with, those of us who are just getting into this Mariners thing.

Me, I hate baseball. I hate TV. I really hate baseball on TV.

But whenever the game's on these days, I'm glued to the tube. The only time I'm not concentrating on who's on first and what's a ground-rule double is when I'm asking my husband something that sends his eyes rolling into his head.

Like the other night. He's in the kitchen dishing up the ice cream. He can't see the TV.

"What's the announcer mean, `Bobble 6-3 on the DP'?," I yell.

"Sojo caught the ball but he had a hard time keeping it. Then he stepped on second and threw to first for two outs. Double play."

How'd he know that? I get the bobble. And the double play. But how does 6-3 translate into "steps on second and throws to first?"

Turns out the players don't just have numbers on their shirts. They also have position numbers that only the cognoscenti recognize - the shortstop is 6 and first base is 3.

There's a lot of that subtle stuff going on in baseball - that's how the real fans separate themselves from those of us who are OK in other areas but are baseball-deprived.

One of them works with me. She'll remain unnamed here because she's a reporter and she's afraid her sources downtown won't respect her when they find out that "nothing about baseball makes any sense at all to me. They have all these rules they call up all the time. You'll be sitting there and all of a sudden everyone starts booing and you look out on the field and absolutely nothing happened."

My friend, who's pretty young, was dumbfounded by the seventh-inning stretch. "They all get up and look around and sing this cheesy little song. What is it? `Take me out to the ballfield.' Or ballpark. Or ballsomething. I don't know where that came from."

Even I know that, I say. It's ballgame. The song's been around since baseball was the national pastime.

Until the Mariners got to the playoffs, Jim Jorgenson was "a total sports dummy."

He couldn't have told you how many innings in a game a couple of weeks ago. But now he finds himself "totally stupefied in front of the TV," catching what he can and asking friends to interpret what he can't.

"I feel like I've finally joined the American mainstream real boys' club. I even know the players' names. I even know that radio announcer, ol' whathisname."

Even I know that, I say. It's Dave Nie-place. Or Nie-house. Or something. (It's Dave Niehaus.)

They didn't have baseball back in Denmark, where she grew up, Ea Lilja says. But she's been watching the set out of the corner of her eye while her partner, Dick Dybvad, does the American mainstream real boys' club thing.

"I know a little bit about the game," Lilja says. "I know they have to touch the base and snag the ball and run for home. And I know I really, really like that Ed-gar!"

I do, too, I say. And we chant on the phone with each other, "Ed-gar, Ed-gar, Ed-gar," like at the game.

Tam King has been to a few games with friends and business associates. "But half the time I didn't know who they were playing. I just went because I had to."

She thinks she got interested about the time Ed-gar was hitting it out of the stadium against the Angels. "I think it was California. Maybe."

She still thinks baseball drags.

"I can't believe it takes 10 minutes to pitch a ball. But it does when they have to do all those hand signals first and touch their hats and all."

I can't believe it, either, I say. But they also have to hawk and spit and scratch. So it's no wonder it takes 3 1/2 hours to play the game.

Jana Norton says the last time she went to a game she was about 10. It was Father's Day, and she went with him and the Mariners lost big.

Now she's 28 and can't wait to get home to watch the games on TV. "There are some rules I really don't understand, but I end up cheering and booing with the crowd anyway. I realize after this is over, I probably won't even care again."

Yeah, me too, I say. I'll probably go back to eating out and reading books.

Mike Anderson, his wife Carol Dansereau and kids Emily and Corey Dansereau, ages 7 and 4, aren't sports nuts and don't have a TV set.

But they've been listening to the playoffs on the radio. They even asked a neighbor to show them how to do a line score so they could keep up with the details.

And Emily's been asking to go to a game next spring.

"I don't know about actually going to a game," Mike says. "We'll see when the time comes. The fever probably will have broken by then."

I don't know, I say. I may have to go. I really, really like that Ed-gar.