Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Bocachica likes the looks he's getting this spring

	Hiram Bocachica
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

TUCSON, Ariz. — Every spring, every camp seems to have one of these players.

A journeyman with a Jones for baseball. A free agent who isn't satisfied with being roster fodder, someone to fill out a lineup card in the dog days of spring training when the veterans need a break from the ho-hum of March.

Almost every team has one. A veteran with big-league experience. A longshot who gives it his best shot. A veteran with dreams that won't quit and the self-confidence to fight the odds.

Theirs are the most compelling stories of spring.

While the regulars slowly prepare for the six-month forced march of a regular season, the non-roster veterans treat every inning as if it were September. Their careers hinge on every 3-2 pitch. Their livelihoods are decided in the late innings in the hot desert sun.

Hiram Bocachica, who signed a minor-league contract with the Mariners in January, came to the M's this spring believing he belonged in Seattle, not Tacoma. He came here knowing the odds but refusing to surrender to them.

And less than two weeks before the start of the season, he is forcing manager Bob Melvin to pay attention to him. He's making an argument for a roster spot.

Before last night, he had hit three home runs, driven in six runs and stolen a base. In 14 games he was hitting .276. Hiram Bocachica is a contender.

"He's done some things we, obviously, hadn't expected," Melvin said. "I knew him more as an infielder and mostly as a pinch-hitter in L.A. But as far as playing the outfield, he's getting as good a jump as anybody out there, except Ichiro. It's really amazing how he's instinctively played the outfield, and he's swung the bat well.

"Now is it going to be tough for him to make the team? Probably, but his stock is definitely a lot higher now than it was when we started. Who knows what's going to happen in the end? But he's definitely on the radar screen, whereas before he wasn't even on there. Now he has a chance of making the team."
 
Bocachica, 28, sat on a narrow wooden bench in front of his locker cubicle in the tiny visitors' clubhouse at Hi Corbett Field yesterday, a bag containing his McDonald's lunch in front of him, and talked about his love for the game and the difficulty of this spring's assignment.

"Every day, every minute I put the uniform on is important to me," Bocachica said. "It's been like that my whole career, but it's even more like that now. I have a lot of things going against me. There's so much talent on this roster and I'm the new guy.

"But I don't really think about that too much. I just want to come in here and just do what I can do and show them I'm going to be able to help them down the road."

Bocachica has credentials. He was a first-round pick of the Montreal Expos, the second Puerto Rican player ever drafted in the first round. He has more than two years of big-league experience, spending time with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers.

The Mariners signed him, ostensibly, to help them win spring-training games. In past years, they have tried to compete in the late innings of these games with Class A prospects.

They were losing late-game leads to the likes of the Oakland Athletics, who were playing their backup veterans against the Mariners' kids. Melvin wanted to change the philosophy this spring. He wants to win these games and build momentum into April. He believed Bocachica could help.

"I know about the passion I have for what I do. Everything I do, every time I'm up to bat, every second I'm out there playing, it means so much to me," Bocachica said. "Especially now that I'm getting old. But to be honest with you, I don't know what else to do now. I don't know what else to show them.

"I know how it is. It's a business, and when I'm out there playing I'm not just playing for them, but I'm playing for all the scouts who are watching. I want to stay here. I love it here, but if it doesn't work out here and another team wants me, I'll be happy to go."

The days are growing short, and every play in every game becomes even more important.

"It's going to be harder for him now, because now he's put himself on the map, whereas when you first come in and first start playing well you have nothing to lose," Melvin said. "Now, all of a sudden, he's in a position where everybody's looking hard at him.

"He's one of these guys we're talking about filling out the last roster spot. Now it becomes more difficult. Now we're looking at him."

A look, a serious look. From the day he was signed that's all Bocachica has wanted.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company