Sports

JOHNNY GOES MARCHING HOME ; OLERUD CHOOSES SEATTLE OVER METS

Seattle GM Pat Gillick reached down into the engine room of the Mets’ lineup yesterday and ripped out the third gear. And that’s why the Mets today are a significantly inferior team to last season’s compelling version.

John Olerud, the steady first baseman with a batting stroke as sweet as his run-production numbers, decided to move back home to Seattle, leaving the Mets without a first baseman and a No. 3 hitter and GM Steve Phillips scrambling.

Olerud agreed to a three-year, $20 million contract with the Mariners yesterday, finally deciding after weeks of vacillation between returning to Shea or to his Seattle roots.

“If it was any other team other than the Mets, the decision would have been an easy decision,” Olerud said. “I went back and forth and at times I was leaning toward the Mets, definitely. There were a lot of factors, but one big thing was the family consideration; what’s best for our family.”

Phillips made re-signing Olerud his No. 1 priority this offseason and his offer to him was actually higher in absolute value than the Mariners’, between $6.33-$7 million per year for three years, in order to compensate for the fact that there are no state taxes in Washington.

There was reason for some optimism on the Mets’ side when Olerud’s agent Joe McIntosh asked the Mets to make that adjustment for the taxes. The thinking was that if they were asking the Mets to match the Mariners’ offer, then he wanted to return to New York.

But as Olerud explained yesterday, he wanted the two offers to match as closely as possible so that the ultimate decision would not be based upon money. Olerud and his wife Kelly, also from the Seattle area, have a 15-month-old son and they want him to be able to spend more time with his grandparents.

In line with that, the 31-year-old Olerud said he was not sure that the Mets could have bought out that decision with a barrel-load of additional money.

“I don’t know if that would have changed things or not,” he said. “I think the Mets did everything they could to get us back there. I wanted to make a decision that wasn’t based on money.”

Olerud said he was not seeking a fourth year because he didn’t want to be traded and stranded somewhere dismal for three more years. He received only a 10-team limited, no-trade clause.

After weeks of patient suspense, Phillips finally heard the bad news from both McIntosh and Olerud while he was eating lunch yesterday.

“What’s next is to put the pursuit of plans B, C, D, E, F and G in place,” Phillips said. “It makes for a more exciting offseason than I would have hoped for or expected.”

Since being traded to the Mets from Toronto for Robert Person in December 1996, Olerud has been the Mets’ most productive hitter, with 63 home runs, 291 RBIs and a .315 average over three seasons. He was stellar at first base and an absolute gem in the clubhouse, and the most dependable of all the Mets. He only missed 11 games here, three in the last two years.

Al Leiter, who played with Olerud for seven years in Toronto, said this loss will be hard to make up.

“Let’s face it,” a disappointed Leiter said upon hearing the news, “Johnny’s a good teammate, great in the clubhouse; he’s our No. 3 hitter, as pure a hitter as I’ve ever been around in my career; and he’s an underrated defensive first baseman. He will be missed.”

Phillips said it was likely he would go outside the organization to find a replacement at first base, but didn’t know if he would materialize from free agency or a trade, and he wouldn’t rule out the vague possibility of trying to trade for Ken Griffey Jr. now with the money he saved on Olerud. He listed Bobby Bonilla, Matt Franco and Jorge Toca as possible candidates from within the organization, but that would be plans H, I and J.

One of the most obvious candidates is former Met David Segui, who is a free agent and will probably sign for less than Olerud, although Segui’s agent, Scott Boras, must have been shocked to find out how low the figure was for Olerud.

Segui has had fine numbers over the past three years, with far fewer RBIs than Olerud (.303, 54 homers, 204 RBIs) but is considered to be a better fielder.

“It’s going to be an exciting and interesting offseason,” Phillips said.