Friday, April 16, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.
There are not too many players in minor league baseball whose career stat sheet takes up a whole page. But then again, there's also not too many 40-year-old minor leaguers who are still playing consistently, at the Triple-A level no less.
But there's Pat Borders, a former World Series MVP, dressing in his Tacoma Rainiers uniform, still throwing on the catcher's regalia and offering his help and leadership to the Seattle Mariners' top farm club.
Borders was 2-for-5 with two runs and an RBI Thursday as Tacoma handed the Las Vegas 51s their sixth consecutive loss, 14-7.
Borders is in his fourth season with Tacoma, and has seen very limited play upthe road in Seattle in all three previous seasons. His time with Tacoma has been more extensive and productive.
He was traded to the Mariners' system from Tampa Bay, where he was working with a prospect catcher and saw limited time. In 174 games with the Rainiers, Borders has a .225 batting average, with 25 home runs and 102 strikeouts.
"I went over here with the anticipation of going as hard as I can, and Iplayed pretty well," he said. "Last year was one of the best years I've everhad."
Both Borders and catcher Wiki Gonzalez are charged with helping the young Tacoma pitching staff, some of which helped the Double-A San Antonio Missions win the Texas League championship.
Tacoma manager Dan Rohn said while he wouldn't call Borders a coach, his leadership is valuable to younger pitchers.
"He's a player that's got advice to hand down, with valuable information toknow and listen to and learn from," Rohn said.
Some of the leadership comes from raising six children, ranging in age from 3 to 13, which has replaced weight training as Borders' offseason activity of choice. He spends time coaching his youngsters, three of whom play in Little League baseball or softball in Florida. And while he enjoys helping out pitchers and others with advice he has tooffer after 22 years of professional baseball, he said the learning is just asimportant.
"I'm still enjoying it, it's a never-ending learning process," he said. "You never can fully learn catching, if you think you know all there is toknow about catching you're doing yourself a disservice."
51s manager Terry Kennedy, himself a former all-star catcher, was surprised tohear that Borders was approaching 41 and still going strong in the game. Kennedy, 47, retired when he was 35.
"He's still going, God bless him," Kennedy said. "And he's actually helping, he's not just taking their money."
Borders isn't sure when he'll hang up the mask for the last time, but said he'll gauge that at the end of the season.
"We'll see at the end of the day, how well I play and how well my body holds up," he said. "I feel fine now, but you never know after four, five, or six months. I can play as long as I feel good, and as long as I can still do something." And when that's done, he said, he'll likely go into coaching, continuing his link to baseball.
"I play with the same zeal as I played with in Little League. When it's raining, I think, darn, I gotta go home and sit for another 24 hours," he said. "I'd like to go into coaching afterwards, but we'll see how it worksout."
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