SEATTLE -- Carl Everett emerges from behind a stage curtain,
playfully waving at about 100 fidgeting students seated on the
cafeteria floor of a Seattle elementary school.
"Hello, young people," Everett says. His deep voice echoes
over the many shrieks of "Hi!" he gets as a response.
Later, he sprawls across the floor to be among the kids. They
climb around him like he's a new toy.
This isn't exactly Barney visiting third graders at Cooper
Elementary School.
This is the same man who once head-butted an umpire. Whose own
team, the Boston Red Sox, once suspended him and finally got rid of
him after 2001 because of tardiness and then a confrontation with
his manager. Who told Boston media that dinosaurs never existed.
Who just this spring infuriated his most recent of seven former
teams, the World Series-champion White Sox, after accusing them of
lacking leadership upon his departure.
Or is it the same Everett?
In three months into a $4 million, one-season Seattle contract,
Everett has been the Mariners' dudley-do-right designated hitter.
His teammates and manager hail him as a steadying, consistent
presence on a last-place team that needs a few more.
"I haven't had problems anywhere -- except Boston," Everett
said. "Really didn't have problems there. They had problems with
me."
He's only batting .259, nowhere near the form that made him a
Red Sox All-Star with 34 home runs and a .300 average in 2000. He's
even off his 23 home run pace of last season with Chicago. And
Wednesday, manager Mike Hargrove sat the switch-hitter and his .170
average against left-handed pitching with Texas lefty John Koronka
starting.
Yet Everett's seven home runs are second on the power-starved
Mariners. And for Hargrove, the so-so numbers and peace are better
than the potential alternative.
"Carl's fit in real well here," Hargrove said. "He's pushed
his teammates in the right way."
So in Seattle, he suddenly fit as one of four role models the
Mariners sent to Cooper Elementary recently as part of the team's
annual education day across the city.
The topic Everett chose to talk to the kids about? Respecting
yourself and others.
You can almost hear the laughter inside Fenway Park.
"You can do lots of things you really don't want to do and get
yourself in trouble," Everett says to the kindergartners through
fifth graders.
Some kids listen intently. Some want to know why Mariners'
megastar Ichiro Suzuki isn't here but at another school instead.
For about five minutes, Everett tells the kids about respect,
even through getting proper sleep.
"And respect your parents," he said. "Before anyone can guide
you, you have to respect your home."
Before finishing, he said, "I wish I had this as a kid, someone
to tell me about respect."
Everett, who turns 35 on Saturday, isn't concerned that the
public mainly perceives him as disrespectful.
"Don't care," he said, chuckling at his Safeco Field locker an
hour after the school visit.
"I'm not one of those who want notoriety for what he's doing.
My godfather always jumps on me about it. But I couldn't care less
how the public or anyone sees me."
In Seattle, this season began with now-former Mariner Matt
Lawton saying of Everett in spring training, "That's dude's crazy,
man. Good luck with HIM." Within days, Everett had joined Eddie
Guardado as the cackling crackups on an otherwise bland, meandering
team.
Since then, Everett has taken all of his teammates to dinner.
Before home batting practices, he has made sure to playfully tease
the same three early arriving waitresses who work the prime seats
behind home plate.
Not exactly a brooding malcontent.
"I learned a long time ago you need to judge people for
yourself," Hargrove said. "Carl's nothing but a positive
influence on this team."
But go across the field to one of the teams Everett left, and
you get a different story -- or none at all.
"I'm not talking about Carl Everett," witty, chatty White Sox
manager Ozzie Guillen said when approached during an early season
series in Seattle.
If Seattle is going to get burned by a Mount Everett eruption --
some would say inevitably -- it may be this month.
Hargrove's move to sit Everett against a lefty on Wednesday was
part of a larger lineup change that may stick as the Mariners
(23-32) try to save what already appears to be a third consecutive
90-loss season -- and Hargrove tries to save his job.
On June 20, Seattle begins a stretch of nine consecutive games
at NL parks. That means Everett the DH will likely sit for the nine
games at the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego and Arizona.
"A lot of time, the guy who is solely the DH is the guy that
gets left out," Hargrove said, even though Everett contends he can
still play the outfield.
Just the thought of that upcoming stretch brings back some of
Everett's familiar bite.
"The schedule makers suck," he said.
"I guarantee you we are the only ones who have nine straight
National League games, as an American League team. Schedule makers,
they don't care. Ever since this team won 116 games, they've
screwed them. That's something you can tell them."
Then there's Everett's discontent with his play this season. He
has 24 RBIss in 52 games.
"I'm probably one of the worst right now at getting guys in
from third base with less than two outs (1-for-11)," Everett said.
"Probably one of the worst in baseball right now. Normally, I'm
one of the best at it."