M's catcher living a dream

Fittingly, Jamie Burke's most high-profile major-league moment was getting knocked on his rear end by Torii Hunter.

That home-plate collision, in the midst of a heated pennant race between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins in 2004, is still shown on sports highlight shows as a modern day Pete Rose-Ray Fosse moment.

It could stand as a metaphor for Burke's circuitous baseball career, which has finally landed him, at age 35, in the happiest of places: a backup catching job with the Mariners.

Burke keeps getting knocked down and keeps getting back up. That's only fitting for a guy who was so gung-ho for action while serving as Oregon State's kicker in the early 1990s that he would volunteer for skeleton drills in practice and strive to make every tackle on kickoffs.

He has been resilient enough to survive more injuries and heartache than any one player should have to endure. Through it all — the 1,187 minor-league games spread through 14 years and nine cites; being the last cut of spring training over and over — Burke says he never once considered quitting.

"Instead, I just said, 'I'm going to work harder,' " he said. "Every offseason, I just seemed to do that much more. I tried to come to camp in better shape every year."

Of course, the workouts had to be coordinated with his offseason job as a substitute teacher back home in Roseburg, Ore., where he lives with his ever-supportive wife, Katrina, and 20-month-old son, Parker.

Now, Burke says with satisfaction, "I'm living a dream."

This marks the first time Burke has made a team out of spring training, which almost — but not quite — helps him forget some of the pitfalls along the way.

Like June 1999, when Burke was tearing up the Pacific Coast League for Edmonton in the Angels' organization. Burke was hitting .336, seventh in the PCL, and was told he was going to get called up to the majors the next day.

But before those 24 hours passed, he was drilled in his left elbow by Des Moines pitcher Scott Watkins. Burke chipped a bone in his elbow, and a surgeon had to reattach a torn tendon.

He missed the rest of the season, broke his foot in 2000, and didn't make it up to the majors until 2001 — a nine-game cup of coffee with the Angels.

"That was the low point," Burke said of the elbow injury. "There's been a lot of bumps in the road, but I've seemed to climb over all of them."

He considers the Hunter collision, which left him hospitalized with a mild concussion ("I started ... seeing colors and dots and stuff like that") as another low point.

Burke doesn't fault Hunter, even though some White Sox teammates did, considering Burke had left him part of home plate and the ball was still well up the line when Hunter upended Burke.

"A lot of catchers catch the ball and all of a sudden slide their knee guard in front of the plate," he said. "They can hurt a player. I think that's what Torii's thought was — he wanted to get me before I got him."

Drafted as a third baseman by the Angels in the ninth round in 1993 and converted to catching three years later, Burke seemed agonizingly close in 2005 to forging a role as the White Sox's backup catcher.

He had hit .333 in 57 games in 2004, and in one memorable July game caught a two-hit shutout by Mark Buehrle in which he had three hits and scored three runs. White Sox GM Kenny Williams told reporters after the year that Burke was slated to share catching duties in '05 with Ben Davis.

The White Sox, however, signed A.J. Pierzynski during the winter, then signed Chris Widger to be the backup. Both Burke and Davis ended up in the minors, with Burke getting called up for one token game during a season that resulted in a World Series title for the White Sox.

"I felt like I was there with them," said Burke, given a World Series ring by the White Sox after the season. "Those were all my friends. They did a lot for me."

Burke signed with the Rangers last year but never got out of Class AAA. After the season, he signed with the Mariners, which turned out to be a fortuitous move. They were open to finding a new backup catcher to replace Rene Rivera, whom they thought was still too young, and too promising, to typecast in that job.

Burke hit .323 in spring, impressing the coaching staff with his defense and the way he called games.

The day before the Mariners broke camp, Rivera was sent down, but even then, Burke didn't relax. He knew from bitter experience the M's could still make a last-minute trade or sign a catcher that had been released by another team.

Then last Sunday, before Seattle's workout at Safeco Field, manager Mike Hargrove walked up to Burke in the clubhouse.

"Congratulations," he said. "Good job. You're on the team."

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com