PEORIA, Ariz. -- The official motto of the Mariners' Spring Training -- as posted boldly on the team's clubhouse walls at the Peoria Sports Complex -- is "Kaizen," which is the Japanese word for continuous improvement.
It's a fitting mantra for a club building around a new young nucleus that will open its season next month in Tokyo. But Mariners manager Scott Servais might have hit upon another less formal motto when he pronounced this as "the camp of opportunity" after learning that new center fielder Mallex Smith will be sidelined at least the first few weeks of Spring Training with a strained muscle in his right forearm.