A player to root for: Mike Sweeney

"Honey, if this is too hard, I'll be by your side," he told her.
"No, I'll be by your side," Shara Sweeney countered.
And this is why the Mariners should consider Mike Sweeney a gift.
He still must make the team. He's no longer an All-Star first baseman capable of hitting for average and power while driving in 100 runs and seldom striking out. But the Mariners might keep him around for his well-known intangibles alone.
Sweeney may have invented the word character. He's every bit the classy, hardworking, affable clubhouse leader the Mariners crave. He even speaks Spanish fluently, a language he learned so he could build a rapport with his Latin teammates.
You could say he's too good to be true, only he's too true to be false. Just when it seemed the Sweeney virtue had reached its crest, the tribulations of January revealed even more.
Little Donovan was barely two weeks old, and he was projectile vomiting and losing weight. When Sweeney held his son, he felt Donovan's spine and ribs, and thought fretfully, "There's nothing to him."
He had a rare problem called pyloric stenosis. His body wouldn't allow food to pass through his system properly, and he had been without nutrients for a week. After the Sweeneys rushed Donovan to the hospital, the medical staff tried to provide nourishment through an IV, but it took them eight tries to find a usable vein.
The family, devout Catholics, prayed. Shara recited the rosary, crying the whole time, until she found perspective. Later, Donovan survived surgery, and now he's putting on weight and living normally.
And then came 4-year-old Michael James' seizures. They were grand mal seizures, the kind in which you lose consciousness and flail violently. Doctors determined little Michael had epilepsy. He was put on anti-seizure medication and has lasted about a month without an episode.
After that drama, the double ear infection that left 3-year-old McKara in tears seemed like the hiccups.
"That was a trying, terrifying time," Sweeney said. "Having all our kids sick, it's something you could never imagine. Our faith and prayer helped us see clearly through the storm. We're so thankful they're OK."
Sweeney mentions God in most every conversation. He lives with an unabashed spiritual pride, and you would, too, if you were a miracle child.
He was born two months premature and with a respiratory problem. He wheezed constantly. His lungs were underdeveloped, and his parents brought a priest to baptize him in intensive care because doctors thought he wouldn't make it through the night.
But he survived, somehow. About 10 days ago, on his grandfather's birthday, he called to send his well wishes, and his grandmother told him a story he hadn't heard before.
Claire O'Shea had 12 children, including Sweeney's mother, Maureen, but two of them died shortly after birth. They had the same symptoms he did. When Mike was born, O'Shea was so horrified by the eeriness she didn't even mention it to Mike's father. She knew her grandson would die, too.
"I'm thankful for the life you've had," Grandma told Sweeney.
It's the life his father once wanted. His dad, also named Mike, was a good ballplayer. He was playing in the minor leagues when Maureen became pregnant with the first of their eight children.
You couldn't raise a family on a minor-leaguer's salary back then, so Big Mike quit baseball and drove a beer truck for Anheuser Busch. He worked his way up the company and provided a good life for his family. Little Mike is still in awe of his father's sacrifice.
"I've always dreamed to be like my dad and marry a woman like my mother," Sweeney said. "I did both. In a sense, I'm kind of living out my dad's dream."
Which is why, as he says, "If the door of baseball is still open, I want to keep walking through it."
If he earns a roster spot, his family, which lives in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., will spend the baseball season at their second home in Gig Harbor. Shara grew up in Tacoma and played volleyball at Pacific Lutheran.
Sweeney still worries about his children sustaining their health. Shara and the kids came to Arizona on Wednesday for a visit.
Smiling wide, the miracle child looked up and said, "They're my Ash Wednesday gift."