SEATTLE – The Mariners open a series with the Yankees in New York on Tuesday, and Jose Contreras won’t be there.

Contained within that simple statement are innumerable sub-plots, sensational (in the journalistic sense of the word) and poignant, stretching from coast to coast, intertwining three teams and two countries, shaking one dynasty to its core.

And at the center of it all is the 31-year-old man who last October stepped out of the Hotel Camino Real in Santillo, Mexico, where the Cuban National Team was playing in a tournament, and defected.

Contreras climbed into a car provided by an agent named Jaime Torres, drove to the airport, flew to Tijuana and crossed the border into a new life.

Contreras was the best pitcher to ever come out of the Cuban baseball hotbed, or so the legend went. Baseball people have learned that

But Cuban legends aren’t always quite what they were billed to be, or have you forgotten Rene Arocha, Ariel Prieto, Osvaldo Fernandez and Adrian Hernandez?

But Contreras was supposed to be the real deal, better than Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and his half-brother Livan, better than Danys Baez, the young Cleveland closer, who changed the pay scale for defectors with his $14.5.million contract and $5.million signing bonus. Contreras blew away the Baltimore Orioles during a 1999 exhibition game in Havana, striking out 10 and allowing two hits in eight innings. Pitching in Mexico, just before he defected, scouts clocked Contreras’ fastball as high as 98 mph.

When Torres, his new agent, took Contreras went from Miami to Nicaragua in December, which allowed him to avoid the draft and become a free agent. Teams converged on Nicaragua, bracing for a bidding war.

The Mariners coyly promised their fans they would bid on a free-agent ace, but passed on Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, the biggest names on the market. Contreras, it turned out, was their man, and general manager Pat Gillick went to Nicaragua to make their presentation.

Also on hand were the Red Sox, who targeted Contreras from the start, envisioning a rotation headed by Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe and Contreras as the means to toppling the Yankees. Boston hired Cuban legend (and Contreras hero) Euclides Rojas as bullpen coach, and bought up all the rooms in the Nicaraguan hotel where Contreras was staying to keep other suitors away.

Then there were the Yankees. From the start, Contreras was a dalliance for them, totally unnecessary except as a way for owner George Steinbrenner to say to the world, and especially the Red Sox, “We can get whomever we want, and you can’t stop us.”

And no one could, of course. Contreras signed a four-year, $32.million contract and told the world he had always wanted to be a Yankee. The Mariners, it turned out, never had a chance once Steinbrenner started throwing around his money.

“We weren’t in that stratosphere,” Gillick says now.

The price of poker got so high that even the Red Sox finally had to fold, causing their president, Larry Lucchino, to snap, “The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America.”

For once, however, the Red Sox – and the M’s – may get the last laugh on New York and The Boss. Contreras struggled in spring training and started the season in the bullpen, where he had a 10.80 earned-run average in five innings when, on April 19, manager Joe Torre told him he was being sent to Class AAA Columbus.

What happened next is already Yankees legend. Steinbrenner overruled Torre, deciding that Contreras would be better served at their training complex in Tampa, Fla.

This infuriated Torre to an extent unseen during his remarkable seven-year reign with the Yankees, which has seen him win four World Series and largely tame the untamable Boss.

But this move Torre viewed as an unacceptable and embarrassing intrusion on his authority, and perhaps even worse, a slap at Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, who had been working with Contreras.

Torre lashed out at Steinbrenner, to the unrestrained glee of the tabloids, which blared on their back pages, “Smokin’ Joe!” and “Cuban Pitcher Crisis!” Some speculated Torre will quit after the season, walking away from the last year of a contract that would pay him $5 million.

Gillick remains convinced that Contreras will still be a quality major-league pitcher, though he admits, “I’m surprised (at his struggles). I thought he’d do much better, naturally. We wouldn’t have been in the hunt if we hadn’t.”

Gillick also points out that Contreras left behind his wife and two daughters, age 2 and 10, in Cuba, though his attorneys are attempting to get them out, but meanwhile he can speak to them only by phone. During spring training, Contreras’ father suffered a stroke, another distraction.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with his arm,” Gillick said. “Maybe there’s a few mechanical things to figure out. Don’t forget, it’s a pretty radical adjustment. He went from making a couple of bucks a month and 30 years of communistic background, and was thrown into a capitalistic background. It’s not easy”

“I still feel he can’t miss. People might doubt that, but he’s still a good one.”

Contreras, meanwhile, worked last week in Tampa, and reports are that he was throwing much better by the end of the week. Torre says he’s not so mad anymore but that he won’t forget what happened. Boston, as always, is chasing the evil empire. Some are calling this the best Yankees team ever, with or without Contreras.

And on Tuesday, when the M’s open their series with the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, Contreras will be the starting pitcher in Columbus.

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(c) 2003, The Seattle Times.

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ARCHIVE PHOTO on KRT Direct (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):

Jose Contreras

AP-NY-04-26-03 2010EDT