New Mariner Chone Figgins looks to share some of his wealth

PEORIA, Ariz. — Chone Figgins had only been in camp a few days with his new Mariners team when he awoke to disturbing news.

An earthquake of an 8.8 magnitude had rocked central Chile, a South American country where his girlfriend of eight years, Claudia, was visiting with relatives. Figgins was able to get in contact with her by phone and determine she was OK, though the family was struggling to get her wheelchair-bound grandmother down the stairs in a building where the elevators were knocked out.

It could have been far worse, since the quake left more than 400 people dead, 800,000 homeless and caused an estimated $30 billion in damage. Figgins realized there wasn't much he could do from here, but he did reach out with a $5,000 donation to the International Red Cross, one of his first forays into charitable giving that he plans for his new "Get Figgy With It" foundation.

"It was just something I wanted to do to help," Figgins said. "It wasn't a whole lot, but it was a start."

It's not just a new second-base role that Figgins, who gives the Mariners a 1-2 punch with Ichiro atop their batting order, is getting used to this spring. Along with the four-year, $36 million contract he got from the Mariners last December came a desire to expand some of the charity work he'd done previously.

"I've always helped out before as far as community stuff," Figgins said. "But now it's good to have a charity for it. I think I have better means to help out now than I did before. Me in general, coming up through the minors and stuff, I didn't have the money to fly places and do different charities and stuff. And now I do. My name's a little more recognizable, and when you do auctions and stuff like that, it helps to raise money for situations."

Figgins raised money for Little Leagues in the Tampa, Fla., area this past offseason by bringing baseball equipment and memorabilia back there to his home and auctioning it off. He plans to raise money for Little Leagues in his birthplace of Leary, Ga., and hopes to embark on some charity projects in Seattle this coming season.

But Figgins is still relatively new to the giving world and not certain in which direction he wants his foundation to go. When he signed with the Mariners, it was announced that he'd be starting up a foundation this season and that his mother, Eva Callins, would be its chairman.

It was Callins who first coined the phrase "Get Figgy With It" (a take on rapper Will Smith's 1998 hit "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It") years ago to describe her son's disruptive baserunning style. She spent years working for the local county near Tampa as a coordinator of services for seniors, while Figgins' father was a laborer who worked odd jobs to make ends meet in a family where money was always tight.

As a child, Figgins promised his mother that he'd one day buy her a huge mansion when he made it big as a baseball player.

"He's always said that, since when he was small," his mother said at Figgins' introductory Safeco Field news conference in December. "First he was going to become a professional baseball player and then he was going to do that. He was going to build us this huge house.

"And he did."

And now, Figgins pledges to take that giving beyond his immediate family.

The Chilean donation was just a beginning. A letter from the Red Cross, taped to the inner door to the Mariners clubhouse here, states that the $5,000 from Figgins "helped enable us to release $500,000" in humanitarian aid to regions impacted by the quake.

Figgins will meet with one of the senior Red Cross representatives in Seattle once the season starts to pinpoint other possible areas his foundation can help with. His girlfriend will be moving to Seattle with him and helping out with the charity work.

"That's just something that me and her are talking about, trying to get more acquainted with it and figure out what we can do," he said. "Because she's real big with family-oriented stuff, like with things like Chile and that."

Figgins plans to let her handle the Chilean side of things for now. He can envision himself helping out with a local food drive or some other project in Seattle as he attempts to get the charity off the ground.

For now, he has registered the domain name for the charity.

A Web site for it is still under design. And the destination of future donations is also somewhat random as he attempts to get the charity off the ground in a city he has never lived in before.

"For us, it's kind of just about everything," he said. "If somebody needs help, we try to find a way to help out."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com