The tale end: first-person September stories reflect the diverse experiences of a rookie call-up, a player on a team going nowhere, a gifted hitter ending his career and two veterans finally thrust into pennant races

Padres second baseman Mark Loretta sniffed a pennant race ever so briefly after the Astros acquired him from the Brewers on the last day of August 2002. (Houston wound up a distant second in the N.L. Central.) This season, Loretta has been the most consistent offensive player on a club that heads into the final two weeks with a chance to win the N.L. West or capture a wild-card spot.

Mark Loretta

This is a fun part of our jobs. We're much more concerned about what we're doing, but it's only human nature to see what the Dodgers are doing--and the Giants and the Cubs. It brings everybody together because we're talking about what the other teams did yesterday, and who's pitching against them. It's a fun by-product of a pennant race.

We've had some rough stretches this season, but that's the ebb and flow of the season. People who aren't immersed in 162 games tend to overreact to four- or five-game slides or win streaks. Particularly the media. They'll say you're the next World Series champions or that you're out of it with plenty of games to go. In this game, no team is immune from ups and downs.

The key is not to panic, and this team has been resilient. We had some streakiness, but we never panicked. The way Bruce Bochy has handled the pitching staff in particular has gotten us in this position. The starters are healthy, and the bullpen has been one of our strengths.

We're focusing on winning our division because we feel we have some control over that now. We're done with the Cubs (as well as two other wild-card contenders, Houston and Florida); what they do from here on out, we can't control. So we're focused on the Dodgers and Giants.

Does that mean we're looking ahead? No. Whether you're in a pennant race or not, you focus on the game at hand. Everybody is pulling on the same rope. A lot of times, when you're really far out of first place, like I was with many teams in Milwaukee, guys tend to be more worried about their individual stats or their contracts for next year. But when you're chasing other teams and your goal is the playoffs---and it's a realistic goal--everybody is more concerned about winning.

We don't feel we've really clicked on all cylinders as a team yet. We've had some runs of great pitching, and the hitting wasn't there--or great hitting, and our pitching was inconsistent. Just these last couple of weeks we've started to jell together as a team. That's what it's going to take: consistent play and mental toughness in all facets of the game.

At the trading deadline, shortstop Orlando Cabrera moved from a woebegone Expos franchise, with few fans in its charmless stadium, to the blast furnace that is playing for the Red Sox during a pennant race.

Every day there is something more for Cabrera to see when he unfolds his Boston newspaper--a graphic providing a daily update on the performance of former Red Sox shortstop and Boston icon Nomar Garciaparra. Replacing a holy figure in the religious experience that is Red Sox baseball at the shrine on Yawkey Way, that's all they have asked of Cabrera. He has responded by hitting in the .280s and helping solidify a defense that has become one of the surging Red Sox's strengths.