As if a winning team weren’t enough …

With a batting average near .350, Ichiro Suzuki might be good for a double … no, make that a triple. Then there’s David Bell who could have a shot at a home run. And what about Edgar Martinez?

Seattle Mariners (mariners.mlb.com ) baseball fans now can combine several of their favorite things when attending games at Safeco Field: the game, the team, baseball stats and their ability to predict what their favorite players are going to do. All they need is a handset with AT&T Digital PocketNet service (www.attws.com), according to Mike Broom, AT&T Wireless spokesperson.

On Tuesday, Aug. 21, two interactive games, BatterUp and ChangeUp, were launched for those attending the Mariners-Tigers game. The joint effort between AT&T Wireless, the Mariners and Verrus (www.verrus.com), a provider of wireless entertainment and parking services, will continue through the rest of the Mariners’ baseball season. It’s a pilot project, and AT&T Wireless could launch it in other parts of the country as well, Broom said. The Mariners were a natural first choice; AT&T Wireless is the Mariners’ telecom partner and worked with the team in building Safeco Field, which included in-building coverage and wireless office service.

In BatterUp, participants choose three favorite players and then predict what they’ll do during their times at bat. Each player has a pre-determined multiplier (the lower the number, the better the player), and each outcome also has a point value. For example, if a fan picks Ichiro Suzuki for a triple, and Suzuki delivers, the fan will get 350 points for the triple multiplied by 19 for Suzuki. If the fan chooses Suzuki to hit a single — a far more likely possibility — he only can get 10 points times 19.

Fans also play ChangeUp, which allows them to answer a series of Mariner trivia questions, guess the number of foul balls hit during an inning and bet on the hydro races, electronic races projected on the stadium screens.

Point leaders are announced through the game, which lasts through the seventh inning. At the end, a winner is announced and awarded a $50 gift certificate from the Mariners’ gift shop. The first night, a teenage boy racked up 7,000 points to win the first gift certificate and, more important, significant bragging rights among his peers. At the end of the season, the fan with the most points will win a trip to Spring training next season, courtesy of Verrus.

Fans who belong to the Mariners Compass Club also can win points through the games as well as through purchases made at the stadium; the points can be redeemed for prizes. The Mariners aren’t exactly looking for new ways to attract fans to the stadium. The team, currently leading the American League West, has had 31 sold-out games in a row, Rebecca Hale, Mariners communication director, said Thursday.

“It’s just for fun,” she said. The Mariners also are working with Verrus and Diamond Parking so that fans can use their PocketNet handsets to determine parking availability in the lots around the stadium. And Hale said the stadium is looking into a service that will allow fans to order their beer and hot dogs from their phones and have it delivered to their seats.

In the short term, the new interactive games probably won’t have a big impact on AT&T Wireless’ bottom line. The games are free to PocketNet subscribers, who aren’t required to pay for airtime in order to play, Broom said.

Fans who don’t have AT&T PocketNet service are able to borrow handsets at the game, free of charge, in order to play. AT&T made 100 Ericsson (www.ericsson.com) R289LX handsets available, and by the end of Tuesday’s game, fans were lining up to reserve them for future games, Broom said.

Of course, with more than 45,000 in attendance, those 100 phones don’t go very far. But any fan who is inspired to get his own PocketNet service will find a convenient AT&T Wireless store right at Safeco Field.