Sports

POSTED: Thursday, Sep. 25, 2008

MARINERS NOTEBOOK: Rumor is Ichiro on the outs with teammates

SEATTLE – Jim Riggleman wore a tired look on his face. Even with the end firmly in sight, a long season had just gotten a little longer with the news of the day.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the Mariners had lost 12 of their prior 13 coming into Thursday and had just lost their 100th game of the season the night before, he now had to deal with a swirling controversy concerning the face of the franchise, Ichiro Suzuki.

According to a story in Thursday’s Seattle Times, a clubhouse insider, who wished to remain anonymous, talked about the growing animosity toward the Mariners’ star outfielder.

“I just can’t believe the number of guys who really dislike him,” the article quoted the source. “It got to a point early on when I thought they were going to get together and go after him.”

The story went on to say that there was a meeting called where a player was overheard saying he wanted to approach Ichiro and “knock him out.”

At first Riggleman tried to play coy about the story and it’s comments, but after some prodding, he had no choice but to discuss the issue.

“When a ballclub loses a lot of games, you’re going to have some griping and finger-pointing and stuff like that,” Riggleman said. “But I can honestly tell you I don’t ever remember any time when I was coaching or managing here that anybody was at the point where somebody was going to go after somebody. I don’t think it got to that point.”

Riggleman denied that any sort of a meeting was called.

“No, never,” he said.

But as much as having to discuss the situation irked Riggleman, the idea of a player saying such things and violating the players’ unwritten clubhouse code – what happens there, stays there – was particularly galling.

“A lot of those people who say those things need to look in the mirror about their own performances rather than putting it on somebody else,” he said. “But that comes with losing a lot of games. You get a lot of negativity. The only way to fix that is to not lose a lot of games.”

There was some speculation that the animosity might be because Ichiro is the perceived superstar of the team.

“It probably is,” Riggleman said. “But you know everybody has some deficiencies, starting at the top. … I feel like I prepare myself as much as you can prepare for a ballgame, but my preparation probably pales in comparison to Ichiro’s preparation.”

Ichiro seems almost obsessive when it comes to his pregame routines of stretching and extra batting practice. Riggleman thinks his traits should be emulated, not criticized.

“I think you’ll find that if everybody prepared as hard and worked as hard as Ichiro and (Raul) Ibañez, we probably wouldn’t have lost so many games,” he said.

Still, somebody said those things, and Riggleman tried to search for answers why.

“Pettiness, seventh-grade mentality … jealousy, pointing fingers, deflecting responsibility, lack of accountability, just a lack of a character,” he said.

But this isn’t the first time this has happened this season. Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva and Jarrod Washburn – all pitchers - all made some comments to the media that could be construed as a bit contentious toward teammates.

There is some belief in the clubhouse that a pitcher might have been the inside source for the Ichiro story. Riggleman didn’t hint towards that, but he did admit that the pitchers are responsible for some of the griping “Out of 14 teams, we’re 11th in pitching,” he said. “And I’ll guarantee some of those people pointing fingers are pitchers, I’d keep my mouth shut if I was somebody saying something and part of that staff. Eleventh in the league in pitching? I don’t think I’d be saying too much.”

Perhaps it does say something as to the overall condition of the clubhouse and the team if there is such disarray. Riggleman believes it’s a matter of character.

“Your character is tested in the bad times, not good times. I feel like for the most part our guys have held up very well, but there are examples of a lack of character when people take shots at each in the paper,” he said.

And his solution?

“You get a feeling for who those people are and you try to eliminate those people,” Riggleman said.

As the media session wore on, the agitation of simply having to discuss such things wore on Riggleman, and his opinion of the person unveiling the dirty laundry grew lower.

“When the ship is sinking, the rats are the first ones off,” he said. “They’re the ones scavenging everything on the ship when it’s floating good and going good, but when it’s sinking the rats are the first ones to abandon the ship.”