Sweet and Sour Lou

By IAN WILSON

They call him Sweet Lou.

It was a nickname that Lou Piniella earned as a player because of his silky swing. That swing helped the Floridian win American League (AL) Rookie of the Year honours with the Kansas City Royals in 1969 and two World Series championships with the New York Yankees in the late 1970s.

As a skipper, of course, Piniella mixed in some sour with that sweetness. No one could toss a base or grill an umpire with the same fervor as the three-time Manager of the Year winner.

Those elements of his personality helped to make him and his teams successful. Few baseball observers expected the Cincinnati Reds to upset the defending champion Oakland Athletics in the 1990 Fall Classic but, under Piniella’s guidance, the Reds not only knocked off the A’s, they swept them.

It was that kind of experience that made Piniella the ideal managerial target of the Seattle Mariners in 1992.

Taking over from Bill Plummer – who managed the Calgary Cannons for three seasons in the late 1980s – Piniella was teaming up with another slugger who was known for his sweet swing: Ken Griffey Jr, a mega-talent who was just getting started on his Hall-of-Fame career.

As the parent club of the Cannons, the Piniella-led Mariners had a major impact on what kind of Triple-A team inhabited Foothills Stadium in Calgary.

Seattle was the beneficiary of some of the best players that the Cannons had graduated, including Jay Buhner, Omar Vizquel, Edgar Martinez, Dave Valle, Tino Martinez, Bret Boone, Mike Blowers, Rich Amaral, Erik Hanson and Jeff Nelson.

“The team I inherited in Seattle already had a pretty good nucleus despite having lost 98 games in 1992,” recalled Piniella in his memoir Lou: Fifty Years of Kicking Dirt, Playing Hard, and Winning Big in the Sweet Spot of Baseball.

“Junior, though only twenty-three, was already an established superstar in center field. At third base, we had Edgar Martinez, who led the American League in batting (.343) and doubles (52) in ’92. Jay Buhner, my ‘gift’ to the Mariners from the Yankees in 1988, was becoming a force in right field with 52 homers over the previous two seasons. Tino Martinez, a first-round draft pick in 1988, was just coming into his own as a powerful lefty at first base … Omar Vizquel was a Gold Glove shortstop, and Randy Johnson was on the verge of becoming the most dominant left-handed starting pitcher in baseball.”

Piniella offered up a pretty sweet lineup to Calgary baseball fans when the Mariners traveled to Cowtown for an exhibition game against the Cannons on June 10, 1993. It marked the fourth time the Mariners and Cannons had squared off in front of a Calgary audience and the first visit since 1989.

The festivities included a pre-game home run derby featuring Griffey Jr., Blowers and Tino Martinez for the Mariners against Dann Howitt, Greg Pirkl and Boone for the Cannons. Pirkl, the derby champ, was given a gold watch from a Calgary jewelry store after he beat Howitt 5-4 in the final round. Griffey Jr. launched just one blast in the derby.

Piniella, still in his first season with the Mariners at the time, discussed his progress with the team.

“The new front office has helped. But my main job is to get the club to win, let’s not kid ourselves,” Piniella told Calgary Herald reporter Daryl Slade, offering a hint about where the Cannons fit on his list of priorities.

“I’m still getting to know the personnel. I was out of the American League for four years and spring training can fool you.”

A crowd of 7,185 showed up for the exhibition game at Foothills Stadum, which saw homers from Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez and Tino Martinez during the Mariners 8-3 triumph at Foothills Stadium. Pitcher Roger Salkeld went five innings for Seattle in the win.

Under Piniella, the Mariners improved to 82-80 in 1993 before qualifying for the postseason in 1995. In between those gains for the big club, the Cannons were struggling with constant changes to the lineup card.

ROSTER RAGE

With Piniella calling the shots, it became apparent that he had little interest in what impact his lineup changes had on the Cannons.

Reporter Gyle Konotopetz chronicled the grievances of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) club in a June 14, 1994 Calgary Herald article.

“With Seattle manager Lou Piniella showing he has more moves in him than Morganna the kissing bandit, it’s getting nuts in the Triple-A clubhouse. Memo to city hall: if you ever get around to upgrading Foothills Stadium, install a revolving door in the home clubhouse,” wrote Konotopetz in a story under the headline “Moves upset Cannons.”

Outfielder Brian Turang sounded off in the article about his second demotion, which followed just five big-league at bats with the Mariners.

“It’s a joke … why’d they even bother calling me up if they’re not going to play me? They don’t fill you in on any reasons. They don’t care. They like to leave you wondering,” said an angry Turang, who was told to report to Calgary immediately rather than given the customary 72 hours to report to the minor leagues.

He ended up driving with his family after receiving word of the roster move.

“It gets expensive when you’re moving your family around, Seattle’s going to have to start paying some of my expenses,” said Turang, who was demoted along with pitcher Jeff Nelson and infielder Torey Lovullo.

The Mariners had made 60 player transactions that had impacted the Cannons by that point of the summer, a dubious half-season record for the team.

Calgary manager Steve Smith was sympathetic, but there was little he could do about the roster churn.

“It’s tough on the guys coming down. Turang didn’t get much of an opportunity and Nellie did a great job for us before and here he is again,” said Smith.

“Obviously as a manager, you like the situation where they leave you alone.”

By September, the frustration in Calgary was boiling over.

MOVING ON FROM THE MARINERS

“CRYING OUT FOR ANSWERS,” read the Herald headline for Kontopetz’s Sept. 4th story, which carried a subhead that said: “Mariners should face the music for their bizarre moves.”

With the affiliation agreement between the Cannons and Seattle up for renewal, and Tacoma lobbying to take on the Mariners as a parent club, offering a much closer-to-home option, Konotopetz suggested an end to the lengthy relationship between Calgary and the M’s.

“There have been far too many unanswered questions during the decade that Calgary has been affiliated with the laughable Mariners and Seattle jokes have become fashionable at Foothills,” wrote Konotopetz.

“What’s clear is that the Foothills regulars are fed up with the Mariners. Fed up with disgraceful pitching. Fed up with Lou Piniella’s mind-boggling moves … and fed up with Seattle’s habit of having top prospects skip Calgary en route to the bigs (ie. Ken Griffey Jr.).”

Added Konotopetz: “So, considering the tarnished image of the Mariners, it’s time Cannons owner Russ Parker divorced the stale Seattles and gave the fans a breath of fresh air as Calgary enters a new era in a remodelled stadium.”

The story referenced a Calgary roster that had ballooned to 52 players over the course of the PCL season and been impacted by 117 transactions.

It also quoted Parker, who was well aware of what Tacoma was offering as he entered affiliation negotiations with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams.

“It’s been difficult to understand and accept some of the moves this year,” said Parker.

“The Mariners believe they have to build a new stadium and, politically, they may feel they have too much to lose by not going into Tacoma … and Tacoma would feel they’d be missing a bonanza.”

Ten days later, Konotopetz got his wish when Parker announced that the Mariners and Cannons chose not to renew their player development contract for 1995.

“We had 10 pretty good years, but they weren’t great years,” Parker told the Herald.

“In this sport, it can take a long time to win a championship. But 10 years is a long time to go without winning a championship.”

Parker said he had considered a split from Seattle on a number of occasions and specifically pointed to the 1991 PCL best-of-five final the Cannons played against the Tucson Toros. In that series, the Mariners called up left-handed pitcher Dave Fleming when the series was tied 2-2. Fleming was Calgary’s best pitcher at the time and the Mariners decided not to play him after his callup.

“If we’d had Dave Fleming, I think we would have won that fifth game,” said Parker.

“A couple of times, the Mariners did not have a great deal of interest in how Calgary was doing and that bothered me quite a lot.”

Negotiations with the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins followed, with the Cannons and Pirates reaching a deal that resulted in Pittsburgh serving as the parent organization for three seasons.

You could excuse Piniella if Calgary wasn’t exactly top of mind for him in 1994. That season he had to deal with a trade request from Griffey Jr. and the roof was falling in on the Mariners, literally. Heavy tiles from the ceiling of the Kingdome crashed down into the empty stands in mid-July, prompting the team to play the rest of the season on the road. Oh yeah, there was also a work stoppage in August that terminated the rest of the regular season and postseason.

BLOWERS POWER

Whatever Piniella’s transactions did to sour the marriage between the Cannons and Mariners, there were a number of players who supported how he went about his business in Seattle, as well.

Rich Amaral, a long-time middle infielder with the Cannons, saw a boost in his major-league playing time with the Mariners despite the expectation that Bret Boone would leave him toiling in Triple-A.

“I went into the season thinking I’m fighting for the utility-infielder job,” said the 31-year-old, who played the entire 1993 campaign with Seattle after winning the 1991 PCL batting title with a .346 average.

“When they sent Bret down (to Calgary), the opportunity came. So, I was surprised it worked out that way … I certainly wasn’t thinking I’d be playing every day.”

Third baseman Mike Blowers, another Calgary grad, also thrived under Piniella in 1993.

“I probably wasn’t in their plans, but the people who felt that way (former manager Bill Plummer and his staff) aren’t here anymore. Lou brought in his own people and gave me a chance,” Blowers told the Herald.

“Playing in Calgary the last two years got me back on track … it gave me a chance to clean my mind and start playing baseball again. People said things to me that didn’t hold true. I needed to get focused again.”

In his book, Piniella called Blowers “one of the mose pleasant surprises of that first season” with the Mariners.

“He was not even on my radar in spring training, as a non-roster invitee. But when Edgar tore a hamstring in an exhibition game in Vancouver, Blowers took over at third. He was an excellent fielder with a gun for a throwing arm, but I told him if he was going to keep the job I was going to need more power from him. That’s what I got. He had an outstanding season, hitting .280 with 15 homers, including grand slams on consecutive days, May 16-17,” wrote Piniella.

“It was because of Blowers’s play at third, and the fact that Edgar was having recurring leg problems playing on the Kingdome’s hard artificial turf, that I made the decision in 1994 to move Edgar off third base to become my primary designated hitter.”

It’s hard to argue with Piniella’s MLB track record as a manager. He won 1,835 games in total, including a record 116 with the Mariners in 2001. But what was sweet for Seattle turned sour in Calgary.