[nfbwatlk] Art Thiel: Junior Will Air Out Stuffy Clubhouse

[Mike Freeman]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/400838_thiel20.html

Junior will air out stuffy clubhouse
Last updated February 19, 2009 10:45 p.m. PT

By ART THIEL
P-I COLUMNIST

SUCH WAS THE hubbub in the Mariners offices created by the return of Ken 
Griffey Jr. that the staff insisted on a meeting Thursday afternoon with 
Chuck Armstrong to be regaled with the story of how the club president 
helped pull it off.

Armstrong wasn't sure what was decisive in keeping Griffey away from 
Atlanta, but it didn't hurt that Griffey's 15-year-old son, the 
6-foot--2 Trey, can be a batboy this summer and fly occasionally on the 
team plane.

"That was the only thing he asked for," Armstrong said.

Well, there was one other item.

"He said, 'What kind of recliner do I get?' "

Armstrong was stunned.

In Mariners lore, no piece of furniture looms larger than Griffey's 
Barcalounger that served as his Kingdome clubhouse throne. It was a 
symbol of his specialness and his separateness.

The chair did not sit well with Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln, who spent 
many years in the employ of a company based in Japan, where an old 
saying, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down," had become a 
national business slogan for a culture that valued conformity and 
cooperation ahead of individualism.

In 1999, when Griffey wanted to be traded from Seattle, Lincoln was 
comfortable in pounding down the nail.

A decade later, Armstrong blanched at the thought of the recliner.

"Ken said it with a straight face," Armstrong said. "Then he started 
laughing.

"He said, 'There will be none of that. We're a team.' "

His chain fully jerked, Armstrong exhaled, and laughed, too. But the 
joke offered up an insight into what might prove to be a less 
appreciated potential value beyond home runs and ticket sales in the 
return of Griffey.

In the Mariners' multinational, multifractured clubhouse, somebody needs 
to build a bridge between Ichiro and his teammates.

If indeed Griffey means what he says about team, it will be his profane, 
wisecracking, chops-busting personality that can be decisive in bleeding 
the pettiness from the ranks.

Even though Griffey is only four years older, he was Ichiro's hero when 
Ichiro was winning batting titles in Japan. In private, Ichiro would 
sometimes slip on a Mariners No. 24 jersey and imagine himself emulating 
his guy.

When Ichiro first visited Mariners spring training, a year before he was 
acquired, he and Griffey hit it off. Maximum chain jerking. The two 
vastly different personalities somehow clicked.

A decade later, they are teammates, suddenly a dominant tandem of 
veteran stars atop a formless roster.

"At Pebble Beach, Ken talked about that," said Armstrong, referring to 
the golf tournament last week where he caught up with Griffey to begin 
lobbying in person. "He said they had a great time in 1999 with Ichiro. 
We have a whole lot of new people here now, and he said he didn't know 
what the problems were, real or imagined.

"But he wanted to do something about it."

In his first go-round, Griffey was a default clubhouse leader by age 20, 
a job for which anyone that age would be ill-suited, much less one on a 
team that included his father.

In hindsight, the fact that he did the job well and poorly should be no 
surprise. He was a kid playing a man, a tail wagging the dog, alone 
among friends and fans.

Now it is Ichiro on the island, isolated by custom and culture. He has 
been resented by some teammates for being obsessed with personal stats 
and records at the expense of team. It is said he won't challenge a 
liner in the grass or against the wall, will swing away when a walk or 
bunt might serve the greater good, and won't lead.

Lost in the grumbling is a cultural difference. Those who know baseball 
well in Japan say that consistency and longevity are highly valued, 
meaning that a move that puts in jeopardy a complete season can be seen 
as selfish.

Is it better to give fans and employer your best shot a full season, or 
is it better to risk that season to dive for a single out? It's a good 
debate because neither argument is wrong, just different.

Regarding leadership, the tradition in Japan is that it always comes 
from the manager, almost never the players. In his 2004 book, "The 
Samurai Way of Baseball," author Robert Whiting quotes journalist Kozo 
Abe, who has covered the game in both countries:

"Japanese players talk much less than Americans. Americans expect people 
to voice their own opinions and express themselves freely. MLB players 
are always spouting off to the press.

"But in Japan, it's the opposite. You have to rein in your feelings to 
maintain harmony. At the same time, it's also a way to keep from having 
to form an opinion or putting yourself on the spot."

Yes, Ichiro is playing baseball in America, not Japan. But it is no more 
for him to change his personality than it was for Edgar Martinez, 
another premier player with no taste for clubhouse politicking.

Assuming the burden of leadership now is Griffey, the onetime clubhouse 
headache now nearly as old as his father when he played for the 
Mariners. Humbled by age and yet empowered by it, Griffey can stick his 
face into any clique with a joke or a scowl. For a team overloaded with 
hired-gun strangers with no history in the organization or town or with 
each other, having a chops-buster who can also absorb the attention puts 
a little air back in a stuffy room.

"He can help influence younger players by bringing back the legacy of 
Mariners baseball, something we got away from," Armstrong said. "He 
thinks he can help because it's going to be his legacy."

As for the dread that gnaws at the most exuberant fan -- Griffey 
finishing April hitting .128 -- here's what Junior told Armstrong:

"I don't have anything left to prove," he said.

"When it's time to go, I'll know. You're not going to have to come to 
me. I'll tell you."

Crucial for the franchise as it was for Armstrong to help sign Griffey 
in 1987, the re-signing of Griffey in 2009 makes for high theater in a 
low time, compelling in ways that delight the baseball imagination.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or 
artthiel at seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2009 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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