Having a tough time watching Steve Spurrier this week, I expect more of him

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There is probably no football coach I like more than Steve Spurrier. I first met the Ol’ Ball Coach (I know he is generally known more often as the Head Ball Coach) but my memory is that he referred to himself as the Ol’ Ball Coach years ago) when he was the offensive coordinator at Duke in the early 1980s and was primarily responsible for the development of quarterback Ben Bennett who—believe it or not—beat out Boomer Esiason for ACC player-of-the-year as a senior.

Bennett’s stats and Duke’s respectable record back then were due in large part to Spurrier. That wasn’t why I liked him though: it was his sense of humor, his irreverence and his honesty. The OBC told you exactly what he thought and he often did it in a way that made you laugh.

And he was very damn good at what he did. I’d make the case that his three years as head coach at Duke, when the Blue Devils went 20-13-1 and tied for an ACC title were as good a coaching job as anyone has done anywhere in college football in the last 30 years. If you don’t believe me just look at Duke’s record since he left.

He went on to fame and fortune and a national championship (1996) at Florida, then made the mistake of being tempted by the NFL after 12 seasons as head Gator. The mistake wasn’t so much wanting to see if he could succeed one level up as WHERE he went to find out: Little Danny Snyder land. Snyder was still a good eight years away from being willing to cede any control to a coach and the Redskins, in part because Spurrier was learning on the job, but also because Snyder was still making his coaches watch tape with him back then, were awful.

After two years, Spurrier decided he’d had enough and walked away from the remaining $15 million left on his contract. Once, when I brought up Snyder’s name to him and said I’d felt sorry for him dealing with the guy for two years, Spurrier laughed. “I don’t have anything against old Danny,” he said. “He paid me a lot of money to put up with all that s----.”

Yes he did.

Because he lost a lot of games and didn’t play coaches games trying to shift blame and because he just walked away, most of the media in Washington—many of them die-hard Redskin fans—made him an object of ridicule. (Still do). One radio guy who I consider a friend called him “pathetic,” when a story appeared in The Washington Post chronicling the fact that he had opted to stay out of coaching for a year so that his youngest son wouldn’t have to move as a high school senior.

Really, putting your son first is pathetic? Thinking that and saying it on the air—now THAT’S pathetic.

The good side of Spurrier is rarely talked about. He and his wife Gerry, who have been married more than 40 years, went out and adopted a new family after their own kids had grown. In 1997, I was trying to round up auction items for a charity and called Spurrier on a Friday morning to see if I could get a football autographed by his national championship team. His secretary asked if he could call back Monday since he and the team were about to leave for a road game. Of course.

Five minutes later the phone rang. It was Spurrier. This was before everyone had a cell phone.

“Isn’t the bus leaving right now for the airport?” I asked.

“You know, last I looked I was head ball coach of this team (he DID say head ball coach that time) and I don’t think they’re going to leave without me. What’s up?”

He didn’t send an autographed football—he sent two. There was a note: “See if you can bid this up a little and maybe do that trick where you say you’ll get two if the second bidder will match the first.”

I say all this because I’m having a very tough time with what is going on at South Carolina this week.

First, the school announced it was tossing Stephen Garcia off the football team once and for all. My guess is Garcia DID violate the terms of his FIFTH return from suspension to the team and, sadly, the internet rumor is that he may have failed a mandatory alcohol-test.

You know what? I don’t care. When Spurrier and the school still needed him to play quarterback, they kept bringing him back, saying he was a fine young man who deserved one more chance. Now, when he couldn’t produce in the final minute of the loss to Auburn two weeks ago and got benched, he’s off the team for good.

It just LOOKS bad. It looks like a classic case of, ‘we don’t need this kid anymore, so, as Athletic Director Eric Hyman said in his smarmy statement about ‘student-athletes,’ they wish him luck with the rest of his life and send him packing.

Seriously? That’s it? We were 100 percent behind you as long as you could win football games for us but now that your eligibility is just about up and a younger QB has taken your job, thanks for the memories? IF he failed an alcohol test, the school at the very least owes him help—whether it is counseling or rehab or both. Clearly, the last two weeks haven’t been good for him: he fails in the Auburn game; gets benched and then sees Connor Shaw, his successor, have a big game against Kentucky.

One thing I know for sure: Stephen Garcia won’t be an NFL quarterback—he’s the kind of guy who might get kept around to hold a clipboard EXCEPT that he’s had off-field problems.  The fact that he got his degree last spring would indicate he was at least TRYING to deal with his problem, all the more reason why he should be allowed to remain part of the team, regardless of whether he ever plays another down.

Just as the Garcia news was breaking on Tuesday, the OBC showed up for his weekly press conference. But rather than talking about the win over Kentucky (yawn) or this week’s game against Mississippi State (more yawns) the OBC launched into a diatribe against Ron Morris, a long time columnist for The State Newspaper in Columbia.

Repeatedly he called Morris a “negative guy,” and railed against a column Morris wrote in the spring about the decision of South Carolina point guard Bruce Ellington to also play football this fall. In the column, Morris wrote that Spurrier had been, “courting Ellington since the end of football season,” to join his team. Morris didn’t say Spurrier was wrong to court him or that basketball coach Darrin Horn was upset about it. He went on to discuss how difficult it is for any athlete to play two sports in this day and age and speculated that playing football would hurt Ellington’s development as a basketball player.

Sis months later, Spurrier walked into a press conference and declared he wouldn’t talk while Morris was in the room. He said this had been bothering him for months, that he had never recruited Ellington until after Ellington had talked to Horn about playing football and it was, “his right,” to not talk to a reporter who was, “trying to hurt our football team.”

Of course it’s his right. But he’s wrong. I’ve known Morris for almost 30 years since his days in Durham. He doesn’t make stuff up. SOMEONE told him Spurrier was “courting,” Ellington. Maybe it was the kid. Maybe it was Horn. Morris didn’t make it up, I promise you that. And he didn’t write it to, “hurt the football team.”

I’ve been in a lot of battles like this myself. Years ago, the Maryland football team, under orders from its coach, “voted,” not to speak to me because I’d written a three-part series, with every single quote on the record, about why the program had hit a ceiling and was slipping. Of course the way I found out about the “vote,” was that several players called to tell me about it. When I covered Lefty Driesell, who is now a close friend, we fought almost daily.

Several years back, Gary Williams was complaining to me about Josh Barr, who was then The Post’s beat writer covering his team. Barr was (and is) good and when you’re good (like Morris) and not a cheerleader you are bound to clash with any coach you cover because every team has things happen that a coach would rather not see come out in public—even the good guys like the OBC and Lefty and Gary.

When Gary complained about Barr I said to him, “you understand, if I’d ever covered you on a daily basis we’d have been screaming at one another most of the time? Sometimes you have to write a story even if you know you’re going to get yelled at by a coach for writing it.”

Spurrier said he didn’t mind being criticized (and I think through most of his career that’s been true) but he didn’t like someone writing something that wasn’t true. I’m sure he means that. That said, Morris blistered him after the Auburn game, holding him responsible for the failed last drive. The OBC is human. You have to wonder if that column reminded him that he was upset about the Ellington story six months ago.

Regardless, he should have handled it in private with Morris. Scream, yell, curse—whatever. But don’t make yourself look like a bully. The OBC is a good man who is good at what he does. So is Morris. They should sit down and talk this out. And then Spurrier should make Stephen Garcia a student coach for the rest of the season and make sure he gets whatever help he needs.

I don’t expect a lot from football coaches most of the time. I do expect more from the OBC.

Covering sports and the perception of stories, angles and who’s ‘rooting’ for what

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Thanks to the magic—or the curse—of the internet, those of us who write for a living have a chance to get some idea what readers think of what we write soon after it goes into cyberspace or into a newspaper or even a magazine. Books take a little longer.

This can be a mixed blessing. One has to learn to take everything that’s posted with a large grain of salt—both the good and the bad. If you take a strong position on an issue there are always going to be people who will absolutely agree and people who will absolutely disagree. Certain people are guaranteed to get readers fired up: Mention Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame and you’ll start a firestorm of some kind. The same is frequently true of Tiger Woods or Mike Krzyzewski or Tom Brady. About the only person who almost everyone—at least in Washington—agrees on is Dan Snyder and if the Redskins every make a Super Bowl while he’s the owner most of those who can’t stand him now will say, “he’s changed, matured, learned from his mistakes.”

That’s why I try to read what people have to say but rarely respond because life is too short to get into constant exchanges with people, especially since 99 percent of the time you aren’t going to change their mind anymore than they’re going to change yours.

I bring this all up not because of anything that’s been written recently about anything of mine. On Tuesday I was reading Rex Hoggard’s story (linked here) on The Golf Channel website about Tiger Woods’ hiring of Joe LaCava as his caddy. Rex is about as balanced and reasonable as anyone I know and his account of the events leading to LaCava leaving Dustin Johnson after working for him for less than six months to go work for Woods was pretty straightforward.

No one begrudges LaCava his decision to go work for Woods. Even if Woods never comes close to being the player he once was, the tournaments he plays overseas for huge appearance fees—like the event in November in Australia where he’s reportedly getting $3 million—alone will make LaCava very well paid. And, at 35, the potential for Woods to make a comeback that could make LaCava very wealthy is still there.

What bothered some people, according to Hoggard, was that no one from Team Tiger bothered to make a courtesy call to Johnson to let him know he might want to hire his caddy. Most, though not all, players will let another player know if they are going to talk to their caddy. Woods isn’t the first—and won’t be the last—player to not make the courtesy call by any stretch but this isn’t the first time he’s been down this road.

Fifteen years ago when Woods first came on tour, Peter Jacobsen was injured. He asked Woods if he would like to use his longtime caddy (they’d been together 17 years) Fluff Cowen for his first few tournaments. Woods said yes. When he had almost instant success he asked Cowen to come work for him fulltime. To this day he hasn’t called Jacobsen.

Jacobsen completely understood Cowen’s decision—working for Woods made him both rich and famous even though he got fired less than three years later for becoming a little too famous for Tiger’s taste. But he wasn’t happy that, after going out of his way to try to help Woods at the start of his career, he didn’t get the courtesy call.

Hoggard didn’t even bring up Jacobsen-Cowen. He just pointed out that this is the way life on tour is sometimes and also mentioned that, after hearing Woods was interested in him, LaCava had contacted Team Tiger to say that, if asked, he probably would accept.

This was hardly one of my virulently anti-Tiger pieces that make some people froth at the mouth.

And yet, when I read the posts because I was curious to see where the golf geeks (if you’re reading GolfChannel.com you’re a golf geek, right?) came down on this issue, I found them fascinating.

Some people thought that, especially given all the bad publicity he’s gotten since November 27, 2009, that someone on Team Tiger should have told Woods to pick up a phone and call Johnson to let him know what was going on. Some thought it was a non-story— as in who cares?

But MANY thought Rex was Tiger-bashing, that this was another example of the media being out to ‘get,’ Tiger. A number of people wanted to know why the hell Tiger had to ask Dustin Johnson’s permission to do anything since LaCava wasn’t under contract to Johnson in any way. Good point. Except no one—including Rex—ever said Woods needed to ask permission to do anything. Read the story.

I would, at this point be remiss if I didn’t digress for a moment to point out to those who commented on my Maryland/ACC column in The Post the other day that I never said Virginia Tech hadn’t scheduled good teams in the past (although the Hokies didn’t beat any of them) just that they didn’t schedule any of them this season. I also loved Randy Edsall saying this morning that he never claimed he was rebuilding and, “didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus.” Then he proceeded to throw Ralph Friedgen so far under the bus that it may be tough to find even a guy the Fridge’s size underneath those wheels.

My favorites though are the people who insist that all of us who cover sports are ambulance-chasers who would be collecting unemployment if not for Tiger Woods. (Or Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Serena Williams—among others). We are, according to these people, complete lowlifes who undoubtedly starve our pets and beat up little old ladies every chance we get.

As Rhett Butler once said to Scarlett O’Hara while she screamed, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,”: “My dear you’ve made your point fairly clear.”

Even people like me who find a lot of what Woods does away from the golf course reprehensible understand that he is one of the two greatest players of all time—I’d say the greatest regardless of how many majors he finally ends up winning because of his total dominance of the game while at his peak—and has brought attention to the sport that no one since Arnold Palmer came close to achieving.

Those in and on television root unabashedly for Woods to do well because it drives ratings. Many—if not most—in the print media want to see Woods succeed because it means they get more space and better play and, in all likelihood, get to travel to more tournaments. The better Woods is doing the more interest there is in golf.

Thus, the notion that any of us, simply can’t wait for Woods to fail or can’t wait to pounce on anything he does, is simply wrong. Do I root for him? Absolutely not. But do I sit around sticking pins in a Tiger doll? No. He’s a story—for good and for bad. I’ve always taken the approach that he’s got enough people who are paid to burnish his image and gloss over his failings that he doesn’t need me to do it. And anyone who thinks Rex Hoggard or 99 percent of the golf media have any kind of axe to grind with Woods simply don’t know the people involved or understand the business they are in.

So, if you want to disagree with what Rex writes or what I write or what anyone else writes, that’s perfectly fine. And, of course, you have an absolute right to call us lowlifes if that makes you feel good. Come to think of it, in a few cases, you’re right. But I’ll save that for another day and time.

Oh, one other note: For those of you who get SO upset when I make a political comment: Look, I don’t claim to be fair and balanced. Or that I’m reporting and letting you decide. I’m biased. I’m a Democrat. If you’re reading the blog you have to know an occasional shot at the right wing is coming somewhere, sometime. God knows there are lots of places you can find shots being taken at liberals like me so have at it.

*Updated w/information on locker room access* Media in the locker rooms -- we should be in there

The issue of the media and locker rooms has come up again this week because of the behavior of some New York Jets last week when a female reporter from a Mexican TV network showed up for an interview with Mark Sanchez dressed, according to many who were there, ‘provocatively.’

I put that word in quotes because it is subjective. Her explanation—and I really don’t remember her name and it isn’t especially germane to what I’m writing here so I’m not going to stop and look it up—was that she wanted to look nice for her viewers. Look, let’s be honest here: most (not all) TV reporters—male and female—are hired at least to some degree based on their looks. You can get away with NOT looking like a model if you are an ex-athlete, an ex-politician or an expert.

It is a fact of life in sports that this is more true for women than for men. Again, there are exceptions here and there, but most female sideline reporters and sports anchors could turn to swimsuit modeling if the sports thing didn’t work out. They know it, the people who hire them know it and the viewers know it. The woman in question in the Jets incident bills herself as, “the hottest sports TV anchor in Mexico,” or words to that affect and apparently shows up at The Super Bowl each year doing things like measuring the biceps of players at media day. Not exactly out of the Mike Wallace school of broadcasting.

When I was a young reporter at The Washington Post, Howard Simons, then the managing editor, asked me once why I wore blue jeans a lot of the time. I told him—and I wasn’t joking—that when dealing with young athletes, especially being young at the time myself, I thought I came across as less threatening if I dressed casually. I never wore torn jeans and I never wore a T-shirt. Simons found that answer acceptable.

Once, when I was still working as a police reporter, I had to find a guy who had been involved in a string of murders that involved The Prince George’s County police. He lived in Baltimore and I knocked on his door and told him why I needed to talk to him. I got him to agree to go out for something to eat so we could talk. He ended up agreeing to the interview and became a key source on the story. Much later he said to me, “that first day, when you showed up, you were wearing jeans and sneakers. I figured you couldn’t be too much of a scammer if you dressed like that.”

Casual is one thing, provocative is another. During that same period, The Post hired a summer intern who, again, could have become a model if she’d wanted to. For all I know she DID become a model. She was also assigned to the police reporting and, within days of her arrival, there was, shall we say, ‘buzz,’ about the new reporter on the beat.

One afternoon she walked into the newsroom wearing a sundress that just about brought the newsroom to a halt. Milton Coleman, who was the city editor at the time, walked over to her desk.

“What are you up to today?” he asked.

“Going to police headquarters,” she answered.

“Not dressed like that you’re not,” he said. “You represent The Washington Post. Go home and change.”

Look, it’s a FACT that in jock world being an attractive woman can be an advantage. Actually it’s a fact that in the world being attractive is an advantage—period. But it is even more true in a male-dominated world where it is almost impossible for a good-looking woman to not be noticed—especially when they dress to make sure they ARE noticed.

As recently as this past June, on the night Stephen Strasburg made his Major League debut, my colleague Barry Svrluga was trying to grab a few minutes with Nationals catcher Ivan Rodriguez before the game because he had an early deadline. Rodriguez is, by nature, very accommodating. That day was hectic though: he was coming off the Disabled List, he needed some treatment AND he was catching baseball’s newest phenom.

“I just don’t think I have any time,” he told Svrluga, who understood.

A few minutes later, Svrluga was standing outside the dugout when he saw Rodriguez doing an on-camera interview with a very attractive TV reporter. We looked at one another and laughed.

“You had no chance,” I said. “Complete mismatch.”

“Tell me about it,” he answered.

Of course the Jets incident has again raised the entire issue of media access to the locker room. I am, of course, an extremely biased source here because I KNOW from years of experience that I do my job a lot better when I can stand at a guy’s locker and talk to him than when I have to sit in an interview room and listen to him talk about giving 110 percent and stepping up in answer to some inane question asked by someone looking for a soundbite.

Here’s what you do in a locker room: You wait for the TV guys to ask their inane questions and hope you don’t get hit in the head by a camera. Then, when some space clears, you walk up and, if it is someone you know, you quietly ask the questions you’d like answered. Or, if it is someone you don’t know, you shake hands with them, look them in the eye to establish some kind of contact with them and ask your questions. (By the way, you ALMOST never do this before they’ve had a chance to put on some kind of clothing; trust me, the only ones who have less interest in that happening than the players are the reporters).

Are you guaranteed to get good answers in that situation? No. Some guys are better than others—which is why some are called, ‘go to,’ guys in a locker room because you know to go to them for good answers. But your chances of getting a good answer there are about 100 times better than in the antiseptic, stilted atmosphere of an interview room.

Of course the public doesn’t really get that anymore than it gets the fact that it isn’t always ‘greedy players,’ who are responsible for work stoppages. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone screaming about greedy players going on strike when in fact it was greedy owners locking them out, I could be a rich, greedy owner myself.

That said, I understand why many fans would see the media going into the locker room as some kind of invasion of the players privacy. It’s really not. Part of the job of being a professional athlete is talking to the public—the public that makes them rich, that buys the products they endorse—and the way they do that is through the media.

Most athletes accept dealing with the media in the locker room as part of the job—especially when they are accustomed to it. What’s more if they don’t want to talk to the media for some reason, there are off-limits places where they can hide out; something they often do. There’s also this: Although it may not appear that way, establishing relationships with the media—which often happen through locker room contact—is good for the athlete. As they grow more comfortable with the media, they come across better to the public. That can only help them in a dozen different ways.

That said, all of us who do go into locker room have a responsibility to act professionally. About 99 percent of the time that happens and postgame locker room interviews are a routine part of the job for both athletes and reporters. Unfortunately, especially in today’s world, the one percent of the time that isn’t the case, it becomes news and, inevitably, some people say, ‘what are they doing in there in the first place.’

We should be in there. But when we are, we should be like good officials: not noticed by the public, except if by some chance while reading a good story, they stop to think, ‘gee that guy really did a good job getting those quotes.’ There’s no need for the reader to do that but being in the locker room makes it possible for all of us to try to get those quotes. Unless you’d prefer hearing again how your team ‘stepped up,’ or ‘gave 110 percent.’


******

I normally only respond to posters every few days and usually try to answer a few at once. That said, I feel the need to respond right away to today's post from JJ because he is quite misinformed on locker room access, so I'm guessing many others are too.

As a matter of fact, many locker rooms are open before games. Baseball clubhouses are always open from three-and-one-half hours prior to the game until an hour prior to the game and most baseball writers do, I'd say 80 percent of their reporting work--both there and in the dugout--during that time. (Note my anecdote about Barry Svrluga, Pudge Rodriguez and the female TV reporter--who was NOT Lindsay Czarniak BTW). NBA locker rooms are open too and, only recently did the NHL take away total pre-game access; now if you want a player, you request him--the coach is almost always available. The exception in team sports is the NFL. My guess is the reason for that is that the fear level prior to a game in there is so high--and I've witnessed it so I know this is true--that guys wouldn't be able to get much done even if they did have access. As for golf, the locker room is ALWAYS open to the media as is the practice tee and the putting green. Most writers are savvy enough to know you don't try to talk to anyone at length just before they tee it up, but the locker room before they go out to warm-up? Routine--I do it all the time because JJ is right, that's a great time to get a feel for a player's emotions. For the record, Dustin Johnson DID stand in front of his locker and talk after the PGA--you can probably go to YouTube and see the video. At Winged Foot in 2006 after his 18th hole meltdown, Phil Mickelson spoke to the media in the 'flash area,' right behind the 18th green and then AGAIN in the locker room. In fact, this past year when he withdrew from The Players Championship during his Sunday round, Tiger Woods spoke to several reporters in the locker room before going to The Tour's fitness trailer for treatment on his neck.

While I'm at it, in response to Ed O's question: You're right, standards are totally different in Europe. Not only do journalists routinely bet on the events they cover, they tell their readers who they've bet on and--frequently--will start screaming at the TV if the guy they've bet on lets them down. They also routinely drink on the job--I'm not saying this as a putdown, it's just true. When I covered tennis, most of the media would drink a bottle of wine with lunch in Paris (can't really blame them can you?) and would be at the bar during the first break of any kind in the afternoon at Wimbledon. Here, that sort of thing could be a firing offense. There, it's routine. One last thing: the Mexican TV reporter was apparently harassed on the field but also in the locker room when she went in there to do her interview with Mark Sanchez...

Griffey falling asleep isn't a huge crime; Mariners decide to freeze out reporter Larry LaRue

It has almost become a cliché in sports that when a player stays too long at the party—or in uniform—someone will inevitably say, “God Forbid he becomes Willie Mays with the Mets.”

Mays trying to play centerfield for the Mets in Oakland during the 1973 World Series is one of those indelible memories all baseball fans of a certain age can’t escape. There was a ball lost in the sun and the sight of arguably the greatest centerfielder ever to play the game stumbling around trying to get to fly balls he once would have caught while running backwards on one leg.

There are other examples throughout sports history: Johnny Unitas with the Chargers; Michael Jordan with the Wizards; Wayne Gretzky with the Rangers—players who had been the absolute best still playing when their skills had clearly faded. They might not have been as bad as Mays with the Mets but they weren’t close to what they once had been.

All of which brings us to Ken Griffey Jr.

For a long time one didn’t have to use his full name: he was just, “Junior,” to everyone in baseball—the son of Ken Griffey, a very good ballplayer in his own right who raised Junior to be a superstar. Junior is an absolute, no-brainer first ballot Hall-of-Famer. He has hit 630 home runs in spite of the fact that he has missed large chunks of season due to injury and there has never—EVER—been a hint of steroid use throughout his career. Watching him play centerfield as a young player in Seattle brought back memories of Mays—the Mays who played for the Giants in New York and San Francisco.

Last season, the prodigal son came home to Seattle after nine years of wandering in places like Cincinnati and Chicago, places he never really belonged. At 39, he signed a one-year contract presumably so he could finish his career as a Mariner, playing at Safeco Field, which most people in Seattle know as The House that Griffey Built. Once, when the Mariners played in the old Kingdome, there was talk that the franchise would be moved. That talk quieted not long after Griffey took up residence in centerfield. With players like Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson, it became one of the best in baseball for a number of years even though it has never reached The World Series and Safeco was built.

Since Junior’s controversial departure after the 1999 season both he and the franchise have had ups and downs. But 2009 seemed like a perfect way to bring closure to all that had gone on: Even though he only hit .214 he managed 19 home runs and 57 RBI for a team that improved from the depths of a 100 loss season to win 85 games and contend for most of the season in the wild card race. Griffey’s teammates carried him off on their shoulders after the final game of the season and it was a year filled with standing ovations.

A near-perfect ending.

Only Griffey didn’t want it to end. He signed with the Mariners for 2010—a $2 million deal with another $3 million in potential incentives. He hasn’t been a shadow of the hitter he once was for years now and there were no milestones that were so close that one more season would get him there. He wasn’t going to get to 700 home runs and he was more than 200 hits from 3,000. What’s more, his place in history is cemented even without reaching those round numbers.

And now it’s really turned bad—almost Willie Mays with the Mets bad. Griffey has struggled with injuries since spring training. His batting average—when he plays—is barely over .200 and he has zero home runs, two doubles and five RBI. He’s part of a Seattle team that’s off to a terrible start—particularly on offense.

Now it has gotten even worse than that. Last weekend, The Tacoma News-Tribune broke a story in which two of Griffey’s young teammates said that Griffey had fallen asleep in a chair in the Mariners clubhouse and, as a result, wasn’t available to pinch hit late in a game. If you read the quotes from the two players—both described as “young,”—it is apparent they aren’t trying to nail Griffey in any way. One even made the point that Griffey had been having trouble sleeping at home and that might have been a reason why he had fallen asleep.

Baseball players going into the clubhouse and doing things they aren’t supposed to is nothing new. Two incidents involving the New York Mets come to mind right away: Kevin Mitchell making a plane reservation during the 10th inning of game six of the 1986 World Series and having to pull his uniform pants on as he rushed to the dugout when called on to pinch-hit. In fact, Keith Hernandez admitted after that game that after he had made the second out, thinking the season was over, he went into the clubhouse and opened a couple of beers. When the Mets tied the game it suddenly occurred to him he might have to go play first base in the 11th inning. That was when Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner bailed him out. There was also the infamous Rickey Henderson card game incident during the 1999 playoffs against the Braves.

Griffey falling asleep isn’t a huge crime. He undoubtedly could have been roused, doused some water on his face and gone into the game if manager Don Wakamatsu had wanted him to hit. Obviously he didn’t do it with any malice or even thoughtlessness in mind. The problem is in the symbolism: 40-year-old, over-the-hill icon who can’t stay awake.

Which may explain the cover-up. The Mariners are trying to act as if this didn’t happen. Or, if it did, that the culprits are the two youngsters who talked to the reporter and the Larry LaRue, the reporter. Supposedly Mike Sweeney called a team meeting on Tuesday in Baltimore and demanded that the two ‘snitches,’ reveal themselves so he could fight them. It’s fine to stand up for a teammate—especially Griffey—but, again, it is apparent that the kids weren’t trying to rat Griffey out, they were just stunned by what they saw.

Then, after the meeting and after the game on Tuesday, the Mariners decided to freeze LaRue out---which is completely ridiculous. Do any of them think he made the story up? He has covered Major League Baseball for 30 years, the Mariners since 1988. You don’t stay on a beat that long without being professional, without creating trust with your sources and without knowing what you’re doing. You certainly don’t do it by making up a story about the most iconic figure in the history of a franchise.

LaRue did his job: two players told him Griffey was asleep—he reported it. You can’t say it wasn’t a story because clearly it was a story. Griffey has issued a non-denial, denial. When asked directly if he’d fallen asleep he answered: “Look, I can’t win this, I don’t have a blog.” (LaRue broke the story on his blog). Manager Don Wakamatsu has insisted hat Griffey was, “available.” At another point he said Griffey was sitting with him in the dugout when the alleged incident occurred. If that were the case why would the two players have told LaRue what they told him?

In all, the whole thing is sad. Griffey has had an extraordinary career and has always been a good guy on top of being a sensational player. Ironically, there had been talk he might retire very soon before all this happened. Now, he and the Mariners may feel that he has to stay around if only so people won’t think his departure was brought on by this incident.

What a shame—for all of us—but especially for Griffey and the Mariners.


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One quick note from yesterday: It is impossible not to notice how mention of the Duke lacrosse incident of 2006 still stirs emotions. One poster went on about all the OTHER crimes committed by the Duke players and was outraged the Duke players were, “made into heroes,” after winning the national championship. I agree some people made the charged players into martyrs and I also agree—as I wrote—that they behaved very badly that night. But for the record, they were never cheered for winning the national championship in large part because they never won one.


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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and will be in bookstores nationwide May 13th. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases


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