Mike takes a hike
Posted: Sunday, July 01, 2007 5:01 PM
It's unlikely that the Mariners are going to forget how to win now that their manager, Mike Hargrove, has quit on them.
By his own admission, he didn't have the passion for the job that he'd had when they were finishing last during the past three seasons. I don't get it, and neither did his G.M., Bill Bavasi, who has known for the past 10 days that Grover had spit the bit and wanted out.
“We're not happy about this, not a bit,” Bavasi said. “But we're happy for him.”
Even Bavasi understood how mutually exclusive those two sentiments are. But it shows what a good guy he is. Most employers would limit their emotions to being ticked at a guy who would leave the organization when he's most needed.
You wouldn't blame Bavasi if he had cursed Hargrove, either. Grover's previous job had been in Baltimore, and when he was fired by that team, he questioned whether he wanted to continue to manage. But after some time on the sidelines, he decided he still had the fire.
You could understand if he lost it at the end of a season. But it's hard to figure how he can just walk out on a team that's just started to contend. He's spent his life telling his players that the team is more important than the individual. But he just made himself more important than the team.
It makes you wonder just how much he actually identified with the team. If he were really part of it, the winning streak would have energized him and carried him along as it carried the team. But that's something for the psychologists to figure out.
But he's never been the easiest guy to get along with. Wherever he's gone, going back to his Cleveland days, you could find people who admired and respected him and people who couldn't stand him. Word is that Ichiro, who is going to be a free agent, wasn't fond of Hargrove. So maybe he did everyone a favor by leaving.
Seattle was on a skid on June 20 when Hargrove decided to cut and run. He made his announcement Sunday, when they were on a seven-game winning streak and just four games behind the Angels in the AL West and a half game behind Detroit in the wild-card race. He quit, in other words, during the team's first really successful streak during his stewardship.
And the winning started when he decided he couldn't bring the same passion to the game that has characterized his career as a manager and a player. If he'd looked around for a lesson, he might have decided to stay, because you could easily conclude that when he lost the will to annoy and aggravate his players, they started to win.
He should have looked across the continent to Joe Torre, the archetype for the laid-back manager. Torre often looks as if he's a wax figure in the dugout, held up by hidden armatures. Win or lose, he never gets worked up. It's worked for Torre, although how much longer remains to be seen. It could have worked for Hargrove – sit quietly, sip your tea, tell the media how hard your team is working, go home, have a cigar.
Heck, he probably could have e-mailed his line-ups in and not even bothered coming to the park. The team was doing fabulously. Why mess with them?
“If you've ever been around his family, you'd understand why he's doing this,” Bavasi said.
That sounds good, but it doesn't make a lot of sense when you read about the family. Mike and Sharon Hargrove started dating in eighth grade – more than 40 years ago. They have five children, just one of whom, a 16-year-old daughter, is still at home. They've moved 97 times over the years. So it's not as if it's something they're not used to. And it's a little late to spend more time with the kids.
But burnout is hard to figure. Dick Vermeil introduced us to the term when he walked away from the Philadelphia Eagles after the 1982 season, using that word to explain why. It took him 15 years to stoke his fires enough again to come back to coaching.
Hargrove isn't going to come back. Even if he wanted to, who would want him? Baseball coaches aren't like football coaches – there aren't any who are so great that no one can live without them.
In his last game Sunday, his team won its eighth straight. Shows how broken up they were to learn he's leaving.
