Out of the Doghouse : Piniella Goes From Steinbrenner, Schott to Hapless Mariners

TEMPE, Ariz. —  Lou Piniella stormed out of Reds’ owner Marge Schott’s office, marched past General Manager Bob Quinn, walked through a mob of reporters waiting in the lobby, climbed into his Cadillac and sped to his Cincinnati apartment.

There, he unplugged the phone, threw his belongings in the car and drove out of Cincinnati for perhaps the final time.

Piniella grabbed a cigarette and started smoking frantically, trying to soothe his nerves. He’s free now, he kept telling himself. No more of Schott’s crazy antics. No more of her dog. No more working for an organization that seemed as concerned about paying $11.95 for extra baseball caps as about paying $3 million for a player contract.

“I think I reached Pennsylvania before I started relaxing,” Piniella said of that Oct. 5, 1992, evening. “Marge was pretty mad when I left that office, but I convinced myself I did the right thing. To me, it was all about pride and respect.

“I remember pulling over into some hotel that night, and I think that’s when it kind of hit me. . . .

“Now, what the hell am I going do with my life?

“I don’t have a job.”

Piniella had just turned down a two-year, $1.4-million contract to continue managing the Reds. He had no other jobs lined up. It already was becoming apparent that Tampa, Fla., his hometown, would not be getting the Giants. He had visions of rejoining the New York Yankees.

“I guess I’d probably have eventually talked to George (Steinbrenner) and been another one of his special consultants,” Piniella said, “but I would have been thought of as just another manager-in-waiting.

“There were a lot of possibilities that were running through my mind, but I’ve got to tell you the truth--I never even thought I’d end up in Seattle.”

The Mariners, for whom winning never has been a priority, hired the most volatile, intense manager in baseball, a man who refuses to tolerate losing. He joins an organization that has had only one winning season in its 16-year history, never finishing higher than fourth.

Something has to give.

It is an organization that not only has been accustomed to losing, but has learned to accept it.

Consider what reliever Mike Schooler said upon his recent release: “(Piniella) put too much emphasis on winning, if you ask me.”

Now, the Mariners have hired a guy who has the third-highest winning percentage among active managers, led Cincinnati to the 1990 World Series championship and played in four World Series.

“The days of losing are going to stop,” Piniella said. “I’m not putting up with that. I couldn’t believe until they told me that their all-time best record was 83 wins.

” . . . You win 83 games in New York and you’d get . . . fired.

“I’m not saying we’re going to win the division this year, but we’re . . . going to establish a winning tradition and get these people to experience a pennant race.”

Piniella used to go along with Schott’s antics, merely to appease her. When she sent strands of dog hair in the mail to him on the road, Piniella would rub them on his chest for good luck.

When Schott insisted that the players were spending too much money on baseball caps, Piniella would go to her office on the third floor, show her a few of the players’ caps that needed replacing and go back to the field.

When Schott insisted that Piniella and the players attend a charity ball in tuxedos that she rented, only for everyone to receive bills for $100 later, Piniella told his disgruntled players to pay up.

But the St. Bernard named Schottzie is what infuriated Piniella most about working for Schott.

“I couldn’t say anything at the time,” Piniella said, “but I hated that thing. We couldn’t even get our jobs done. We’re out on the field trying to stretch and run, and the . . . dog’s running after them.”

Piniella said the dog relieved itself on the field and in the dugout “every day.”

“Some of those afternoon games, the ones in the summer where it gets to be about 100 degrees on the field, I’m surprised we didn’t have anyone pass out from the chemicals they used to get rid of that stuff.

“Come on, that’s not baseball.”

Piniella could have lived with Schott’s frugality, he said, and learned over three years to dismiss her rages when she had called before games and told him, “I hope you lose tonight,” and hung up.

“She must have done that four or five times while I was there,” Piniella said. “Really, my relationship with her was good. I like her, and my wife and kids liked her a lot.

“My tolerance level got built up pretty good under George. At least with Marge, I didn’t have someone second-guessing every move I made.”

A spokesman for the Reds said Schott could not answer Piniella’s remarks because she is prohibited from commenting on baseball matters during her suspension.

It was during one of Piniella’s two stints as Yankee manager that he was so fed up with Steinbrenner that he told him to start making the pitching decisions.

Said Piniella: “I said George, ‘You get teed off at me when I take a pitcher out, and teed off at me when I leave him in. Here’s what we’re going to do. When I go to the pitcher’s mound tonight, I’m going to look up at the box, and you give me thumbs up if you want me to leave him in there or thumbs down if you want me to take him out.’

“Well, I got out to the pitcher’s mound that night (and) look up at the box to see what George wants me to do. What does he do? He turns his back and starts walking away.

“Guess he decided he didn’t want me to second-guess him.”

Piniella grew to be tolerant, and even lenient, while working for two of the most eccentric owners in baseball, but he refused to dismiss an incident in August of 1991.

Piniella, who a year earlier had picked up first base and thrown it into the outfield in a rage, and a year later was so incensed that he tackled Red reliever Rob Dibble in the middle of the clubhouse, was furious this night with umpire Gary Darling. Red second baseman Bill Doran had hit a home run against San Francisco, but Darling reversed the call and deprived the Reds of the victory.

Piniella accused Darling of having a longstanding grudge against the Reds and said he had been biased in every call he had made in their games. Darling and the Major League Umpires Assn. countered by filing a $5-million defamation-of-character suit two months later against Piniella.

“I realized I was wrong in what I said,” Piniella said, “but it was in the heat of battle. I’ve been known to lose my temper before.”

Piniella has kicked water coolers, strangled telephones, yanked shower heads out of walls and punched out coffee machines. He has one of the water coolers in his garage in Tampa, saying: “I paid for it, so I might as well keep it.”

If such an incident had occurred with the Yankees, Piniella said, Steinbrenner would have hired the best lawyers, even supporting him with his own statements about umpires’ incompetence. But he was working for Schott now, the same woman who bills her players for bats they give to charities.

“They didn’t back me up at all,” Piniella said. “I had to defend myself, pay all the legal fees and everything.

“I spent $70,000 on that stuff, but it wasn’t the money, it was the support you’re looking for. I mean, the club had legal counsel, so it wasn’t like Marge would have had to pay anything for it.

“The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.”

Rookie second baseman Bret Boone stood in the on-deck circle during a recent exhibition game against the Angels when Piniella called him over. He was instructed to hit the ball toward the right side of the infield, moving the runner on second base to third.

Boone hit a ground ball toward third. He was thrown out at first, keeping the runner from advancing. Boone had barely reached the dugout when the tirade began.

“Sit your . . . down,” Piniella barked. “You’re watching the rest of the game from the bench.”

It was only the second inning.

Boone was sent down to triple-A Calgary on Wednesday.

“Lou’s very energetic in everything he does,” Mariner reliever Norm Charlton said, chuckling at the incident. “He’ll ask you to do it his way, and if you don’t, you’ll hear about it.

“He won’t tell you a second time.”

With a team that was 64-98 last season, Piniella’s patience certainly will be tested. He already has spent the spring cringing at his pitching, saying he has no choice but to carry four rookie pitchers, including two who never have pitched higher than Class A.

“The pitching is in worse shape than I thought,” Piniella said. “When I first took this job, I kept looking around, and I had no idea how this club could have lost 98 games last year.

“Now, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

The pitching has been so bad at times that in the middle of one game, Piniella walked out of the dugout, looked into the stands, and screamed, “Woodrow!”

Mariner General Manager Woody Woodward hustled down the stairs, listening to Piniella’s rage while trying to explain that the pitcher really was considered a major league prospect.

“He’s a perfectionist,” said Sammy Ellis, who was Piniella’s first pitching coach with the Yankees. “He’s a winner who despises even the thought of losing.

“Lou has made it clear that we’re not going to be doormats any longer. We shouldn’t consider 83 wins to be a marquee season.”

Woodward said: “We’ve had the nice-guy approach in this organization for a lot of years, long before I was here. We need a little of that fire, that knock-you-down approach.”

Piniella realizes there will be difficult times ahead. He still needs to change this organization’s image before anyone starts ordering playoff tickets.

“There’s going to be some roadblocks and potholes along the way,” Piniella said, “but after what I’ve been through in New York and Cincinnati, I know I’m a lot more equipped as a manager.

“When I got the job here, George and Marge didn’t even send me telegrams to congratulate me. I don’t know, maybe they felt sorry for me because of this organization’s history.

“I guarantee you, that will change.”