By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
The first rule in Lou Piniella’s managerial handbook is that he doesn’t make any rules.
"I’m one of the few managers, if not the only manager, who lets players make their own rules," the Seattle Mariners’ skipper said. "I tell them that you only have three hours every night, so let’s go out and get after it. That’s all I ask as a manager and that has worked quite well."
It worked well enough to put the Mariners in the record book in 2001, when they won 116 games to tie the major league regular-season mark.
And on Wednesday it earned Piniella the American League Manager of the Year award for the second time in his career. He received 22 first-place votes and six second-place votes from the 28 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (two in each AL city) who cast ballots. Art Howe of Oakland finished second and the retiring Tom Kelly of Minnesota was third. Piniella was the only manager named on all ballots, which were cast before the postseason began.
Piniella also won the AL award in 1995 after the Mariners won their first division championship. Pittsburgh’s Jim Leyland edged him for the National League honor in 1990, when Piniella led the Cincinnati Reds to a division crown and a World Series championship.
Piniella accepted the award with humility.
"I give my coaches a whole lot of autonomy and they did their jobs very well," he said from his home in Tampa, Fla. "I don’t think I did anything special one way or another. The players are the ones who deserve the bulk of the credit. They got it done on the field."
Piniella also was gratified to learn that Larry Bowa, who was the Mariners’ third-base coach during the 2000 season, won the NL Manager of the Year award. Bowa, the Philadelphia Phillies manager, said nobody taught him more about how to manage than Piniella did last year, including how to temper his fiery demeanor.
"I finally had somebody on that staff that I had to calm down," Piniella said. "He’s a good baseball man and hopefully he learned some things from the year he spent with us in Seattle."
The manager’s seat has been a 15-year learning experience for Piniella as well, he said. Above all, he now realizes the importance of being patient with his players.
"Don’t look at things really short-term, take a longer view," he said. "One thing I learned over the past four or five years is that a manager can’t be more intense than his team. He’s got to find the intensity level of his team and hover around it. Basically what you have to do is let your guys play."
There may not be a better example of a "player’s manager" than Piniella, Mariners pitcher Paul Abbott said.
"He makes it clear how he wants you to play, and that’s to just go out and play hard," Abbott said. "If you do that, he’s real easy to get along with. There might be times when you are struggling out there, but when he knows you’re giving your best he supports you. That makes it easy to play for him."
While Piniella was able to simplify his role on a team with veteran leadership, an influx of athleticism on the Mariners the past two seasons has allowed him to have an impact with a style of baseball that he enjoys most.
"It was a different style team in that we utilized our speed and created things," Piniella said. "That type of team basically keeps a manager more involved in the offensive scheme of things. I’ve always enjoyed managing the running-type teams, creating pressure on the opposition."
The Mariners did it from Opening Day, when they made it clear that the loss of Alex Rodriguez wouldn’t diminish their hopes of a return to the postseason.
"It started, believe it or not, with the first game of the season against the A’s," Piniella said. "Everybody had picked Oakland to win our division almost hands down. We were facing (Tim) Hudson and they were leading 5-0 and we came back to win 6-5. That game gave us a lot of confidence."
The Mariners went on to win 19 more games in April and 20 in May, a start that essentially locked up Piniella’s third AL West Division championship in six seasons. By September, the only race was against history, and in the final week the Mariners beat the 1998 Yankees’ AL record of 114 victories and tied the 1906 Cubs’ major league mark of 116.
"We got up to 20 games over .500 and I said, ‘My God we’re on a good pace,’" Piniella said. "Then it went to 30 and 40 and 50 over .500. I said, ‘When is this going to end?’ Our road record was 59-22. That’s playing."
Even after a five-game exit from the ALCS, Piniella says he is physically and mentally refreshed and already eager to start his 10th spring training with the Mariners. With Kelly retiring from the Twins, Piniella now has more tenure with one team than any other AL manager.
"I’ve learned a heck of a lot over the nine years I’ve been in Seattle," he said. "I’ve learned to manage in my timespan in Seattle. This ballclub, we weren’t picked to win our division. To do what we did is just phenomenal, really gratifying.
"We just let the players play. That’s exactly what happened here this past year. We played the entire roster and a lot of positive things happened. A hundred and sixteen wins, that’s a lot of wins."
It’s also a lot to live up to, Piniella realizes.
"I just hope when we go into spring training next year," he said, "that people don’t expect a duplication."
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