By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – It had been years since Lou Piniella got his moneys worth out of an ejection – maybe all the way back to the night he kicked his hat in Cleveland and left Ken Griffey Jr. in tears.
On a muggy evening not far from where he was born, Piniella watched his Seattle Mariners lose to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 5-1.
And in the eighth inning of that loss, after he’d been ejected while in the dugout, Piniella got his money’s worth.
So did a sparse crowd of 10,810 that included Piniella’s parents.
Angry about umpire John Schulock’s calls behind the plate in the third inning, when a pair of razor-close calls results in walks that preceded a grand slam, Piniella had simmered in silence.
Then, before the bottom of the eighth inning, the good folks at Tropicana Field replayed two of those walks – and John Flaherty’s slam – and Piniella shouted from the dugout.
“I told him they were showing him up on the scoreboard,” Piniella said. “I told him to take another look at his calls and he said ‘Don’t remind me.’ Then he said ‘Get the bleep out of here.’”
Schulock might as well have said “Mr. Piniella, Start Your Engine.”
Piniella raged at Schulock, kicking dirt over the plate not once but on two occasions, finally dropping his knees to bury the plate in dirt with his bare hands.
“I should have been a landscaper,” Piniella said.
After Piniella left, Schulock took his spot behind home plate – but made no move to clean it.
Catcher Dan Wilson waited a long moment. Nothing. On the mound, John Halama waited.
“If he wasn’t going to clean it, I’d have walked in from the mound to do it,” Halama said. “How can you throw a strike – or call one – if the plate is underground?”
Wilson and Schulock exchanged words, and Wilson eventually asked to borrow the umpire’s broom.
“I can’t talk about an umpire,” Wilson said. “He didn’t tell me to clean it. We had a discussion, but I can’t tell you what was said.”
Wilson cleaned the plate.
“If I’d still been out there, Danny wouldn’t have,” Piniella said. “It’s the umpire’s job, that’s why they give him a broom. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
Neither had general manager Pat Gillick.
“We were wondering what would have happened if Danny hadn’t cleaned the plate,” Gillick said.
“What was said out there doesn’t need to be discussed,” Schulock said. “He asked for my brush.”
And then he looked at the assembled media in the umpiring room and said: “I’ve been buried so many times by you guys, I’m not saying nothing.”
Well, all right then.
As a Kodak moment, Piniella’s outburst was far more interesting than most of what transpired during the game, when Seattle managed all of five hits – four of them singles – and lost to Ryan Rupe.
Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki had never seen his manager make a commotion on the field. At least, not in person.
“Before I came to America, that was the image I had of Lou,” Ichiro said. “I saw a lot of him on TV.”
The turning point, both in the game and for Piniella, had come more than an hour before, in a third inning Joel Pineiro couldn’t seem to end. In a two-out, two-on jam, Pineiro got ahead of Greg Vaughn – a .123 hitter this year – 1-2. His next pitch was close. Schulock called it a ball.
On a 3-2 count, Pineiro’s fastball was another close pitch. Schulock called it a ball and the bases were loaded.
“I thought both pitches were strikes,” Wilson said, “but John didn’t.”
Pineiro thought so, too.
“I threw some bad pitches that inning, but those weren’t two of them,” he said.
The next batter, Ben Grieve, ran the count full. On a 3-2 pitch, Wilson’s glove behind the plate never moved and Pineiro hit it. Schulock called ball four, and Tampa led, 1-0.
“Joel threw the ball well enough to get out of that inning without a run scoring,” pitching coach Bryan Price said.
On a 1-2 pitch to catcher John Flaherty, Pineiro threw a strike – a hanging curveball Flaherty hit 402 feet for a grand slam and a 5-0 lead.
About the only two things of interest to Mariners fans after that came much later: Piniella’s theatrics and outfielder Chris Snelling’s first major league hit, a ninth-inning single.
“That ball goes to mumsy,” he said, which is Snelling-speak for mom.
As for Piniella, he seemed at ease afterward, having cleared his mind on the field.
Someone asked if he thought Schulock had taken kindly to his advice to watch the replays.
“I don’t give a bleep if he took kindly to it or not,” Piniella said. “He’s got a chip on his shoulder and he’s always had a chip on his shoulder.”
Not surprisingly, Schulock denied that.
“I don’t have a grudge against Piniella,” he said. “Tomorrow is another day.”
With luck, it’ll be just as interesting.
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