M's Have Had No Chance Since Gillick & Piniella Left

June 16, 8:16 PMSeattle People ExaminerLaura Vecsey

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Oddly enough, three days before the Mariners fired GM Bill Bavasi, their former GM, Pat Gillick, was walking with his wife down 34th St. in Magnolia, the westerly Seattle neighborhood where Gillick and his art gallery-owner wife still own a home -- despite the fact that Gillick is now the GM for the Philadelphia Phillies. That sighting took place last Friday, just ahead of the Washington Nationals' three-game sweep of the M's that would be the nadir of the Mariners' deadly fall into the MLB abyss. It was like a premonition, seeing Gillick strolling toward the village. The ghost of our MLB post-seasons past.

The last time the Mariners were contenders, Gillick had paired his maverick scouting and signing skills up alongside field general Lou Piniella. They were a tremendous combination, Gillick and Piniella, because that combo was the first time EVER that the Mariners had the one-two punch where they needed it most. Not in the batting order, which is also very important, but at the point in the franchise where all on-field personnel decisions are made.

Why did Piniella leave Seattle? Why did Gillick move on? Yeah, personal reasons played a part for both men. But it's pretty hard to imagine that, after the success of the 2001 Mariners -- who won 116 games -- that had Gillick and Piniella been able to spend money the way Bill Bavasi was greenlighted to spend money during his disastrous tenure in Seattle, maybe the best manager-GM combo this franchise has ever seen MIGHT HAVE stuck around to see if they could have finished the job, i.e., get the Mariners to thei franchise's first World Series ever.

What's done is done, where Gillick and Piniella are concerned. But what does it tell you that nothing this organization has done since 2002 has amounted to anything positive?

Firing Bavasi was so long overdue, it's meaningless. Right now, there's hardly any astute baseball fan in Seattle who does not completely understand that this organization has deep, systemic problems that no single GM firing or banishing of Richie Sexson will fix.

Unless this organization can take a deep, hard look at itself, there is no hope for better days ahead. The Mariners were "saved" by the generous purchase of former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamauchi, but ever since the arrival of Kazahiro Sasaki and then Ichiro and Johjima, it's clear that upholding Mr. Yamauchi's honor has been more important than maintaining the kind of flexibility it takes for a MLB club to wheel and deal according to market conditions.

The Mariners have been beholden to too many corporate and cultural confinements. If CEO Howard Lincoln and President Chuck Armstrong do not go to Kyoto and convince Mr. Yamauchi that serious changes must be made; if the Mariners' brass can not divorce themselves from their ill-fated management past of this franchise and start running it with some creativity and, well, balls, then they will be known as the architects of one of the biggest boondoggles in pro sports.

A dozen years or so ago, baseball was saved in Seattle. New stadium. Fans who turned Seattle into a baseball town. And now we ask: For what? For this?