TAMPA – Let’s start with an irrefutable premise about the state of baseball: Things are not going well. The owners and players’ union hate each other’s guts, a strike seems inevitable next winter and attendance slowly but steadily has been sinking for the last seven years. That’s why spring training couldn’t get here fast enough. Baseball’s been crying for help.
So try quantifying the damage that was done by Mariners’ CEO Kevin Mather, who this week got caught running his mouth to a local Rotary Club in Seattle in early February. He paid for it with his job, but not before trashing the M’s best players for reasons only a corporate bully would understand. Think: George Steinbrenner on his very worst day.