M’s haven’t struck out with Amend
Ask Harry Amend about the future of the Coeur d’Alene School District, and he’ll wax optimistic.
Ask the Coeur d’Alene superintendent about the district’s new Bridge Academy dropout retrieval, and he’ll tell you how much he appreciates patrons who are willing to pay extra to make sure no high schooler is left behind.
Ask him about baseball and the Mariners, and you’d better pull up a chair.
Amend, a popular school administrator who grew up in the Spokane Valley, shares a fan’s pain of watching the once-mighty Mariners stumble to loss after loss this year. But his interest in the home team goes further than most casual fans. As a former scout with the Philadelphia Phillies, he views the Mariners with an expert’s eye. His verdict?
“It’s too early to panic,” said the lanky lefthander. “I’d like to see them wait longer (before trading or bringing up players from the minor leagues). Maybe things will be better once the weather warms up, and the players get into a routine.”
At 58 and trim, Harry has an easy manner and attention to detail that served him well as he scouted the region for 20 years, from Yakima and beyond to Kalispell, Mont. You can imagine him schmoozing in 1980 in a Portland hotel room until the wee hours with legends Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin and Leo Durocher. You can also see him trudging in from the bullpen to pitch against Southern California in the final game of the University of Washington’s 1968 season, with Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel in the stands.
Amend knows America’s pastime. It made him an educator instead of a doctor. He also knows what’s wrong with the Mariners, which begins with a lack of power at first and third bases: “You got to have power at the corners,” he said, dissecting a team that’s 19-33 (as of Friday morning) and 13 games out of first place. “If they can’t start to play over .500 ball in the next couple of months … Well, there’s good kids down on the farm. But you don’t want to rush them.” At the corners, John Olerud, the former Washington State star, and Scott Spezio have combined for only seven home runs, or four fewer than newcomber Raul Ibanez, the team’s leading home run hitter who compounded the M’s woes Wednesday by pulling a hamstring beating out a bunt.
Still, Amend remains optimistic: “The Mariners can come back.”
From 1980 to 1999, when he was named superintendent of the school district at Kalispell, Mont., Amend scouted an area 750 miles across. He had the freedom to do so on weekends and summers during his stints as a teacher and counselor in Central Valley schools and as superintendent of the Freeman School District. During that time, he signed 18 prospects, including two who made it to “the show”: Kevin Stocker of Central Valley High and Bobby Wells of Yakima.
Stocker, as many locals know, was signed after a year at the University of Washington. Two years later, in 1993, he was called up at midseason to join a Phillies lineup of such colorful characters as Lenny Dykstra, Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams, Darren Daulton and John Kruk. The date of Stocker’s debut is emblazoned on Amend’s memory: July 7. So is his batting average for the rest of the season: .327. One of Amend’s great memories about baseball is being invited by Philadelphia management that fall to watch the Phils beat the favored Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series.
Amend, the son of former Spokane County Coroner Dexter Amend, played baseball and football at Central Valley High as a “tall drink of water” who stood 6-foot-1 and weighed 135 pounds. After two years at Whitworth, he entered Washington as a pre-med student. But he was forced to give up his dream to become a doctor because baseball practice and science labs were scheduled at the same time in the afternoon. After graduating from Washington in 1968, he got his teaching certificate from Eastern Washington and began student teaching and helping coach baseball at Central Valley the following year. He coached baseball at Central Valley from 1970 to 1979 and became a scout in 1980.
Some say baseball is a metaphor for life, with its unlikely triumphs and crushing defeats. Amend sees parallels, too. As a scout, he said, he looked for five things in prospects: ability to hit, run, throw, hit for power and field. As a superintendent, he looks for certain things in prospective administrators, too: intelligence, ability to connect positively with others, work ethic, energy level.
“A person’s tools and ability to fit in a certain environment are more important than a career ladder,” Amend said.
Obviously, the Coeur d’Alene School Board considers Amend a five-tool administrator. In March, the trustees extended Amend’s contract for another three years, effective July 1 – or 30 days before Major League Baseball’s trading deadline, when weaker teams trade established players for prospects. The clock is ticking in Seattle.