Lou hits a homer with fans without closer fences

Lou Piniella was back in town this week. Seattle couldn’t get enough of him.

From the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to the Metropolitan Grill to a Safeco Field fundraiser luncheon, nearly everyone he passed smiled, or reached out a hand for a shake, or fumbled for a camera phone and a picture.

I once wrote that Piniella was one of the few characters in modern Seattle sports or civic culture who was authentically larger than life. Now a decade gone as Mariners manager, somehow he has grown. Or maybe Mariners baseball has shrunk.

Nearly 70 and mostly gray now, slimmer, tanned, a regular wearer of glasses, Piniella remains an enthralling figure, happily retired to his Tampa home, sepia-toned in the minds of Mariners fans who were there when he threw himself into the manager’s job by getting himself thrown out of games in spectacular ways.

Piniella let us in. He is a caring, but not a careful, man. And as circus owners around the world have come to know, the customers cannot take their eyes off a man who works without a net.

He was in town for the 48th Hutch Award Luncheon at Safeco Field, which annually honors the Major League Baseball player who embodies the honor, courage and dedication of Fred Hutchinson, the Seattle kid who made it big in the bigs as player and manager, and who died of lung cancer at 45 in 1964.

This year’s award went to Barry Zito, the pitcher who, after a 15-8 regular season, won two games in San Francisco’s sweep of the Detroit Tigers for the Giants’ second World Series win in three years.

After Zito accepted the award, Piniella spoke. He left the podium to warm applause, a long line of lunch patrons formed who wanted an autograph, a photo or a chance to tell a story about how Piniella’s teams made them so excited.

Just a couple of hundred feet away was the club’s new way of bringing excitement – moving in the Safeco fences to accommodate the more offensively feeble Mariners.

As Piniella finished and walked toward the home dugout, we talked about the day in 1998 when several Mariners hitters first experienced Safeco Field, during a photo op about a year ahead of the July 1999 opening of the Kingdome’s successor.

The real fences weren’t up yet, so the grandstand fascia was the nearest target, about 350 feet away. Even hitting batting practice lobs from a temporary home plate, Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez and Jay Buhner couldn’t believe how far away the stands seemed in the cool, dense air of a Puget Sound summer.

When they returned to the Kingdome clubhouse, Piniella remembered the complaints.

“They thought it was too big,” Piniella said. “We had a power team – Edgar, Buhner, Griffey. We had guys who could hit the ball out of the ballpark. To go from the Kingdome to Safeco was a shock to them. Balls that would rattle the seats in the Kingdome were making it to the warning track here.”

It was Piniella’s job to shush the players’ criticisms of the new $517 million park, given the controversies attendant to its funding and construction.

“I had to tell them that when this place is finished, the fences are up and the fans are in here, the balls will carry better, but I have to think none of them believed it,” Piniella said. “I had nothing to do with the dimensions of the park. My job was to tell the players to cool it. Let’s make the best of it.”

They tried, but it didn’t work out. A team built for the tidy dimensions of the Kingdome was a small match for the national park of Safeco. In the final three years of the Kingdome (1996-98), they averaged 922 runs a season. The first three full years in Safeco the average was 849.

“I did recognize we had to change over from a power-power-power team to more of an athletic team that could pitch and catch more balls,” said Piniella. “We needed more balance. That’s what we did, and we had some really good years here.”

But things came apart after the departures of Piniella and GM Pat Gillick. Seven of the past nine seasons have been losers.

Since premier veteran free-agent hitters have looked upon Safeco in the manner of a leper colony, the bosses decided the only cure was fresh plywood a little closer.

“It would have been nice if they had thought of that when I was here,” Piniella said, smiling. “But I think it will help, and I wish them well.”