Junior Takes Angry Swing At Front Office Vent Opens Wide Following Exhibition On Off Day

The Seattle Mariners began the most important trip of a season now 99 games old Tuesday dead tired, and after they’d lost that 99th game Ken Griffey Jr. decided to speak up.

“We’re never going to win unless we’re a first-class organization,” Griffey said quietly in a near-silent clubhouse. “We’ve got a first-class club and a third-class front office. How many teams in a pennant race would schedule this exhibition game in the second half of the season?

“Somebody’s got to stand up and say it. (General manager) Woody (Woodward) will come down on Jay (Buhner) or Joey if they say something. Well, I ain’t Joey.”

At issue - initially - was the general team grousing about a Monday exhibition game against a minor-league All-Star team in Zebulon, N.C. To play that game, the Mariners left Seattle after their game Sunday and arrived at Raleigh-Durham at 2 a.m.

After playing a 7 p.m. exhibition game, the team again flew, landing in Cleveland about 1 a.m., getting to the team hotel about 2 a.m.

And on Tuesday, they lost to the Indians, 6-2.

“Woody’s saying we don’t have enough money to get this guy or get that guy, but there are players in this clubhouse who want to defer money to free up something now,” Griffey said. “They won’t do it.

“I was raised in this organization and I always told them, ‘If you need money, ask me.’ Instead, they went to Greg Hibbard last year - a guy who hadn’t pitched for us in three years - and gave him an extra year on his contract to defer money to go get Terry Mulholland.

“You know what that was? That was a ‘Screw you, Griffey’ move.”

A half-dozen players had talked angrily about the scheduling - off the record. Only Griffey spoke for the record, and once he got going it was clear there was more on his mind than a minor-league exhibition game.

The more Griffey talked about the “front office,” the more he narrowed his focus, making it clear he wasn’t talking about team president Chuck Armstrong or CEO John Ellis.

“Chuck comes in the clubhouse. John comes in the clubhouse. Woody doesn’t. When we beat the Yankees in ‘95 in the playoffs, Woody was in there pouring champagne with everyone. When we lost to Cleveland, John came in. Chuck came in.

“We never saw Woody. That’s not right.

“This team never makes a player feel good. Why can’t they pick up Randy (Johnson) by picking up his option for 1998 now - make him feel appreciated. Why does this team always wait till the last minute? They did the same thing with me, they did it with Jay, they did it when they signed Randy.

“Every year it’s the same crap. This team has had three days off at home this year. We’ve got 49 flights to take and everybody in here is busting their butt to win. And the front office schedules this game, we go there and we get cursed (by fans) for not signing enough autographs.

“I’ll never play in another one of those games. They can fine me, suspend me, whatever - I won’t play in another.

“Every year, the team comes to us and says to get season-ticket sales up, Randy has to do this, Alex has to do that, Jay has to do this. We’re working together, right? Well, nobody thought of us when they scheduled this game.

“It feels like we’re fighting the other team and our own organization.”

Woodward, reached at the team hotel close to midnight, listened to Griffey’s comments for a few moments.

“Ken’s the best player in the game and we’re happy to have him. I’m not going to respond to his comments,” Woodward said.

On the heels of comments at the All-Star break, when Griffey said he didn’t always feel appreciated, Junior was asked if he felt fans might think of this outburst as that of an overpaid athlete.

“If people think I’m whining, I’m overpaid, I’d just tell them - ‘I played 10 years of organized ball without a paycheck and loved it. If you think this is about money, look at yourself, not me,”’ Griffey said. “This is about having a first-class organization, about being part of something you’re proud of.”

Notes

Seattle will face Japanese right-hander Hideki Irabu in New York on Friday, and players were shaking their heads at the speculation - after three starts - about whether Irabu was overrated. “George signed him,” manager Lou Piniella said of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, “and that means George is going to be a little more patient than if it wasn’t his decision.” … Just how long had it been since a Seattle reliever worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning in a save situation? When Bob Wells did it in the Kingdome on Sunday, it was the first time it had happened since June 12.