Kittle Still Sharing Pitching Knowledge With Young Players

Retirement wasn’t the proper fit for Hub Kittle.

Kittle, 82, has returned to baseball for a seventh decade, this time as special minor-league pitching instructor for the Seattle Mariners.

Kittle has lived in Yakima since his contract as a player was sold to the Yakima Pippins of the Western International League in 1939.

Everett, the Mariners’ Northwest League farm club, played a three-game series at Yakima last week. Kittle was on hand to offer pointers to Everett’s pitchers.

“That’s where my expertise is; teaching these young donkeys,” Kittle said. “You gotta get ‘em when they’re young. If you try to teach those older guys, you can get fired.”

Kittle’s work paid instant dividends. Everett swept Yakima, allowing one earned run per night, then won its first two games in Spokane. Patrick Barnes, who entered with a 7.02 earned-run average, threw the league’s first complete-game shutout in the opener at Spokane.

“He’s been a tremendous asset to our instructors and pitchers,” Mike Goff, Mariners coordinator of minorleague instruction, said of Kittle. “There’s a lot of knowledge in that head.”

Amazin’ Amezaga comes up short

The club-record hitting streak of Boise second baseman Alfredo Amezaga ended last Wednesday, four shy of the league record.

Amezaga was promoted to Boise from Butte, Mont., of the Pioneer League on July 18. He had hits in every game he played with Boise, until Wednesday’s loss at Yakima.

The streak of 22 came close to the league-standard 26, last set by Medford’s Anthony Laurenzi in 1982.

Luster wears off Emeralds

Stormy times have hit Eugene.

The Emeralds have lost 16 of 20 games to drop to 20-32, the league’s worst record.

A couple of non-losses didn’t soothe the situation. The Emeralds’ Aug. 6 and 7 home games against Southern Oregon were postponed, the first rainouts in Eugene since 1996 and the first in August since 1989.

How the teams will make up the games is undetermined because Southern Oregon has no other scheduled games in Eugene.

The teams may try to play two doubleheaders during an Aug. 31-Sept. 2 regular season-ending series in Medford. Or they may play a doubleheader in Eugene on Thursday, a scheduled day off for all league teams.

That spooky Salem feeling hits L.A. brass

Los Angeles Dodgers minor-league director Bill Geivett had a homecoming of sorts while checking out the Yakima Bears last week.

Geivett played for Salem of the Northwest League in 1985. He didn’t know until his recent visit that Salem’s franchise moved to Yakima in 1990.

“I knew I liked this place,” Geivett said. “I’ve had an eerie, comfortable feeling since I arrived here.”

Geivett’s roommate in Salem was a young pitcher named Chuck Finley.

Geivett moved up to Palm Springs (Calif.) in 1986, where his manager was longtime Boise skipper Tom Kotchman. Boise played at Yakima earlier this week.

“I’ll have to give Tom a hard time when I see him,” Geivett said. “We took batting practice every day. In the summer in Palm Springs, it’s 120 degrees every day, but we never missed one batting practice that season.”

Think they’re skipping batting practice?

Speaking of Kotchman, his Boise team is 11-4 since the midway point of the season, jumping from last place to within 3-1/2 games of first-place Spokane.

Boise’s final three games with Spokane are Aug. 25-27 in Spokane. Boise leads the season series 6-3.