Fiery over ‘hot seat’

PEORIA, Ariz. – The morning of spring training’s first day was all it took for Mike Hargrove to get fired up about his hot seat.

The Mariners manager had been asked all off-season about team chairman and CEO Howard Lincoln declaring six months ago that Hargrove and general manager Bill Bavasi “are on my hot seat” for 2007, thanks to Seattle’s third consecutive last-place finishes in the A.L. West.

So when Hargrove was asked about it yet again Wednesday, after the pitchers’ and catchers’ initial workout of his third Mariners season, the gorgeously sunny, spotless skies directly over him suddenly grew clouds.

And thunderheads.

“I’ve got two words: Good. Bye. How’s that?” Hargrove said, his eyes searing as his stiff right arm chopped sharply in the direction of his questioner.

“Hot seat? You know what, I’m going to tell you this – and I don’t want to talk about this not one more time all year long unless it’s the DAY I’m getting fired: This will be the 16th year of doing this at the big-league level. I’ve been good at what I do. I’m still good at what I do.”

The manager who won five consecutive division championships and had two World Series appearances in Cleveland from 1995-99 – but hasn’t finished above fourth in a division since – wasn’t done. He stayed on the offensive, more than his light-hitting team often has in recent seasons.

“Any day any manager in the big leagues wakes up, he is on the ‘hot seat,’ ” Hargrove said. “So whether anybody said this, or what, it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Most of Hargrove’s Seattle tenure has been as fruitless as that so far.

He is entering the final year of the three-year contract he signed in 2004 that reportedly pays $1.3 million per year. He has gone 69-93 and 78-84 in his first two Seattle seasons.

The Mariners have finished last in three straight years for the first time in the team’s 30-year history. Attendance at Safeco Field has dropped from a record 3.54 million in 2002 to 2.48 million last season, Seattle’s lowest since 1995 in the old Kingdome. A miraculous September rally to a first division title that year sparked a baseball renaissance and new stadium in the Northwest.

Lincoln uttered the “hot seat” remark the day after sending season-ticket holders a letter informing them the team believed Hargrove and Bavasi were putting the Mariners back on the path to winning.

“This phrase has gotten blown way out of proportion … it’s taken on a life of its own,” Lincoln said inside his second-floor office at the team’s spring training headquarters, which he occupies every day each spring.

“What I was trying to do was convey a sense of urgency,” said the former chairman of Nintendo of America, which owns the Mariners.

Hargrove said that he hasn’t heard from anyone in the organization about his hot seat since Lincoln turned it on six months ago.

“And you are talking to the wrong person,” Hargrove said. “I didn’t say it.”

The right person said it again on Wednesday – and expanded the flames.

“Everybody in the organization is on the hot seat. Mike. Bill. Myself. Every single person,” Lincoln said.

Over the winter, Lincoln and his 16-person ownership group spent a combined $33.4 million for two free-agent starting pitchers: Miguel Batista and Jeff Weaver. They signed Jose Guillen for another $5.5 million, to be the new right fielder. They traded to get a third new starting pitcher, Horacio Ramirez, and a new designated hitter, Jose Vidro.

That has pushed Seattle’s payroll for this season above $100 million for the first time. That’s up onto the same shelf as the mega-market Chicago Cubs and New York Mets, plus Los Angeles’ Dodgers and Angels.

No wonder Lincoln is still throwing out hot seats like they are peanuts at the ballpark.

“I think it is important for our fans to know neither I or anyone else in the organization were oblivious at their frustrations that we had finished last three years in a row,” he said. “That we weren’t oblivious that our fans, who are very loyal, had been telling me that they had just about had it.”

The result so far, six weeks before the first win or loss?

“There is no question that everyone in the organization has come down here with a heightened sense of urgency,” Lincoln said.

The CEO was on the field Wednesday morning, as usual. He talked to early arrival Guillen, plus Ramirez and Batista, as well as holdovers from last season.

He said many told him, unsolicited, “We are going to get this turned around.”

If they don’t, Hargrove’s hot seat may eject him before summer.