If you haven't already heard, I'm sorry to be the one to break the news to the White Sox, Sawx, Yankees, Mets and any other team's fans  that had designs on Ichiro entering free agency this fall and being signed by  your favorite team.

It has been reported today that Ichiro (though the man himself, in typical Ichiro fashion, answered all questions abut it in some sort of riddle/haiku), will be signing a 5 year contract extension with the Mariners in the neighborhood of $100MM.

That said and done, he proceeded to go 3-3 for the American League in the annual summer classic, including (both his own personal first and the first ever in the All Star Game)inside the park home run that put the AL ahead to stay, and cementing himself as the Most Valuable Player of the game.

How big is this?  In a word, HUGE!!!  The face of the franchise will be under contract through the 2012 season, which would make him nearly 38 years of age and probable retirement (though he has said recently that, after retiring from the outfield, he plans to pitch, and to play until he is 50).  If nothing else, this should mean that he will enter the Hall of Fame as a Mariner, he will have set and/or broken more records, and will likely have proven to himself everything that he planned to.

$100MM is a lot of money for a guy his age, but we have to remember, too, that this is Ichiro, and he is like no other player in recent history.  His workout routine, work ethic and physical conditioning are unlike any other player, so trepidations in that area may well not apply.

I am wondering if he knows something that the rest of us do NOT know (i.e what trades might be being disc ussed to better the team for the stretch run)?  It is certain that his teammates standing up for him during "the Incident in Oakland" this weekend pleased him and indicated that the winning attitude he was waiting to see in the M's had finally arrived.

He was also extremely happy at the elevation of John McLaren to the manager's position, as he had been the first person to meet and work with him when he arrived from Japan in 2001, and he is very fond of him.  This, too, surely had something to do with the agreement being reached so soon after McLaren took over the reins, after a season long worry session on whether it would get done or not.

So, all of you other teams and fans that had hoped to find Ichiro in your center field next season, you have my sincerest commiserations (well, no, not really, but.......), and you'll have to figure out someone else to put out there.

The team that fights together stays together?  Plays better? A non-pitching pitcher "takes one for the team" and gets ejected so that the victim of the brawl inducing event doesn't?

All I have to say is that the entire brawling incident in the seventh inning at Oakland yesterday was a tad weird.  6'4" 250 pound Joe Blanton shoves 5'9" 160 pound Ichiro Suzuki from Sunday into Monday to pick up a ball that Jason Kendall lost after it had bounced off the back of a sliding Jose Lopez.  Then, after shoving Ichiro, he didn't even pick the ball up for a long time--not that it would have gone anywhere or gotten anyone out anyway (but that's another story entirely), instead stood there staring into space, more or less, only to be confronted by another rather small gentleman in 5'10" 180 pound Jason Ellison, fists cocked and ready to defend his teammate.

This precipitated the clearing of the dugouts and "bullpens" (AKA small areas with chairs at the sides of foul territory).  Shoving and epithet throwing, but no actual fisticuffs, ensued.  Mariners' bullpen coach Jim Slaton has his hands full (literally) attempting to restrain 2006 first round draft choice Brandon Morrow and the pitcher now renamed "The Franchise" (AKA El Cartuela and/or King Felix), who badly wanted to enter the fray and get his licks in.

All in all it took nearly 15 minutes to get the melee settled down once and for all, having re-erupted when "off duty" pitcher Miguel Batista was offered up as a "human sacrifice" and ejected so that Ichiro could stay in the game (not that there was any reason he should have been ejected to begin with, he didn't start the fight--in fact he just kept right on going toward the dugout after getting shoved by Mr. Blanton), and he got a little peeved at that.

Likely the whole thing was really precipitated by Mr. Blanton's frustration at having just given up a career high 12 hits and a total of six earned runs.  Someone had told him previously that he "owned" the M's, and he believed his own pub, and he was even less happy when he got ejected, sparing a bit of time for an obscene gesture to the M's dugout and some choice four letter words that did not require a lip reader to understand.

After the game, which the M's took 7-3, and which gave them the series victory, Queen's "We Are the Champions" and other raucous music could be heard in the visitor's clubhouse and much celebrating of the growing cohesion of the team went on, according to a blogger/beat writer for the Seattle Times who was there. 

So, is it a good thing or a bad thing to do a little fighting once in a while to fire up your teammates?  How about the old "taking one for the team"?

It was reported today in the Seattle Times that Mariners' pitching coach and none other than our young El Cartuela himself (seen above) both read and took to heart an open letter from a well known local Mariners' blog/commentary, in which the authors' analyzed his pitch selection and recommended a change.

This particular blog entry confirmed something that Chaves has been working with Felix on for a time now, since his return from the DL. A copy of it was handed to the Mariners' bullpen at McAfee Coliseum, from whence it was passed on to Chaves, who then passed it on directly to Felix.

The result of his having read it?  He decided to try following Chaves' (and USS Mariners') advice, and pitched eight innings of two hit baseball, ending up with a 4-0 shutout against the A's (now if Evil Empire version 1.0 could have done just as well against John Lackey today, all would be well with the world).  Who knows what might happen if he learned something more permanent from this and continues to follow the advice?  The return of King Felix?  One can but hope so.

But, back to my point as alluded to in the title of this post.  This just goes to show that you never know who might be reading what you write and taking it to heart.  I know that there is a bit of a controversy going out there in the Fox blogosphere right now about the quality of bloggers' writing and posts.  I tend to take responsibility for what I write, and I have been known to write the fluff and or off-topic piece, but I try to pose some serious issues as well.

So, keep on writing and talking about things that you know or desire, and you may see your name in an article like the one in the Times some day.

OK, so I've been agitating for Mike Hargrove's dismissal for about a year now, along with GM Bill Bavasi.  All for, I thought, good reasons--poor trade/acquisition decisions, poor bullpen management, and not so hot on the field performance.

But never, repeat NEVER, would I have begun to thought of or conjured up what happened here in Seattle today.  Today, at 11:30 local time, Mike Hargrove officially called it quits as manager of the Seattle Mariners.

At the "tender" age of 57 (just a bit older than myself), he says that he "no longer has the passion for the game of baseball" that he feels is needed to be the M's manager.  He claims that there are no "dark, sinister, or cloak and dagger reasons for his decision", but something just doesn't feel right about that.

He says that he was not fired or asked to resign, and I don't doubt that part of it, because he was very clearly on the hot seat as recently as last month's six game losing streak, but things have turned around rather dramatically since then and there would appear to have been no reason to let him go before the end of the season at this particular moment.

So why do you walk away from a team that currently owns the longest win streak in the Majors, arguably the best closer in the business (yes, Mariano Rivera fans, JJ Putz is better than Mariano right now), and is either 1/2 or 1 game out in the AL wild card race (depending on whether or not Detroit gets swept tonight by the Twinkies)?

He looks tired, but denies that it is a health issue; and his wife Sharon looks OK, even having brought a broom to the team's sweep of Toronto this afternoon.

And I'm not the only one scratching my head here.  So are all of the analysts on Baseball Tonight; not to mention Ernie Harwell, John Miller and Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball; and all of the local media.  The fact that there was absolutely no leak of this information before about 10:00 this morning our time made the news all the more surprising or, as some put it, shocking.

John McLaren, long the bench coach for Lou Piniella at the Reds, Mariners, and Devil Rays, has been named manager of the team effective tomorrow.  Note that I said manager, not interim manager.  Bavasi made sure that everyone got the emphasis on that one.  I, for one, am happy that Johnny Mac will be the new manager, because he will be a good one.  He spent enough time around Lou to have learned some of his habits, though he has made it clear that he does not plan any Mt. St. Lou type of dirt kicking, base throwing eruptions.

The players, though admitting to confusion at the sudden decision, went out and did their jobs this afternoon, taking the third game of the series from the Jays 2-1, letting Hargrove go on a winning note.  Hopefully they will continue to do so, extending their winning streak incrementally.  Can they tie the A's 20 game post All Star Break streak from a few years back?  I doubt it, but stranger things have happened in the game of baseball, that much is sure.

Hopefully, tiredness and "lack of passion" are all that there is to it, and not something gone afoul on the home and/or family front, and Hargrove will enjoy his sudden retirement.

In the mean time, carry on gentlemen, and keep winning. Good luck to Johnny Mac, as well.

If you had told me back in the second week of April that this team was going to be three games back of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Azusa, Cucamonga and all points east in the AL West, or one game back of Cleveland and Detroit for the AL Wild Card spot (with a cumulative record of 35-26 and a winning percentage of .574), I'd have told you that you were slightly crazy, or worse.

They haven't been 9 games over .500 almost since Hector was a pup, and they are currently the only team with a 9-1 split in their last ten games.  Ichiro had a league leading 24 game hitting streak and, when it was broken, Yuni Betancourt took over and made it to 20 games before his streak, too, was broken.

Locally it has been suggested that JJ Putz should be given one of two very descriptive nicknames:  either simply "Over" or "The Undertaker" because, when you see him coming into the game you know that it is over and the burying is about to begin.  He was suffering from flu like symptoms last night, but still came in at the bottom of the 13th inning to get his 19th consecutive save.  And the rest of the bullpen is pretty much the same (I wish I could say the same about the starting rotation, but, thank the Lord, they have had the bullpen to save them here lately).

As they should, they have been beating up on the "bottom feeders," but they've also beaten Cleveland and San Diego in the past seven days--teams that have legitimate post-season hopes this year.  What looked like sheer misery on all of the players' faces the first few weeks into the season has been transformed into confidence and looking like they are finally having fun playing the game, after three abysmal seasons preceding this one.

Ichiro even laughed out loud last night when Jose Vidro did a little hop and clap on home plate when Michael Barrett dropped the ball that should have put him out, rather than putting the M's ahead for good in the top of the 13th.

I still have my moments of wanting to turn off the TV and just let the TiVO record the game for later consumption when things are getting a little ugly, but it seems that I just have to come back and peek, only to find that "late inning lightning" has struck again and they are winning once more.

I'm not silly enough to say out loud, in public, that I think they are going to make it deep into the post-season this year, but I certainly have hope that the rebuilding process is finally working, and they will be there sooner than later. (Of course, if any of y'all's teams have a quality starting pitcher that they would like to trade for the stretch, tell 'em to get into contact with the M's, looks like they might be buyers this year after all, rather than fire sale artists).