L' Manager Misterioso...
Trying to make some sense out of this Mike Hargrove thing...

The Seattle Mariners have been playing pretty doggoned good lately. They're only 4 games back in their division race right now. The hitters have been HITTING, and the pitchers have been PITCHING (not just throwing), and the Mariners have taken out the brooms and have SWEPT the last two series in a row. And when a team does good, the resignation of its manager is usually not what happens. Seattle Mariners' manager (well, ex-manager now) Mike Hargrove has basically said that he doesn't have the passion and desire to participate in managing a baseball team anymore. He doesn't have that fire in his belly anymore. Well, I can see that last point, especially if "fire" in the belly feels a lot like indigestion, because he's had a couple of fairly difficult seasons in Seattle, during losing seasons in which fans were basically calling for Mr. Hargrove's head on a silver home-plate shaped platter. But this year the team is WINNING. Yeah, a few fans have still called for his head, but these should be GOOD times. Indigestion-free times. Salad days. I don't get it, and neither do a lotta folks.

I think that everyone is hoping that there isn't some more severe reason for Mr. Hargrove's resignation. Is he abandoning his team? After all, "management" is a commitment that you don't walk away from unless it's for a good reason. I've been listening to sports radio, and one of the talking heads said that some guys don't even want to admit to nebulous "family problems"; they just don't wanna go there, so instead they say, "It's not you, it's ME", sort of like when a couple breaks up. "It's not you, it's me", blah blah blah. That observation, in its entirety, was voiced by a couple of the anonymous talking heads on ESPN radio. I hope that Mr. Hargrove is not facing severe health problems, or urgent family problems or whatever, and maybe the real reason will be revealed soon, but for now, there's a whole lotta people, including me, in the dark. I do know that in my lifetime, I've had jobs so terrible that I quit on the spot. Other jobs, I made it thru the first morning shift before axing myself. But those jobs were going bad for me. Mr. Hargrove's job was going good for him, especially as of late. So, I'm confused. As usual.



I will admit that in the many times I've listened to Hargrove being interviewed during Mariners' pre-or-post-game shows, he is not the smoothest-ever conversationalist; it sounds like he is either very, VERY apprehensive about everything, or just has a tough time being direct and spontaneous. So I, along with the legions of Mariners' fans, either long-suffering (such as I) or fair-weather (since the team's having a good season), am totally flabbergasted, mystified and just plain-old confused...but, Mike, I wish ya well. Although I wish you were staying put.
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The source of this blog title: No, I am not fluent in French. No way am I that cultured. So where did I get the title of this blog, you ask? (Assuming you were going to ask...) Cream guitarist Eric Clapton was a good friend of George Harrison's. As a matter of fact, Harrison co-wrote the song, "Badge", and on the record, he can be heard playing rhythm guitar. However, his name couldn't be mentioned as a contributing artist due to various record-contract things. So, instead, Harrison identified himself as L'Angelo Misterioso, and is listed as such on the back cover of Cream's "Goodbye" album. Also, when George was writing the lyrics, Eric Clapton was sitting on the other side of the table. When he saw the word "bridge" upside-down on George's lyric sheet (a "bridge" is a part of the song separate from the main verse & chorus), Clapton thot the word was "Badge", and jokingly, that word became the song's title. This was in return for a favor, because the year before (1968), Clapton played lead guitar on the version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", on the "White Album".
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Have you ever tried to tuna fish? I went to a small county park on the Oregon coast today, and de rigeur for such parks are fish-cleaning tables, where people who catch a fish thi-i-i-i-s big can clean 'em before takin' em to the nearest fish fry, or whatever. So I, not being able to mind my own business at all, wandered over to where 6 guys were cleaning perhaps 15 or 20 fish. The cleaning table was full of 'em, and the ones yet to be cleaned were laying around on the grass. And, yep, they were tuna fish. And they're pretty doggone big, too. I would estimate that each fish was about 3 to 4 feet long. ("Thi-i-i-i-s Big!!!") And there's no false alarms while Tuna fishing...when they hit, they HIT BIG! I used to live in Lake Country, so this whole ocean fishing deal is absolutely new to me. I asked 'em how far out they had to go to git their fish, and they informed me that they had to travel 25 miles over open water to where the fish were bitin'. They told me that it takes about an hour of boat time to travel that 25 miles, which is beyond the horizon, even if I'm a hundred feet above the ocean, looking out. Two hours total, coming and going on them undulating ocean waves. I would get s-o-o-o-o seasick...I'll just stay on dry land and whimper. And ask people dumb questions about their fish.


And no, I didn't perform this photo satire...I stole this offa some website that Google dumped me at...

I've been told that some of the commercial boats come in with so much fish that they are barely floating, helped along by the extra buoyancy of salt water, and they bring in GOBS of fish. Tough way to make a living, for sure. I asked a fisherman once if the movie, "The Perfect Storm" is accurate in its portrayal of what commercial fishermen go thru, and he said that pretty-much, it was. Although I bet neither he or anyone else wants to experience a "Perfect" storm. How can a killer storm be called "Perfect", though? I'd rather experience a storm that I survive.
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Ending note; those of you who are familiar with convenience stores (and who isn't?) are familiar with those plastic covered boxes of pepperoni meat sticks near the cash register. Down here on the coast, there's a little shop in the harbor where I can get SALMON sticks, and they are good. How good? Thi-i-i-i-s good!