Friday, January 09, 2004
NUGGET
Usually when I peruse the online version of my hometown rag, the Bremerton Sun, I usually don't get anything that good.
Yesterday, editor Nathan Joyce tried to provide a little insight as to why the annual Mariners offseason caravan isn't making a stop in Bremerton. I'll include some tidbits from the article...
[Jeff] Cirillo, during a question-and-answer segment [at last year's Caravan stop at Bremerton High School], was asked about the departure of Lou Piniella. The locally beloved manager had recently relocated to Tampa Bay to manage the Devil Rays.
Cirillo mentioned how much Piniella had meant to baseball in Seattle before announcing to a somewhat shocked crowd: "Personally, for me, I'm glad he's gone."
I was pretty shocked. I couldn't imagine anybody saying anything but nice things to the Mariners' fan base about the former manager.
But afterward, after Cirillo had frowned and grumped his way through a few hundred autographs, it got even better.
Cirillo was open about how he and Piniella didn't get along, how he had wilted under the considerable pressure Sweet Lou applied. He admitted he was miserable that first season in Seattle.
He told me a bizarre story about how he would picture Piniella naked so he wouldn't be intimidated.
So I wrote a little story on Cirillo for the next day's paper. I was happy to get a little scoop; nobody had written much about about Cirillo's problems with Piniella.
And then the story blew up. Papers across the state, around the country even, picked it up. Every time I turned on sports radio, they were talking about it.
Cirillo went out of his way to point out what a bad reporter he thought I was. He called me "shoddy" in The Seattle Times and on the radio.
[...]
His big beef? He claimed to have said lots of nice things about Piniella that day and they didn't make the paper. But on further review -- I still have the tape of the interview -- that was a load of crap.
For the record, Cirillo said two nice things about Piniella, one of which did make the paper. I certainly didn't include every negative thing he said, either.
It is also noted in the article that Safeco took their name off the winter caravan, which is now called the Seattle Mariners Winter Tour.
I knew previously that Cirillo had said those things while in B-town, but I didn't remember the backlash that it caused. And I didn't know Nathan Joyce was involved.
Lastly, big ups to Nathan Joyce for using the phrase "load of crap" in the Bremerton Sun. I didn't think anyone could get away with that.
Yesterday, editor Nathan Joyce tried to provide a little insight as to why the annual Mariners offseason caravan isn't making a stop in Bremerton. I'll include some tidbits from the article...
[Jeff] Cirillo, during a question-and-answer segment [at last year's Caravan stop at Bremerton High School], was asked about the departure of Lou Piniella. The locally beloved manager had recently relocated to Tampa Bay to manage the Devil Rays.
Cirillo mentioned how much Piniella had meant to baseball in Seattle before announcing to a somewhat shocked crowd: "Personally, for me, I'm glad he's gone."
I was pretty shocked. I couldn't imagine anybody saying anything but nice things to the Mariners' fan base about the former manager.
But afterward, after Cirillo had frowned and grumped his way through a few hundred autographs, it got even better.
Cirillo was open about how he and Piniella didn't get along, how he had wilted under the considerable pressure Sweet Lou applied. He admitted he was miserable that first season in Seattle.
He told me a bizarre story about how he would picture Piniella naked so he wouldn't be intimidated.
So I wrote a little story on Cirillo for the next day's paper. I was happy to get a little scoop; nobody had written much about about Cirillo's problems with Piniella.
And then the story blew up. Papers across the state, around the country even, picked it up. Every time I turned on sports radio, they were talking about it.
Cirillo went out of his way to point out what a bad reporter he thought I was. He called me "shoddy" in The Seattle Times and on the radio.
[...]
His big beef? He claimed to have said lots of nice things about Piniella that day and they didn't make the paper. But on further review -- I still have the tape of the interview -- that was a load of crap.
For the record, Cirillo said two nice things about Piniella, one of which did make the paper. I certainly didn't include every negative thing he said, either.
It is also noted in the article that Safeco took their name off the winter caravan, which is now called the Seattle Mariners Winter Tour.
I knew previously that Cirillo had said those things while in B-town, but I didn't remember the backlash that it caused. And I didn't know Nathan Joyce was involved.
Lastly, big ups to Nathan Joyce for using the phrase "load of crap" in the Bremerton Sun. I didn't think anyone could get away with that.
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