THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2021 A7
MLB COMMENTARY | SEATTLE MARINERS
DEAR ABBY
Write to Dear Abby online at dearabby.com
or by mail at P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069
Dear Abby: When I
stopped by my brother’s
house a couple of weeks ago,
he mentioned that his 9-year-
old son was grounded in his
bedroom. He was being pun-
ished for snooping in his dad’s
vintage collection of porn.
At first I was upset with my
brother and his wife, because
it was their fault that the boy
had access to it, and boys are
naturally curious. But when
I found out what his punish-
ment was, I became enraged.
Their “brilliant” idea was to
make my nephew disgusted
with porn by forcing him to
look at the entire collection
for three hours instead of
playing outside.
Maybe this tactic works for
cigarette smoking or chew-
ing tobacco, but this seemed
very wrong. I was so appalled,
I overstepped; I went straight
into my nephew’s room and
told him he was allowed to go
outside and play. what do you
think? Am I being ridiculous?
What should I have done?
— Appalled in Ohio
Dear Appalled: The child’s
punishment was extreme
and inappropriate. What you
SHOULD have done was
point out to your brother and
sister-in-law that their pun-
ishment may have been coun-
terproductive. Rather than
working as aversion therapy,
it could result in whetting
their son’s appetite for more.
You might also have sug-
gested they consult a child
psychologist for suggestions
on how to deal with their
son’s budding sexual curiosity,
which is entirely normal, and
urged that from now on they
keep their collection under
lock and key.
Dear Abby: I recently met
a very nice woman online.
During our first phone call,
she told me about an injury
she received a few months
ago that has left her with a
disability. I’m not bothered by
it, and I’d like to get to know
her better.
From the way she re-
sponded to a few things, I got
the impression that she is still
coming to terms with what
has happened, as anyone
would be. I have no experi-
ence with a situation like this,
and I have no idea if, from the
perspective of dating, it is the
right thing to engage some-
one who is going through
this. Any thoughts?
— Tentative in Indiana
Dear Tentative: Yes, it’s the
right thing — but only if you
can be supportive and pa-
tient during what has to be
an extremely emotionally dis-
ruptive time in this woman’s
life. I am sure she could use a
supportive male friend right
now, as long as you two can
continue to have an open and
honest dialogue.
Dear Abby: My 30-year-old
son lives with me for finan-
cial reasons, and I love him
dearly. He helps with bills and
works a full-time job. My only
problem with him is he wears
the same pair of pants for
weeks without washing them
and hasn’t washed his sheets
in months. I didn’t raise him
that way. He does take a
shower every night.
He owns only one pair of
pants, and I can’t get him to
buy another pair. I have com-
plained to him several times
about the bad smell. How can
I get him to change his ways?
— Fed-Up Mother in Texas
Dear Fed-Up: At this point
in his life, that may not be
possible. The easiest solution
to your problem might be for
you to wash his bedding every
few weeks. As to the fact that
he has only one pair of pants,
buy him a pair for his next
birthday or for Christmas —
whichever comes sooner.
Parting with ex-president Mather was
inevitable, now comes the hard part
BY LARRY STONE
The Seattle Times
I
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR WEDNESDAY, FEB. 24, 2021:
t took roughly 24 hours
from the first telltale tweet
of trouble for the Mariners
to make official a decision that
was inevitable. That was the
reality from the minute Kevin
Mather’s unconscionable Ro-
tary Club remarks went public
Sunday.
Mather’s departure Mon-
day as president and CEO of
the ballclub was the only pos-
sible resolution as the fallout
grew to hurricane force. That
was evident Sunday and be-
came clearer by the hour, as the
backlash grew stronger in vit-
riol and larger in scope.
It was termed a resignation,
but we know what that often
means in situations such as
this. One can only assume the
radio silence Monday morn-
ing from the Mariners involved
machinations of the ultimate
terminology for his departure.
Chairman John Stanton de-
clined to say whether he would
have fired Mather had he not
stepped down — sidestepping
an opportunity to put some
force behind his attempts to
distance the Mariners from
Mather’s comments.
That’s semantics, however.
The crux is that massive harm
was done to the Mariners or-
ganization and its perception
by any and all of its constitu-
encies — the players Mather
upset; the fans who are called
upon to support the organiza-
tion; the other Mariners exec-
utives who must work around
Mather’s outing of company
secrets and other indiscretions;
MLB officials no doubt fuming
from the revelation of appar-
ent service-time manipulation
(among other dirty laundry
aired by Mather); and the MLB
Players Association, which now
feels it has tangible evidence
of how players are regarded by
teams for probable use in the
upcoming CBA negotiations.
Mather stepped in it as thor-
oughly and irrevocably as one
can do in the course of what
was designed as a friendly,
45-minute breakfast Zoom ap-
Self-sacrificing, open and accepting, you give your all. This year, efficiency
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ARIES (March 21-April 19)
Continued from A5
õõõõ Today brightens your personal life. Your sense of style and people
“They are the ones who are
taking it on the chin.”
Stewart said that volley-
ball likely will not happen this
year at Madras, as the option
to move the season later in
the year is not possible due to
the White Buffaloes being one
of the few teams locally and
within their conference to not
be able to play. They would not
have anyone to play in a later
season.
Culver is in the same po-
sition as Madras, facing the
prospect of not having a vol-
leyball season.
“We can’t do anything right
now, our hands are tied,” said
Culver athletic director Shea
Little. “It is devastating news
for our volleyball players. We
YOUR HOROSCOPE
By Madalyn Aslan
Stars show the kind of day you’ll have
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on what you want. Go for close and intimate.
“We are going to have to continue to work at (repairing the
damage done by former president and CEO Kevin Mather’s
recent comments) every day. I don’t think trust has been
completely eroded. … You build trust over time, and you build
that relationship by communicating honestly, consistently.”
— John Stanton, Seattle Mariners’ majority owner
pearance to drum up support
for the upcoming season.
Instead, it became a
jaw-dropping compendium of
insensitivity, pettiness and ca-
sual airing of an attitude that
seemed to have little regard
for the players as anything but
widgets to be exploited.
And so now the Mariners
have taken the first step to re-
pair the damage by removing
the source. It would have been
untenable to have Mather re-
main in charge of, well, basi-
cally the entire organization
with authority exceeded only
by Stanton, considering that
his gravitas had been compro-
mised at literally every turn.
The next steps will be much
more difficult, however. The
Mariners need to somehow
win back all those aforemen-
tioned entities. The process of
doing so made up the bulk of
questioning during Stanton’s
half-hour Zoom media session
Monday, with a lot of assur-
ances but only vague details.
“We are going to have to
continue to work at it every
day,” Stanton said. “I don’t
think trust has been completely
eroded. … You build trust over
time, and you build that rela-
tionship by communicating
honestly, consistently.”
Frankly, I feel Stanton is
underestimating the task fac-
ing him, because skepticism,
ridicule and downright vitriol
toward the organization were
unleashed in torrents by this
incident.
One of the most telling
things Stanton said, I felt, was
this: “The process of building a
strong organization doesn’t oc-
cur in one move or one night.
Nor, in my opinion, can it be
destroyed by one set of com-
ments.”
Strong organization? Eye of
the beholder. Destroyed? Per-
haps not. Severely compro-
mised? Absolutely. Especially
when given the ongoing trust
issues borne from the Mari-
ners’ subpar performance over
two decades.
The Mariners have tons
of dedicated, hardworking,
high-character folks in their
organization. That’s important
to note. And Stanton made the
valid point that an organiza-
tion is more than just the one
or two people at the top. But
Stanton will still have to con-
vince people that the various
uncomfortable utterances by
Mather aren’t reflective of the
Mariner ethos.
Stanton will start by flying
from Seattle to Peoria, Arizona,
to begin a fence-mending tour
Wednesday. By the time he fin-
ishes the apologies he’ll need to
proffer in the clubhouse alone,
it might be time for opening
day.
He said he will apologize to
third baseman Kyle Seager for
Mather’s assertion he is “proba-
bly overpaid” — which is actu-
ally not true when you look at
the totality of his career. There
is a generally accepted formula
by numbers-crunchers that
one win of WAR (Wins Above
Replacement) is worth roughly
$8 million. If you take Seager’s
32.8 career WAR, FanGraphs
has calculated that his career
value is $247.3 million. Ac-
cording to Baseball Reference,
Seager has been paid about $83
million in his career — which
makes him vastly underpaid
for the totality of his Mariners
tenure.
Stanton will also apologize
to top prospect Julio Rodriguez
for Mather’s disparaging re-
marks about the quality of his
are still hoping for a little bit of
a season.”
For Madras volleyball play-
ers, the options are either try
a different sport like soccer or
cross-county, or hope for the
county to move down to high
risk and maybe play a season
that will be less than a month
long.
“We will figure it out and
give kids options on what we
can do and hope for the best,”
Stewart said. “If they want to
try something different we will
open that door for them.”
At Culver, moving the sea-
son to later in the year is also
not an option, as the athletic
department has decided not to
let other sports interfere with
traditional spring sports, after
those sports had their seasons
canceled in 2020.
“We don’t want to sacrifice
our spring sports,” Little said,
adding that even if volleyball
gets only one week to compete,
the team will try to do it.
Madras and Culver are cur-
rently conducting in-person
learning and can have up to
25 students in a classroom. Yet
after school, that number is re-
duced to six athletes allowed
English (which also were to-
tally off base). And no doubt to
Japanese pitcher Yusei Kikuchi
and coach (and former Mari-
ners pitcher) Hisashi Iwakuma
regarding Mather’s comments
about interpreters.
Stanton needs to have a par-
ticularly deft touch in sooth-
ing the feelings of Rodriguez
and fellow prospect extraordi-
naire Jarred Kelenic, whom the
Mariners hope will be corner-
stone of their future. Stanton
denied that Mather’s outlin-
ing of a strategy that can only
be construed as service-time
manipulation reflected the or-
ganizational stance, but that’s
a dubious assertion. As team
president, Mather oversaw
baseball operations, and to
think that he wasn’t privy to
their MO regarding two play-
ers whose service time could
well mean the difference of
tens of millions of dollars
down the road is hard to swal-
low.
Indeed, there will be myriad
fires for Stanton put out — too
many to delineate here. Man-
ager Scott Servais, who will
address the team Tuesday, and
general manager Jerry Dipoto
obviously will have a part in
that, too. Mather made their
jobs exponentially more diffi-
cult in the span of those same
24 hours.
But the biggest reparations
will have to be done with Mar-
iners fans. This was a massive
body blow to a group that des-
perately wants to have a team
to rally behind — and often
feels that the Mariners thwart
them at every turn.
Until the team reaches the
stage of serious, perennial con-
tention — which is the best
salve of all — the Mariners,
as their top priority, need to
demonstrate that at all turns
that they will do the right
thing. That’s at once a gross
simplification and the whole
matter in a nutshell. It’s some-
thing that’s impossible to de-
fine, but you know it when you
see it.
Much more to the point, you
know it when you don’t see it.
in the gym at a time. Stewart
thinks there is a disconnect be-
tween the education and ath-
letic guidelines.
“We are one of the few
schools that are fully back,” he
said, “and yet we are extreme
and we can’t play volleyball.”
e
Reporter: 541-383-0307, brathbone@
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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
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Tonight: An uncharitable comment made would come back to haunt you.
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really feel and let others know. You overcome competition or other obstacles
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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
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