PEORIA, Ariz. — A touch of defensiveness was in his voice. But Mariners manager Mike Hargrove was also clearly taking the offensive after being lobbed the first question of the spring about being on the proverbial "hot seat."
Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln made a season-ending comment about both Hargrove and general manager Bill Bavasi being on his personal "hot seat" and the two words have become an offseason catchphrase of sorts for the team's need to improve. So when a television reporter mentioned the words to Hargrove during a post-workout scrum on Thursday, the manager offered a seemingly well-prepared, at times passionate, response.
"This will be my 16th year doing this at the big-league level," Hargrove said. "I've been good at what I do. I'm still good at what I do. Every day I wake up, every day any manager in the big leagues wakes up, he is on the hot seat.
"So, whether somebody publicly came out and said this, it really doesn't make any difference to me. It honestly doesn't."
Hargrove later added: "I'm not any more on the hot seat than anyone in baseball. Honest to goodness, I really don't want to hear another thing about it. I really don't. It doesn't piss me off. It gets me fired up a little bit. ... There will be a time to address that if it comes to that. And then we'll address that. But [until then] you're pissing up a rope."
Guillen decides
against trainer
Mariners camp highlights
Daily highlight: A slimmed-down Felix Hernandez showed off his new look, sprinting through conditioning drills and deftly handling infield plays during pitchers' fielding practice. Hernandez later fired a series of fastballs off the mound in the first bullpen session of the spring, one day after manager Mike Hargrove hinted strongly that the 20-year-old could be his opening-day starter.
Injury report: RF Jose Guillen took part in all on-field workouts and says he had no problems with his surgically repaired elbow. 2B Jose Lopez (sprained ankle) is limited to gym workouts. He has a physical Monday and could be allowed to hit Tuesday and take grounders in two weeks.
Weather report: Sunny, high of 68.
Quotable: "I'm not any more on the hot seat than anyone in baseball. Honest to goodness, I really do not want to hear another thing about it." — Hargrove
New face: General manager Bill Bavasi arrived in town late Wednesday night and was present at a 7:30 a.m. staff meeting at the Peoria complex Thursday.
Geoff Baker
Mariners right fielder Jose Guillen didn't take long to abort plans of bringing a personal trainer with him to Seattle from the Dominican Republic. Guillen spent the winter training with Angel "Nao" Presinal, a fitness guru to several Dominican major-leaguers.
But a handful of stories since last year have mentioned a 2001 incident in which Presinal was questioned by Canadian authorities about a bag containing steroids that was brought aboard a Cleveland Indians charter flight to Toronto. Presinal was a trainer to Indians slugger Juan Gonzalez at the time. Both denied owning the bag or its contents, and no charges were filed.
The latest story about Presinal and the 2001 incident came Wednesday as part of an ESPN.com series on performance-enhancing drug use by players in the Dominican. It was essentially a recap of previous stories, with a denial of wrongdoing by Presinal, but Guillen still received numerous phone calls about it and his plans to bring the trainer north.
"I was going to hire him, but now I'm just going to let it go," Guillen said Thursday, adding the Mariners did not pressure him into the decision. "I'm with a new team, I've got all that stuff in my past and now I don't want anything negative following me here."
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