Steve Kelley: Coach Norm Charlton can fume over losses, but Mariners' effort makes him proud

Norm Charlton has witnessed the yin and the yang of baseball. He has pitched for teams with personalities as big as the faces on Mount Rushmore. He won a World Series in Cincinnati in 1990 and was the closer for the remarkable 1995 Mariners.

He also was part of a veteran team in Baltimore that rapidly slid toward the bottom of the American League East. And he was a member of a young team in Tampa Bay that quickly understood it wasn't good enough to compete.

Charlton, the Mariners' bullpen coach, hates to lose. He treats losses like insults. He sees lack of effort as a lack of professionalism. He takes it personally.

So when I talked with him this week, I figured he'd be chewing on a drinking glass and spitting out the shards as if they were sunflower seeds. I expected his left hand to be bandaged because he had punched a hole in the bullpen wall.

I thought he would be seething. Thought he would have the same reaction to the Mariners' frustrating 20-34 start as many of the team's fans. Figured he'd be mad as hell and unable to take it anymore.

Charlton never hides his emotions. He never has been afraid to speak his mind, even if it hurt the feelings of some of the players. If he thought these Mariners were quitting, if he thought the fight, the concentration, the selflessness was gone from his team, he'd be knocking over buffet tables and challenging players to fights.

"That's not happening here," Charlton said after the Mariners' second win in a row, a 1-0 gem over the Boston Red Sox. "Losing games, for me, is very hard to swallow, but it's hard for these guys to swallow, too. I haven't seen a lot of guys in there happy for a good, long while. They're grinding and grinding and trying to get out of this. They haven't stopped working.

"They're taking extra ground balls. They're down there in the [batting] cave with [hitting coach] Jeff Pentland for countless hours. A lot of them are buried in that cave, from two o'clock on."

Remember, this isn't some company mouthpiece. Charlton is loyal to his team, but he would be the first to jump on the players if he thought they were accepting defeat. He wouldn't be able to help himself.

"If I didn't think we were working hard, I would be so mad, I'd be breaking stuff every day," Charlton said. "If guys came in here like they didn't care, I wouldn't be talking like this. But they haven't quit working and they do care. But I do think they're pressing and, in baseball, when you start trying to do more than you can do, you get in trouble."

Charlton was invited into this coaching staff to breathe fire into the pitchers, to challenge them to pitch inside and not give in. And this spring training, former players like Jay Buhner, Rich Amaral and Tony Phillips were in Peoria fine-tuning the young players, teaching them about professionalism and leadership.

"Everything was addressed that needed to be addressed," Charlton said. "And, I think guys wholeheartedly are still trying to do all of the right things. But it just seems like one mistake in a game has led to a big inning, some way or another, and it has cost us ballgames.

"I don't think it [leadership] is a problem here. We do have a lot of guys in here who pull guys aside and talk with them. We do. And we have a lot of guys who work very hard."

The record argues against Charlton. The last 0-and-6 trip had a sky-is-falling feel to it. But he has been with this team every day since February and his is one man's opinion, the opinion of a good baseball man, who never blows smoke.

"I think most of the guys in here are pretty damned good," Charlton said. "I think the talent here is good, up and down the lineup. I really honestly believe we still have a chance to make a run at this thing.

"I understand there are naysayers out there. But we had naysayers here in 1995 and we had naysayers in Cincinnati in 1990. I mean, anybody in that locker room will tell you we've been having a hard time. We've had breakdowns in everything — starting pitching, the bullpen, hitting and fielding. But it's not from lack of desire or from lack of work."

The Mariners are in trouble. Deep trouble. No amount of glass-half-full philosophizing can change that.

But in his 24 years in and around the game, Norm Charlton has been there, done that and seen it all. And this is one baseball man who still, honestly, believes in his team.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists