Managing Family, M's Is Challenge -- Piniella Tries To Balance Personal, Private Lives

Lou Piniella was on the phone in the visiting manager's office at Jacobs Field in Cleveland.

"How is he?," he was asking. Doing all right?. . . . How's his spirits? . . . When do they say he'll be able to play again?"

Johnson? Griffey? Martinez? With the astonishing number of injuries Piniella's Mariners have suffered this year, those questions have become part of his everyday routine.

But with the tough Indians a couple of hours off, and scouting reports and lineup choices littering his desk, Seattle's manager is concerned at this moment about Derek Piniella, his son. The night before, in the first game of his senior season at his Tampa high school, Derek had a knee injured.

As tough as it is to manage in the major leagues, it pales in light of finding a balance between professional and personal lives. "The toll, in terms of stress and other costs, is tremendous," Piniella said. "You simply can't do the job as manager of a major-league team and be as responsible at home as you should be or want to be."

Johnny Oates, who manages the Texas Rangers, took three weeks off near the start of last season to be with his wife as she struggled at home with the demands of baseball's split life. Sparky Anderson, now retired after four decades of managing, took several months off a few seasons back. Tommy Lasorda, longtime Dodger manager, is out now after suffering heart problems.

"It's easy to get too caught up in the game. Baseball grabs you - by the throat," Oates said. "You talk to other managers, and coaches, and you talk about the troubles you face, and you hear them say, "You, too?" Problems are common to the job."

Anita Piniella, Lou's wife and partner for 29 years, also has felt the pressure, and come to understand it and deal with it, to leave her husband free to focus on his job.

"It's difficult for Lou to balance his job and his family," she said. "He is so focused on baseball. He has one goal - to win. It's hard on other areas of his life because baseball is every day; he just can't forget it for a day, even an afternoon."

It makes him forget other things. Like last month, when one day he forgot that he was scheduled to play golf with General Manager Woody Woodward. "So much on my mind," he said. "That just slipped through."

Anita said the baseball-first focus was the same when Lou played, a take-no-prisoners outfielder for Kansas City and, more memorably, the New York Yankees. "I woke one night terrified," she said. "There was a man standing over my bed with a bat. But it was only Lou. He had been in a slump and he was practicing his swing in front of a mirror."

At home when Anita is in Seattle, or on the phone daily when she is back in Florida, the Piniellas talk about the family first, then often about the job, about games. "Sometimes he's just quiet when things don't go well, and I give him his space; sometimes he speaks and I listen," Anita said. "He'll talk about what went wrong. I wouldn't ask. You'd never catch me saying, `Why did you take that guy out?'

"He goes sleepless a lot. Each year he's a little more tired, and it takes him longer to recover from losses each day, from the season when it's over. It's simply harder as you get older to keep up the level of intensity and emotion."

Piniella, 53, acknowledges this, calling it a "young man's job. . . . It takes the energy of a young man, yet the experience of an older man. It's a tough combination to have. But you see managers are generally younger; there are fewer Andersons and Lasordas around."

For relaxation, Piniella will head to the horses, or the nearest off-track betting parlor. On an off-night, he partakes of what he calls, "a nice meal, a bottle of fairly good wine (he actually knows a bit about wines, and likes Chateau St. Michelle) and get to bed by 10, 11 p.m.

He smokes, too much by his own admission, having failed at wearing nicotine patches his first spring with the Mariners. "What I saw that first camp," he said, "I needed a cigarette."

Piniella's style - natural to him - is a blend of hardness and humanity. "I feel Lou has treated me like a human being," said Jamie Moyer, who has been with four other clubs and came to Seattle six weeks ago, "and while that may not sound like much, it's a lot different than with some clubs. I've played for some managers who don't acknowledge your existence, or only if you're doing well."

If nothing, Piniella is a simple man, albeit with a mind that sorts out complexities. When police arrived last month at his Eastside home to check out an alarm gone off, he wound up talking to the cops about Seattle's then-bad pitching situation. "They couldn't think of any answers, either," he said, laughing.

Anita thinks her husband has mellowed, something he agrees with. She has done her part, not to soften his drive to succeed, but to alter its tone, soft and steady rather than strident.

"He credits the team the wins, and takes the losses personally," she said. "I think his players sense his passion and his emotional level; his involvement gives them spirit. They see how much he cares, and I think it makes them want to perform. He's gotten a lot closer to his players. I think he saw while he played (in particular, for Billy Martin) what it was like to manage through intimidation, and while he may have started his managing career that way, he's learned you can maintain intensity without intimidation."

"Anita has helped me a lot," Piniella said. "This is not to say I don't slip up at times; slip up often. But I'm less inclined to say something now that I'll regret the next day."

Indeed, about a dozen times a year, writers find the manager's office closed after certain games, in which performances do not match the team's unspoken standards. The players know anyway, their own quiet demeanor shows it. But that closed door screams at them louder at times than an overly open mouth.

And the result now is that the hallmark of Mariner baseball is intensity. There is pride, toughness and hard work, all instilled and distilled in large part by Piniella. But above all, there is intensity.

His standards are rooted in his own performance as a player. "He was one of the most focused and intelligent hitters in the game. He made himself into a quality hitter," said Oates, a former big-league catcher. "And he was one of the toughest outs. Every at-bat was a battle with him, every pitch a fight. He'd bite and spit and snarl."

And his history as a manager, the filmed fight in his own Reds' clubhouse with relief pitcher Rob Dibble, never has left his portfolio, as much as he'd like to have it gone. "It was something I felt needed to be done at the time," he said. "It's something I wish I hadn't done. It's embarrassing to me now."

Anita sometimes chides him for being harsh on players, such as the tirade he fired at ineffective pitchers the first week of this September. But she understood about the Dibble incident. "I was surprised he reacted just like that," she said. "Then I found out what happened, (Dibble lied to the press about an understanding he had with Piniella over being used in games) and I figured he had a right to be upset."

So the legend is the fuel as much as the man himself. While Piniella says humbly, "I'm not much of a motivator," he is referring to his reluctance to call team meetings, or make speeches. His motivational technique is wrapped in his past and his personality.

"Lou doesn't say much, but he shouldn't have to," said reliever Norm Charlton, who first played for Piniella in Cincinnati in 1990-92. "He's got guys here who speak up, who say what has to be said. He demanded a certain type of player here, hungry, tough, proud.

"Now, teams don't want to play the Seattle Mariners, especially here. We know that, and that's a huge advantage. No team is going to embarrass us, throw at our guys, or out-work or outfight us. They aren't going to put tougher players on the field. They may beat us occasionally, but not without a battle."

Piniella deflects as much of the attention paid him as possible. "My role," he said, "is merely to orchestrate. I like to leave the players alone as much as possible. Let them play hard, let them enjoy a nice, loose clubhouse. I'm blessed with lead players who care, who want to win.

"A good manager stays in the background and utilizes talents. A manager's main contribution to his team is to know his personnel and use them according to their strengths and abilities. We've been an entertaining club all year, fun to watch and drawing good crowds.

"We've got the best player in baseball (Ken Griffey), the best young player in baseball (Alex Rodriguez), one of the best hitters (Edgar Martinez), one of its most outstanding characters who can leave the park with anyone (Jay Buhner), the best pitcher in baseball (Randy Johnson). We've got grit throughout our roster."

Unable to drive players like a Dick Williams or Martin might have - "I turn my back more now than I would have four or five years ago" - Piniella drives himself and his coaches. The Seattle dugout can be a loud and profane place down at the near end where the manager and coaches spend their games.

"I've always said the man has an insatiable desire to win," said Lee Elia, Seattle's noted batting instructor.

As bench coach as well, Elia sits next to Piniella in the dugout, hears and shares the quiet discussions about a move to be made now or later, and hears all the complaints, up close and personal.

"Lou uses a coaching staff as an extension of himself and he is punishing on himself, so it only figures that that reaches us. He expects us to cover certain areas, gives us freedom in those areas, and he demands total coverage in those areas."

In the loud and plaintive comments to his coaches, Piniella makes his points to the players, who cannot help but hear.

In one coaching adjustment, he had pitching coach Bobby Cuellar go to the bullpen, noting angrily on the bench that relief pitchers, "are not prepared to pitch when they come into games." He said nothing to the pitchers directly, nor did he knock Cuellar or bullpen coach Matt Sinatro, who was brought from the bullpen to the bench.

"Maybe," Piniella said grimly, "our pitchers will get a message from this." Since, the team was 10-3 before last night's game, and the ERA was 3.05. Coincidence, or a message received?

"One of the things I love about him," Charlton said, "is that he wears his emotions on his sleeve. And if he's got something to say to a player, he'll say it to your face. There's no ripping in the press, or stabbing in the back. It's man-to-man. Then it's forgotten. He holds no grudges. He gets it out and he gets over it. It's up to players to be a man as well and get over it."

Woodward, a close friend of Piniella's and who alsohas altered the face of Seattle Mariner baseball, is one of many who believe that this season has been Piniella's best as a manager. "With all he's had to overcome this year, he's done his best job," the GM said. "I'd never want to re-live all this team has had to overcome this year, and for Lou to have them overcome it, he's had to adjust, and to adjust he's had to be flexible. What comes through clearly at all times is that he's dedicated to and involved with our organization."

One of Piniella's strengths with the organization is his ability to judge talent, to master-plan talent into a team. It was his idea to trade for left-handers Terry Mulholland and Jamie Moyer, who have combined to give the Mariners' battered rotation veteran tenacity and, entering last night's game, a combined 10-4 record.

For all he has done here, had Piniella listened to others, none of it might have happened. He might not have come to the Mariners, for whom winning has become the only acceptable result.

"I have to confess I didn't want Lou to take this job," Anita said. "It was too far from home in Florida, too hard on the family. But basically . . . I want him to be happy. If he's happy, we manage. You do get to meet great people, and this has worked out all right for us."

According to Piniella, Anita "didn't want me to take the Cincinnati job, either. It's not that she's jealous of baseball. She's just family oriented. I like to think I am, too, and that we've been married for 29 years speaks for itself.

"But I have a job to do; for this organization, but by extension, for my family. When I was in New York, we had a permanent home in New Jersey. She did not want to see that uprooted."

But Anita was not alone. When Piniella talked to friends in the game, they advised him to avoid Seattle. "When I was talking about coming, I was told by baseball people, don't come, `you're going to hit the end of the road there.' I chose to look at it more positively, bring this organization around and have fun doing it."

He has been rewarded twice with contract extensions and will now manage through the year 1999.

"You get hired to do a job, to win," Piniella said. "And I feel personally responsible to do the best I can for the organization, for the city, to put a good product on the field. Now we've got to get to the next step, the World Series. That takes a lot of luck as well as ability, but I think this organization is capable of reaching it, now or down the road a bit."

And there is always that humanity. Piniella has another responsibility that underlies all others. "I've been as responsible as possible to my own family. But I've also got 25 kids here and others I'm responsible for. I'm duty-bound to use them well, enhance their talents. In a small way, it could affect their careers, and I'm fully aware of that."

Two families, one father figure?

"As a father I have been critical in a way; just tough, I guess," Piniella said of the three Piniella children, Lou Jr., (27), Kristi (24) and Derek (17). "And I feel remorse for it. Yet now I think I have good rapport, good communication with my children. I've gotten much closer to my oldest son and daughter in recent years. I wasn't around much while they grew up."

He was in Texas on July 4, when Kristi gave birth to his first grandchild, a girl named Kassidy. He did get to hold her for the first time a week later, home in Florida for the brief All-Star break.

"You get entangled in a career," Piniella said, "and I don't have the ability to handle too many things at one time."

Piniella thought that having the family together in New Jersey during his Yankee years made things easier for the two older children, "although I was away a lot. Being so far away in Seattle has made it tougher on Derek. In Florida, school lets out in early June and he spends a bit of time with me here or on the road, but school starts up in mid-August. The time is short then."

Derek's knee injury turned out to be a strained ligament, and after several weeks of rest he is scheduled to play again next weekend. "When I get home after the season, Anita and I enjoy going to his football games and things are more normal. I let him play whatever sport he chooses, however he chooses it. We don't talk much about performing. Critical? No, not really. He prefers me to be supportive.

"I try. Believe me, I try."