Mariners cutting out Tacoma News Tribune

I'm sorry but it IS a big deal if a franchise icon is not available to do his job because he's sleeping. Yes, guys go to the clubhouse to use the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, watch an inning on TV, but you can be damn sure they are available if needed for the game.

Now, you can question whether Griffey was really unavailable. Maybe he expected someone would wake him up if he was needed. The fact is that two people told LaRue that Griffey was unavailable because he was sleeping (not just that he was sleeping), and that's what LaRue reported.

He's absolutely gotta run the story.

I doubt the M's players are going to maintain their boycott for too long. These things happen and they blow over.

 

Mike Sweeney's a big God guy, right? He must have been re-enacting that scene where Jesus says "All right bitches, who dropped a dime? It's on."

 

I agree that he's got to go with the story, but why the unnamed sources? There's always potential trouble when you go that route. Ask John Tomase.

 

An extra-inning game at Wrigley, Lasorda was forced to use Fernando in the outfield because nobody could find Bobby Welch, who was asleep in the clubhouse, which was quite a hike from the dugout.

 

Except this guy used Griffey's teammates, who you'd think have a good reputation; Tomase used random people barely associated with what was going on.

 

Don't know LaRue, but I'm with him 100 percent. The fact that athletes don't get the fact that journalists aren't promoters never ceases to amaze me. And if the reports are true, totally lost respect for Cliff Lee. If he wants to honor the LaRue boycott, so be it. They're not obligated to talk to the dude. But cutting off an entire press conference is classless and beyond asinine.

 

The Mariners are completely over reacting to something silly...who cares if Griffey was sleeping...give it a chuckle and move on. Geesh.

 

Wrong. It's Griffey who slept in the yolk and is wearing it. And I guarantee you LaRue will still be getting stuff from the players – and again on the QT.

 

Must have been during Welch's hard drinking days.

 

No, he was a former drunk by then. He did the party scene, but didn't drink.

 

No player is going to put his name to the Griffey-was-unavailable-because-he-was-asleep story, and a lot of them will go along with the boycott even if they believe or know the story to be accurate. Solidarity trumps truth in a baseball clubhouse. If you didn't know that before, you should have learned it during the steroids era.

 

Mountain out of a molehill. So he was sleeping? Big deal. Hardly worth a story or even a note item, unless it somehow affected the game, which both Griffey and the manager claim it did not. A veteran guy like LaRue should know you don't need to print everything you see or hear in a clubhouse, in the first place.

But at least I respect him for not outing his sources. It would only make the situation worse, as the veteran guys who make life hell for whatever youngster gave him the info.

No one stood up to fight Sweeney? Hardly surprising. Would you stand up in a meeting of 25 of your peers and admit to ratting on one of them. Even if I did, I sure the hell wouldn't admit it.