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| Thursday, March 15 | |||||
| Piniella lobbied for Henderson | |||||
PEORIA, Ariz. – Lou Piniella tried to talk general manager
Pat Gillick into bringing back Rickey Henderson to the Seattle
Mariners. Gillick said no.
"We talked about it seriously," the Mariners manager said
Thursday. "I asked. But we have five veteran outfielders and
(Anthony) Sanders to look at. It was tough here."
Henderson, 42, helped the Mariners get into the AL championship
series last season after being released by the New York Mets. The
Mariners decided not to bring him back for 2001 and he remains an
unsigned free agent this spring.
Henderson is 86 hits shy of 3,000 hits. he's three walks short
of breaking Babe Ruth's career mark of 2,062 walks and needs to
score 68 runs to break Ty Cobb's major league record of 2,245 runs.
"Yeah, I am surprised," Piniella said when asked about
Henderson's unemployed status. "I thought somebody would pick him
up. If somebody would call me and ask me, I would encourage it."
But, Piniella said, no team has phoned him and asked about
Henderson, who hit .238 with four home runs and 30 RBI in 92 games
for the Mariners.
Piniella said Gillick wanted to bring Henderson back for this
season, too, but couldn't because of the Mariners' surplus of
outfielders.
"After the season and during the winter, Pat and I had a nice
discussion," he said. "Pat was of the same opinion. The problem
is you can see our outfielders. That's where we've got more depth
than any place else."
The Mariners have Mike Cameron, Al Martin, Ichiro Susuki, Jay
Buhner and Stan Javier in the outfield, and Sanders is fighting for
an outfield job.
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