CHAPTER FOUR

Travel Travails

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR THE MARINERS TO LEARN one difficult lesson about playing baseball in the Northwest corner of the country. Seattle isn’t close to anywhere, especially if the destination is another major-league city.

Before the Mariners finished first in any meaningful baseball statistic, they led the league in mileage.

They fly about 50,000 miles a year and, unlike the convenience and relative privacy of the chartered flights that today’s team uses, the early Mariners almost always flew commercial.

Former owner George Argyros mandated it in order to save money, which it did. But traveling that way became horribly inconvenient, and the Mariners’ itinerary was dictated largely by airline schedules. They traveled numerous times on off days, and flying commercial meant they often had to take connecting flights that extended their travel time between cities.

Flying commercial also forced the players to mix with the paying customers on flights, which made for some interesting moments. On most trips, the Mariners would fly bigger jets with enough first-class seats for the entire team, separating the ballplayers from the other passengers.

“But a lot of times, especially when we would be connecting, we would stop in a city like Chicago and change planes, and we would take a smaller plane for the next leg of a trip,” said Lee Pelekoudas, the traveling secretary. “Then we’d have 12 first-class seats and the rest of the guys would be sitting in the coach section. There would be some interesting interaction with the public, some positive, some negative.”

Frank Howard’s Pre-Fight “Announcement”

Frank Howard, the Mariners’ hitting coach in 1988, decided to use his new headphones to listen to music during a flight to Southern California. The Mariners had climbed aboard an AirCal jet, an older DC-9 that was configured with three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other. The team would use most of the three-seat side of the plane, leaving the other side for the general public.

Lee Pelekoudas sat in one row, and behind him were Howard and pitching coach Billy Connors, with clubhouse worker Pete Fortune in the middle seat between them.

“Frank had gotten some headphones to listen to music, but he’d never worn headphones before,” Pelekoudas said. “Frank had a loud, booming voice anyway, and with the headphones on and the music playing, it made him talk even louder without realizing it.”

Just before takeoff, just as everyone became quiet, a thought crossed Howard’s mind and he shared it with Connors. Plus just about everyone else on that flight.

“Hey Billy!” Howard said, that deep voice carrying throughout the jet. “How ’bout when we get back to Seattle after this trip, we hit the town and … ”

Let’s just say they weren’t going grocery shopping.

“He said it so loud that the whole plane heard it,” Pelekoudas said. “I remember my head popping up and I was thinking, ‘Oh no, this isn’t happening.’”

It was.

Pelekoudas looked across the aisle to see an elderly woman’s jaw drop. Pete Fortune, sitting between Howard and Connors, looked across the aisle in his row to see a mother and her young son. She was covering the boy’s ears.

Howard, of course, had no idea he’d offended anyone.

“Frank was having a good old time,” Pelekoudas said. “It didn’t dawn on him what was going on until he took his headphones off and we told him.”

Howard felt horrible and apologized.

“Well, I’m sorry ma’am,” he told the elderly woman.

“Frank was a very polite guy and he was very apologetic afterwards,” Pelekoudas said. “That was one of the dangers of traveling commercial.”

Gaylord Perry’s Flight to 300

The Mariners were in the middle of an East Coast trip early in the 1982 season when pitcher Gaylord Perry beat the Yankees in New York for his 299th career victory.

After that April 30 game, the team traveled by bus to Baltimore to finish the trip, then planned to fly back to Seattle—commercial, as usual—on an off day before they began a home series against the Yankees. Perry was scheduled to pitch the opener against New York.

But on the day he pitched in New York, Perry told Pelekoudas, “If I win 299 tonight, we’re chartering home.”

Perry’s idea was to fly immediately after the final game in Baltimore so the players could spend their day off at home in Seattle instead of traveling.

“That’s fine, if you can work it out,” Pelekoudas told Perry.

That meant flying the idea past team owner George Argyros, who was a brick wall to almost any idea that involved spending more money.

“By the time the bus got down to Baltimore and I walked into my hotel room, the phone was ringing,” Pelekoudas said. “It was George, and he proceeded to scream at me for probably 15 minutes.”

Argyros was livid. “Don’t you ever give my phone number out again. We’re not going to charter,” he told Pelekoudas.

“George, I didn’t give anyone your phone number,” Pelekoudas said.

Didn’t matter. Perry had gotten Argyros’s number and already had run the idea past the owner, and the big guy didn’t like it.

Later, Argyros called Pelekoudas back and apologized for getting upset, and they had a long discussion about team travel. Pelekoudas explained why it was best for the players that they didn’t spend an entire off day flying back home, and in this case he’d like to grant Perry his wish.

“OK, you can get a charter,” Argyros told Pelekoudas, adding one difficult provision, “as long as it doesn’t cost any more than a commercial flight.”

Faced with a situation almost as difficult as hitting a grand slam with two men on base, Pelekoudas jumped on the phone. He called a friend with Ozark Airlines and got lucky. Ozark had just flown a military charter from Seattle to the East Coast, and Pelekoudas talked the airline into letting the Mariners use the jet for the return trip.

“I pleaded with them to get the cost down to what the commercial cost would be for us, which was about $19,000 or $20,000,” Pelekoudas said.

The airline agreed to it and Pelekoudas called Argyros, who gave his approval.

“Gaylord got his wish,” Pelekoudas said.

Two nights later, on May 6 after a day off without travel, Perry beat the Yankees to win his 300th.

Don’t Forget the Skipper

On the field, nothing could stop the Mariners during the 2001 season, when they tied the all-time record with 116 victories. Off the field, they had their moments.

The Mariners were playing a mid-June interleague series in Colorado when Ron Spellecy, the traveling secretary, became ill and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. With Spellecy down for several weeks, the Mariners handed his duties to Jim Fitzgerald, who was a baseball operations assistant under GM Pat Gillick.

“Get on the next plane to Oakland,” Lee Pelekoudas, who had become the assistant general manager, told Fitzgerald. “For the foreseeable future, you’re our traveling secretary.”

Fitzgerald was the best man for the job, even if he didn’t feel like the right man for it.

“Traveling secretary is the hardest job in baseball. I did not know anything about cars, buses, trains, airplanes, hotels,” he said. “I flew down there and just pieced it together. I was learning as I was going. I was arranging tickets and on the phone with the hotel people handling all kinds of details. Players were telling me things like, ‘My wife is coming in early. I need a crib. I need a connecting room. I need a car.’”

Somehow, Fitzgerald pulled together all those details without a major snafu, and the Mariners made it back from Oakland for a six-game homestand before hitting the road again.

Sunday, June 28, was getaway day, with the Mariners flying to Anaheim after the homestand finale against Oakland. The As had beaten the Mariners 6–3 and, although the M’s remained 18 games ahead of the second-place Angels in the division standings, manager Lou Piniella was angry at having lost.

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald did his best to hustle the players, coaches, and personnel out of the clubhouse and onto the bus for the short drive to Boeing Field, where the Mariners’ chartered jet waited to fly them to Anaheim.

“The bus always leaves one hour after the final pitch, and since the game ended at five o’clock, I wrote on the message board that the bus would leave at six,” Fitzgerald said.

As six o’clock approached, the clubhouse was nearly vacant as the last of the traveling party was either on the bus or driving on their own to the airport.

“It’s about two minutes until six and I’m looking around the clubhouse, and it’s empty,” Fitzgerald said. “I opened the door to Lou Piniella’s office, and it’s empty. I say to myself, ‘All right, the bus is leaving.’”

Pelekoudas, who had driven his own car to the airport, called Fitzgerald to make sure the bus would depart on time. “Are you guys leaving?” Pelekoudas asked. “Yeah, it’s six o’clock and the bus is pulling out,” Fitzgerald said. “Do you have Lou?” Pelekoudas asked.

“No, but I checked his office and he wasn’t there, so he must be driving on his own,” Fitzgerald said.

The bus arrived at the airport and everyone had boarded the jet when Fitzgerald’s phone rang again. It was a security officer at Safeco Field.

“Do not leave,” he told Fitzgerald. “Lou just walked out of here and there’s no bus. One of the batboys is driving him there now.”

When Fitzgerald had peeked into Piniella’s empty office before boarding the bus, he forgot to check one important place: the shower attached to the office. That’s where Piniella was as the bus pulled away without him, and one thought filled Fitzgerald’s head.

I am so fired, he said to himself.

On the plane as the team waited for Piniella, Fitzgerald could hear many of the players cackling in the background, especially center fielder Mike Cameron and right fielder Jay Buhner.

“If you have any guts at all,” Buhner told Fitzgerald, “you’d have this plane take off right now.”

Wisely, Fitzgerald didn’t. He did, however, try to remain inconspicuous in the back of the jet, hoping Piniella would take his seat and not scream too loudly at being left at the ballpark. While they waited for Piniella to arrive, Pelekoudas told Fitzgerald to begin handing out the 30 envelopes containing meal money.

“When you’re finished, stay in the back of the plane,” Pelekoudas told Fitzgerald. “Because when Lou gets here, he’s going to be hot.”

Piniella finally arrived, took his seat at the front of the jet and didn’t say a word. The jet took off and, after leveling off at about 30,000 feet, Fitzgerald built up enough courage to walk to the front and give Piniella every opportunity to ream him.

“Lou, I’m sorry I left you,” Fitzgerald said. “I apologize.”

“That’s OK, kid, don’t worry about it,” Piniella told him.

The travel tale didn’t end there.

Later on that road trip, during a series at Texas, Cameron called for a session of Kangaroo Court, where Fitzgerald faced charges of leaving the manager at Safeco Field. The fine was $10, and Fitzgerald knew that it would double if he fought the charges and lost. Rarely does a defendant convince the usually unyielding Kangaroo Court to overturn a case, but Fitzgerald fought this one with a passionate plea.

“I wrote on the board that the bus was leaving at six o’clock,” he told the court. “Well, there’s a new sheriff in town! When I say the bus leaves at six o’clock, it leaves at six o’clock!”

That drew a murmur from the players and a protest from Piniella.

“Well, then I’m hanging the sheriff!” Piniella said. Cameron, swayed by Fitzgerald’s speech, delivered his ruling. “You’re right,” Cameron said. “Lou, you’re fined for being late for the bus. You owe 10 bucks.”

“But the kid left me behind!” Piniella pleaded. “He left me!” Didn’t matter, Piniella had to pay up.

For the rest of the 2001 season, even after Spellecy returned to his traveling secretary duties, Fitzgerald was known as “The Sheriff.”