Some Spring Training Notes

The Everett Herald has this story on Phillippe Aumont and mentions a former Timber Rattler as a way to compare and contrast.

Ten years ago, a big first-round draft pick showed up at spring training with the Seattle Mariners and announced his potential with his mouth.

It was the second week of camp and Ryan Anderson, a 6-foot-10 18-year-old, threw a round of batting practice to a rusty group of Mariners hitters. They hadn't faced live pitching in months, and everything Anderson threw at hitters like Jay Buhner, Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez and Alex Rodriguez sailed right past their bats.

Then Anderson said something that still makes M's manager John McLaren cringe.

"I dominated them," Anderson told reporters.

Griffey and Buhner read those words and decided to teach the kid a lesson. They got a dozen baseballs and had them delivered to Anderson's locker with instructions for him to sign them, "To Junior and Jay, from the greatest pitcher of all-time."

"They were putting him in his place," McLaren said.

It's 10 years later and there's another big first-round teenager on the mound for the Mariners at spring training. McLaren is confident this one will say all the right things and require minimal steering from the older guys.

Right-hander Phillippe Aumont grew up in Quebec idolizing former Mariner Randy Johnson, he speaks perfect French, clear English and has left hitters mumbling their own chosen words after facing his 96 mph fastball.

Go check out the whole thing.

Australian Ryan Rowland-Smith (WI '04, '05) is the focus of a long story over at the Seattle Times.

No one has to remind Ryan Rowland-Smith how far he has come from his days of watching major-league baseball on videocassettes in his native Australia.

The country had no television coverage of non-Aussie sports when the second-year Mariners pitcher was growing up. So, a friend's father dropped off tapes of the 1992 and 1993 World Series for Rowland-Smith, who watched them for hours, glove in hand, as he dreamed of a life playing in America.

He'd ignore subtle jabs from neighborhood pals pressuring him to play rugby and cricket, or surf the waves near his home in Newcastle, on the country's south coast. He endured four-hour round-trip car rides to Sydney three times per week to find serious baseball competition.

Most of all, Rowland-Smith learned to tame creeping self-doubt. Could someone living so far from where most baseball is played make a living at its highest level?

Oh, and it's not just about baseball.

"He's always had a passion, ever since he was little, for sports in the U.S.," said his father, Rob, in a phone interview from Sydney. Rob is a celebrity sports trainer known throughout Australia as The Sandhill Warrior. "He loves ice hockey, so I got him a stick. He loved the NFL, so I bought him a St. Louis Cardinals helmet and jersey."

You read that right. A St. Louis Football Cardinals helmet and jersey. That's different.

The latest M's Mailbag is up at the Mariners site. Plenty of ex-Rattler stuff and this one may help Rattlers fans as well.

Who is in charge of player development for the Mariners?
-- Gregory W., Selah, Wash.

Greg Hunter is beginning his first full season as the director of player development. The former Washington State University player -- and member of the of the Kirkland, Wash., Little League World Series team in 1980 -- has been with the organization for the past 11 seasons, working his way up from a player development assistant.