Hargrove now sees Suzuki's greatness

AL notebook

Baseball Week

You don't need to see Ichiro Suzuki more than once to be amazed at how he handles a bat.

See him repeatedly, though, and you'll realize his bloops, pings and sinking liners are all purposeful - little chance is involved.

"You can watch him in one game, see him do what he does and say, `That lucky sucker,'" said Mike Hargrove, Suzuki's new manager with the Seattle Mariners. "Then if you watch him the way I have, since spring training, it's an everyday occurrence. ... It is not a lucky swing here, a lucky swing there. He does it over and over again."

After establishing the all-time single-season record for hits last year with 262, Suzuki is on pace this season for a mere 215. It would be his fifth straight year in the majors with 200 or more hits. What sets the 31-year-old Suzuki apart, Hargrove said, is his tremendous hand-eye coordination, which keeps his bat head in the strike zone longer than anyone else's.

"His bat stays in the zone so long that it allows him to get to pitches that, A, most people wouldn't swing at, and B, he then hits those pitches hard," Hargrove said.

Hargrove said Suzuki is "as complete a package as you'll find." That's lofty praise from a man who once thought the outfielder would be better left in Japan.

Managing a touring American all-star team in 1998, Hargrove saw Suzuki play eight games in Japan. His lasting impression was Suzuki's inability to pull pitches.

"I didn't see him turn on anything. Everything I saw was little pokes down left field. And it was all on turf," Hargrove said. "He didn't show me he could turn on pitches and I thought he could be defended easily on [grass]."

Hargrove sheepishly acknowledged his error a few years ago. Now, as Seattle's manager, he's fully entrenched in Ichiromania.

Therapy helps A-Rod

In some media circles, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has long been criticized as an image-conscious phony. Now it's time to give the best player in baseball a little credit off the field.

Last week, Rodriguez and his wife donated $200,000 to a Manhattan charity that benefits mental health programs for children. In addition, the superstar acknowledged that he has seen a therapist for about a dozen years to help him deal with his father's abandonment when Rodriguez was 9.

As a high-priced athlete in the macho world of baseball, he has left himself open to pointed harassment in enemy territory. But he bared his personal life in an attempt to eliminate an unnecessary stigma. That takes guts.

"Therapy should be seen as a good thing," Rodriguez said. "It's a great thing to seek help, and I don't think kids need to feel like the oddball if they seek help."

Texas dustup

Rangers catcher Rod Barajas charged pitcher Ryan Drese in the Texas dugout Tuesday and teammates had to separate the two. In between innings, Barajas told Drese to throw the pitches he was calling. Drese snapped back and Barajas went after him. Manager Buck Showalter threatened to take both out of the game and the conflict was resolved quickly.

League notebooks are compiled from interviews, wire services and reports from other newspapers.