Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington put his feet on his desk after the 162nd game of the season Sunday and shook his head.

"I’m never glad for the baseball season to end," he said.

A great many fans can relate. What starts in February when pitchers and catchers report, winds up running through the lives of millions throughout the spring, into the summer and early fall.

The Seattle Mariners had a good year.

There should be no argument to those seven words. They finished with the American League’s fifth-best record, went from 78 wins in 2006

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Ichiro Suzuki’s pursuit of a third American League batting title is going to come up short this season, in part because the man he’s chasing won’t be playing.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland said Magglio Ordonez, who’s batting .360, won’t play on Saturday.

That’s going to make it impossible for Ichiro, who’s at .350, to catch Ordonez no matter what Ichiro does in the final two games.

Ah, rookies.

Jeff Clement hit a game-winning home run against the Texas Rangers on Friday, helping Seattle win it’s 86th game of the season, and then got to enjoy what comes with doing such things in the major leagues.

"It’s a tradition, I guess, after things like that to get a beer shower," Clement said.

What, exactly, is a beer shower?

"You sit on the floor in the showers and everybody pours beer on you," he said.

With two games left to their season, the Mariners are having fun as

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Given the 2007 season, the announcement Thursday that both general manager Bill Bavasi and manager John McLaren will return next season is bound to be met with wildly mixed responses.

How could it not?

Before spring training began, there were those who wanted Bavasi fired – and, ironically, most of those same voices wanted Mike Hargrove fired and replaced with then-bench coach McLaren.

Well, Hargrove departed on his own June 2, and those who’d wanted him canned call him a quitter on his way out of town.

It was

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Victory No. 84 in the books, and the Seattle Mariners are looking toward the future – and what it might take to land Johan Santana.

Minnesota’s ace and annual Cy Young Award candidate is under contract for one more season with the Twins, who don’t believe they can re-sign him. That being the case, they’re looking for the best package of great young talent they can find.

They’ve had scouts study minor league systems and looking over September rosters, and the Twins know what they want from Seattle – a package that starts with Adam Jones.

Jones

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One of the reasons my perspective on baseball differs from some is that my background was in news, where the real world is an unkind place. In a major league clubhouse, the issues are wins, losses and chemistry.

On the field, there is no real do or die – players survive.

Occasionally, however, real life visits a big league club, as it did before Wednesday’s double-header. Rob Reagle, a clubhouse assistant for more than 20 years with the Seattle Mariners, died Tuesday night.

The cause doesn’t matter. Does it ever, really?

He was a good

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A reminder, as the Seattle Mariners were eliminated from the American League West, why most of us love major league baseball and those who play it.

On Saturday in Anaheim, left-handed rookie Ryan Rowland-Smith – Seattle’s resident Australian player – met before the game with a pair of his father’s friends, who were seeing their first big-league game.

Rowland-Smith was called in to relieve with two outs and a runner on first base, but didn’t need to throw a pitch. He picked Chone Figgins off first base and jogged to the

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A glance back at the free agent market

that was last winter probably isn’t going to make many major league general managers smile.

San Francisco, for instance, laid out $120 million for pitcher Barry Zito – the Mariners finished second in that bidding – and he’s been a first-year bust as a Giant. Los Angeles spent $49 million on Jason Schmidt – the Mariners finished second in that bidding, too.

Schmidt has spent almost the entire season on the disabled list.

There are lots of other examples. Boston bid

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