THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Mather's gone, but M's mess remains

This ought to be a wonderful week for the Mariners.

A fun, exciting young team is now in camp for spring training.

Prospects for the coming season are intriguing, with the outlook even better for 2022 and beyond.

Optimism should be bubbling around the Mariners’ camp in appropriately sunny Arizona.

Unfortunately…

A massive cloud is hanging over the place — and I’m not talking about the weather.

There’s a buzz going around, and it’s not good.

Instead of enjoying the rituals of batting practice and pick-off plays, the Mariners are wondering about all sorts of unpleasant things that normally would have no place at in camp.

The whole thing all stems from what should have been a totally harmless chat that club CEO Kevin Mather shared with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club back on Feb. 5.

Instead, that 45-minute disaster has blown up the Seattle Mariners.

NEWS OF what Mather said that morning exploded in the Northwest — and in Arizona — last Sunday morning.

Club owner and chairman John Stanton heard a video of Mather’s discussion, which had made it to YouTube.

In a Zoom call with the media on Monday, Stanton recalled being immediately distressed.

And that was surely an understatement.

Within 24 hours, Mather had resigned — basically, he was fired — and the Mariners were left to clean up a mess.

Mather’s comments, which Stanton called “inappropriate” (another understatement), disgraced the Mariners in two basic areas.

On the human side, Mather came off as a snide sort of racist, making fun of the language skills of top prospect Julio Rodriguez and former player — now coach — Hisashi Iwakuma.

This shouldn’t matter, actually, but the 19-year-old Rodriguez taught himself English while growing up in the Dominican Republic — getting prepared for pro baseball in the United States — and speaks the language fluently.

On the issue of baseball business, Mather blithely admitted to the Rotarians that the Mariners would gladly manipulate a young player’s service time in order to delay free agency for an extra year.

That’s an issue that sends the players’ union into a frenzy.

THERE IS irony in the discussion of service time, because the player in that spotlight was mega-prospect Jarred Kelenic.

Mather stated flat-out that the M’s would not have played Kelenic under any circumstance in the short 2020 season, and he likely would start this season in the minors — all to push back the beginning of his service time.

Players become free agents after six years, and at this point, Kelenic seems inclined to go that route, rather than sign a long-term contract now.

Mather sort of glorified young first baseman Evan White, who did sign a long-term, guaranteed deal before he’d ever play a game in the major leagues.

I mentioned irony, remember?

Mather’s goofy explanation made it sound like Kelenic was being held back when, in fact, he has always needed another few hundred at-bats — at least in the Mariners’ view.

At any rate, Mather’s idiotic statements left the club with an incredible public relations mess.

Remember, this is a team that has not made the playoffs in two decades.

It needs fans to stay on board.

THE WAY things stand at the moment, Stanton is flying to Arizona, hoping to oversee some calming of the waters.

He cares quite a bit about how fans view all this, but his immediate focus has to be on the players.

On Tuesday, manager Scott Servais and GM Jerry Dipoto spoke to the media at large and to the assembled players.

As Stanton and then Dipoto have said, the Mariners need to rebuild trust after Mather’s damaging performance.

Mather may be gone, but there is a sense that maybe he was speaking for the entire organization — a notion that could be deadly down the road.

This was Dipoto’s explanation to the media on Tuesday morning…

“We need to be sensitive and make sure that they (the public) understand where we are, and frankly to address the stigma that’s now associated with our team, which I don’t think is the way we see ourselves, and that includes our players and our staff.

“It’s something I hope we’re able to shed pretty quickly, and get back to who we are.

“But we can’t get beyond the situation that exists today. And we have to address it head on.”

Indeed, they do.

This was supposed to be a season when the Mariners took on an entirely new look.

It still is, but…

Just not this one.

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published each Tuesday.