MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: By request: More stories about my friend, Lou Piniella

Once in a while in this gig, you get some mail that makes you chuckle.

Or maybe even laugh out loud.

One of these special letters popped up this week, and I knew instantly that I’d have to share it with you.

The only downer is that the author insisted that I not use his name if we published his question.

But, hey, you take what you can get here.

So, here’s the letter…

You’ve mentioned a few times that you know Lou Piniella and, in fact, that you became friends while was still playing – thus, before he had an even greater second career as a manager.

I’ve heard that, given Lou’s personality and so forth, there are endless tales about the Mariners’ legendary skipper.

Could you share one that gives us a little different look at one or legends?

Thanks…

From one of Sweet Lou’s all-time fans.

I’m happy to do it, but as you’ve probably guessed, there are so many “Lou tales” that it’s hard to do your question justice.

Various friends will be scolding me for leaving out this moment of craziness or that time that Lou jumped into a barrel of water.

My only defense is that this gentleman who wrote in asked for two stories.

And no, I cannot swear that Lou drove a golf cart into a creek at Brookside County Club outside Kansas City, then marched to the pro shop and paid for the cart, on condition that it be left in its watery grave forever.

OK, THEN, we need a story from Lou’s playing days — and one sticks with me because it show a different side of Lou Piniella.

Johnny Stevens was an excellent umpire who worked in the American League from the late 1940s into the ‘70s.

Stevens worked four World Series and five All-Star games.

Unfortunately, Stevens stayed in the game a year longer than he should have, and his sight was beginning to fail him.

Call it pure karma that Stevens and Piniella would cross that year, and with the third-year expansion Royals actually in a pennant race.

Except…

Lou wasn’t hitting.

Piniella carried a deep slump into a game at Detroit, and if you understand baseball, you’ll know that he wound up batting in a crucial situation — win or lose time.

Stevens was the home plate umpire, and he called Lou out on a pitch that hit the dirt, and was well outside.

The Royals expected a riot, and they were barking words at Stevens that you wouldn’t want children to hear.

But Piniella, the Hispanic hot rod, did not put up a fuss.

When he got back to the dugout, he was surrounded by angry teammates who wanted to go maul Stevens.

“It was the worst pitch I ever saw called a strike,” Lou said. “When he made the call, I turned around and I thought I might go crazy. I told him; ‘John. I’m one-for-20, and then you call that.’“

Piniella’s teammates didn’t understand why there wasn’t an almighty argument. Why wasn’t he kicking dirt?

“Well, John looked at me and he was practically crying, He said, ‘Lou, I’m having a worse year than you.’

“What can you say to a man like that?

“It’s baseball.”

Email: [email protected]

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 monthly during the offseason.