When a team is 20 games out of first place, its hard to take much notice of them, even with the amount of issues the Mariners have had this season.  But yesterday, one more issue boiled to the surface when Chone Figgons was benched for not backing up a play.  Manager Don Wakamatsu told Figgons he was done after the 5th inning, and Figgons temper flared- and few others also shared some hot words.  Its seems that perhaps Russel Branyan and Felipe Lopez may have gotten into a scuffle though it seems from this Todd Dybas blog post that no one is holding a grudge.

Dybas though did an interesting thing though.  He asked the players the typical questions about the incident.  Then he went a step further and asked Russel Branyan what he might want to say to the fans that saw the scuffle. Here are Branyan’s words:

“With the way we’ve been playing it’s had to convince any fan to come out and watch us play because it hasn’t been pretty,” Branyan said. “From an individual standpoint, I think we’re trying too hard. We have to come together and pull through this thing as a unit.

“It’s not that we’re not working or trying hard.”

Its hard to spend your money  to go see your favorite team lose.  But it is important to hear what the players think about their team- and that even though they aren’t very good, to hear them still sounding like they care.  We still care, right?

And this is what reporters miss, often.  If you are around a team that loses, its easy to find the work drudgery.  The players don’t want to talk about the losses, and so you end up asking the minimum questions to get the information you need.  But, the writers are the fans connection to these players.  Every now and then its necessary to ask the player what he wants the fans to know.  It changes the dreary quote. It changes the players thinking.

As Joe DiMaggio said, “There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.”   Their job isn’t just to win ballgames.  Their job is to win ballgames for the fans.