That's news to me, as I'm in the midst of a couple of real estate negotiations here on the West Coast. Folks have been repeating this line for four years, usually after a story they don't like, and yet, guess what? Here I still am. My girlfriend owns a home here in Seattle and we have no plans to sell or move.
As for pitting executives against one another, I can't help it if Chuck Armstrong says he was told one thing by Zduriencik and two people of solid reputation suggest something very different. If their contradictory statements appear to put them at odds, speak to them about it. Not my job to pick and choose who to write about based on who is the most popular guy in Seattle at the minute. Muckracking? Well, compared to the average MLB.com story, perhaps. But compared to standards across the country? This is tame stuff. Maybe you don't get to see enough of it, I don't know. The charges Lueke faced were more than a misdemeanor offense, as was the felony he pleaded no contest to. It's up to competent MLB teams to know about these facts in advance, which the M's claim they did not. That alone makes this a story worth following, even before the comments contradicting their versions.
I agree with your take that some teams would have traded for Lueke right away, just as some others would not have. It's up to the Mariners to decide which of those teams they are. I'm not telling them what to do. The fact they just fired somebody over it seems to suggest they are a tad uncomfortable. Look, I feel for your desire to have a winning team that acquires talented players. I'm tired of covering 100-loss teams.
But that doesn't excuse the fact that quality MLB teams are expected to know in advance about the prospects they acquire in the biggest trade of the year. Expected to know things like the fact Lueke is on felony probation through the 2012 season and cannot be in a bar or in possession of alcohol at any time before then. That's how you protect valuable team assets. Through knowing these things.
Senior team officials are also expected to tell the truth, both to their bosses and to the public at large. And when something comes up contradicting whether or not they told the truth, they are expected to clarify any misunderstandings right away. That's how good teams operate. It's one thing to preach accountability and talk about the imprtance of character. Quite another to practice what you preach. The example is set from above. If you don't have accountability upstairs, you will never have it down below.
Otherwise, keep up the good work Doc.
 

Look, I really don't want to get into a whole "blogging in somebody else's blog" kind of deal, but the question SABRMatt asks is one many, including the Mariners, have asked me. Why don't I show the human side of Josh Lueke?
My answer is a complex one, but rooted in some of what I've seen written in this very comment thread. One of your commenters wrote that Americans are "suckers" for redemption stories. And that's why I'm not going to play the spin-the-redemption-line game with my readers. The fact that Josh Lueke feels contrite, humbled, humanized, whatever, has absolutely zero bearing on this story.
That he may be a "good guy" now does not change the fact that he's accpeted responsibility for a serious crime. And that he is still on felony probation for that serious crime. Accepting responsibility, in my book, does not mean that your slate is automatically wiped clean, as some would like it to mean. What it means is that you agree to accept the consequences of your actions, which could extend well into the future. Josh Lueke was granted the freedom not to spend any more time in jail. He was not granted "absolution" or a "clean slate" in the eyes of the law. His record remains for all to see. And there may be consequences for that record when he tries to pitch in an entertainment industry like baseball.
There are too many examples of people who got "second chances" in life, but not in baseball. Tim Johnson, Barry Bonds, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Pete Rose. In all walks of life, as well. I've used the Sinead O'Connor and Bernie Madoff examples this week on radio. O'Connor did not commit a crime, but was effectively blacklisted by music producers at the height of her stardom and never was allowed into the mainstream again. How many of you would give a "second chance" to Madoff, if he ever gets out of prison, when it comes to running your finances? How about Madoff's local equivalents here in Seattle? Second chances for them? Yes, I know Lueke's crime was not specific to baseball. OK, then, let's move to a baseball example...
Tim Johnson did not commit a crime. His lie was about having served in Vietnam. Nothing to do with baseball. But he never managed again after one 88-win season. He was fired not because of the media, but because of the PR nightmare and the fact that his own players would not give him a second chance the following spring.
That's the way we roll as a society. We don't automatically give second chances. That's a myth. Neither does the law, which prohibits a felon like Lueke from holding specific jobs.
So, having laid that foundation, I will submit, yet again, that it is up to the Mariners and/or other MLB teams to decide whether Lueke gets a second chance in their sport. His "second chance" for now is that he is no longer in jail. Whether he gets to participate in a PR-conscious branch of the entertainment industry (MLB), is going to be a subjective call made by someone from within that industry.
And Lueke accepting responsibility for his actions, as he did, means he now goes forward knowing that those actions will be open to public scrutiny. And that he may still have consequences to pay for those actions. Yes, the Texas Rangers were willing to keep Lueke. I'll suggest that's because not a single story was ever written in Texas about what he did. Remember, he made his plea in the off-season and it was months before he took the field again, in Class A ball at that -- a long way from the majors and big-time media exposure. So, yes, it's easy to say a certain fanbase was accepting of a player, but if it's because that fanbase was kept in the dark, well then, that changes things.
My job is not to keep serious issues quiet, especially when it pertains to a player involved in the biggest trade of the year. I have done my best to tell the story of what happened that night with Lueke. He has supposedly taken responsibility for his actions.
Right now, those actions are being judged for what they are. We laid them out for you in the paper, and gave him a chance to tell his side of the story about what happened that particular night. We did not invite him to engage in personal PR to try to spin those people who are going to be deciding upon his future.
If I was going to write a human interest profile on anyone in this case, it would be on the woman acknowledged by the law as the victim. My story contained two paragraphs on her troubles since the crime took place. That's it.
Lueke has accepted responsibility for what happened to her. People have forgotten this and have tried to suggest that he was really innocent, or just didn't want to spend more time in jail...but that's not my call. I'm not a mind reader. All I know is, he accepted responsibility by pleading no contest in the case. The law considers him guilty and he knew that when he took the plea deal. I've read the case front to back, and seen all the police interviews. I've spoken to plenty of people on both sides who did not get quoted in the story. I am satisfied with how we presented it.
Again, the Mariners have to make the call on this one. But if they are in the midst of making that call, I am going to make sure the fans of Seattle understand what call it is they are making. And I'm not going to play any of them for "suckers" by giving them a story at least one of you agrees is something everybody loves to hear. This isn't about Josh Lueke's redemption. It's about whether a baseball team can withstand the PR hit of employing him, based on the bad things he has taken responsibility for.
That's it. Because either you take responsibility or you don't. And taking it means you might put other future things at risk. That's real responsibility. Where there are possibly some future consequences to owning up to your mistakes. Because taking ownership for something where you are granted automatic absolution, forgiveness and no future consequences/risk at all, isn't really accepting anything. It's taking the easy way out.
And really, based on that, it doesn't surprise me that so many in our society are in favor of lightning quick "second chances" or are "suckers" for redemption stories. We all want to take the easy way out. Josh Lueke may indeed get to play MLB here in Seattle or someplace else. That's for MLB teams to decide. But it isn't my job to do a PR spin for him. He'll live or die in MLB based on what he accepted blame for -- which we have reported in detail -- and based on how much his employer can live with it.
 

No contest is a plea, not an offer from the prosecution.  It implies nothing with regards to the validity of the case.  I don't understand why folks want Geoff to not make waves regarding this issue.  Its not his fault, it is a story, and the M's have handled it very poorly.  Why not question their management team?

No contest is entered by defense implying a position of weakness in trial, not the other way around.  If the state doesn't like its case, they will reduce or drop the charges to more appropriately reflect the evidence.  They don't offer no contest pleas, defensive maneuver.  Not really that important, I was mostly concerned with reading the countless "Geoff's a muckraking bum" comments around the blogs.  I feel that position to be lazy and typically reactionary.    

SABRMatt,
I don't want to go back and forth on this all day, but I sense a fundamental disconnect between how you want to view this case and how the facts view it. Most importantly, you seem to want us to treat Josh Lueke as being on equal footing with his victim. He is not. He is the person who accepted guilt in this case. She was the victim. They are not equal in the eyes of the law. They are not "equally responsible" for what happened that night. I am not about to get involved in blaming the victim here. If an NFL player goes to a Vegas casino, flashes money around, then gets beaten and robbed and left unconscious on the street outside, he does not share equal responsibility with his aggressors. Our law recognized this last year when that very thing happened to an Oakland Raiders player. His attackers are doing hard time.
You can question a victim's judgment about situations. But I am not about to blame the victim for a crime committed against them. That's a whole different story.
You have to understand that Lueke accepted responsibility for this crime. As such, he is no longer on a level playing field with his victim.
Your presentation of the case itself just isn't consistent with the facts. The prosecution had ample DNA evidence. Whether Lueke could have countered that with a consensual sex claim would have been up to a jury to decide. But there was evidence. To suggest otherwise is just not supported by fact. If there was no evidence, the case would have been thrown out at the preliminary hearing. You say the victim was not reliable. Again, not supported by fact. The prosecution said her story never changed from Day 1. Lueke's story did and we gave you his reasons why. But her story never changed. The reason her testimony would have had less impact at a trial was because she was said to be unconscious at the time of the crime. That doesn't make her "unreliable" it makes her unconscious. You said she had "regrets" about sex the next day. There is no evidence anywhere in the court files to support this.
You cited something about blood alcohol content being through the roof. But if you read the case itself, you'll see the BAC readings were taken too late to determine how much alcohol anyone had consumed at the time the crime took place. Instead, it was eye-witness testimony being relied on. Again, no facts to support anything about blood-alcohol readings.
So, when refering to cases like this, you have to be very careful about dealing with the facts and reading any conjecture into it. You say the prosecutor offered Lueke a plea deal because he had no case. The prosecutor says it was to spare the victim any more hardship and will point to the no contest plea as proof he did indeed have a case. When there's no case, people often walk. We're not mind readers and don't know why Lueke owned up to responsibility in this matter. Only that he did. You can throw in conjecture if you want, but I can't do that in a fact-based story. Because your conjecture can be twisted in the other direction too easily.
All we know is, Lueke accepted criminal responsibility in this matter. As such, he is the perpetrator of the crime and she is the victim. You may think you know differently, but you don't. All we have to go off is what the outcome of the case says.
And that is why I am not about to turn any story about this case into a PR piece about how well Lueke is doing after the fact. It's been less than 10 months since he was sentenced and really isn't relevent when it comes to relaying the severity of his crime to readers. Of course, he probably regrets the whole thing and is on his best behavior. Anything less would be a crazy move by him. But relaying that information does nothing to tell readers about what happened that night.
Had I gone and written 400 words about how much his victim suffered and how her life fell apart, you could try to claim I was jaded. But I haven't done that. In fact, Lueke had more say about being "a good person" in my story than his victim did about anything.
But again, Lueke and his victim are not equal. Lueke is the one who took blame for the crime. It is not my job to go out of my way to portray him in an overly sensitive light, no matter how much baseball fans like his fastball. Not my job to portray him in an overly negative light either. I'm sticking to what the case says. That's how you remain on solid ground and avoid conjecture that may be fantasy-based. If the Mariners want to do PR for him to smooth his transition to Seattle, that's their perogative. But I am not about to do their PR work for them. Sorry.
 
 

Or S-points or whatever points to GB for the drive-by and detailed clarifications.  Much appreciated.

For Doc,
All of the above. Lincoln and Armstrong trusted Zduriencik to know what was going on with Lueke. But with that trust came the expectation he would be honest and forthright with them if they asked the question beforehand.
If Zduriencik really did not know what happened beforehand, that's a very serious problem. But it's equally serious if he did know beforehand -- as Adair and Daniels suggested -- and deliberately misled his team president and CEO. You can't do that.
Either way, this is now a mess. And there are no clarifications/answers coming from the Mariners about what the heck happened here. Other than stuff that has been contradicted in very blunt, direct, on-the-record quotes. As to which is worse, not knowing the extent of Lueke's transgressions, or knowing and lying about them to your boss, I'll leave that to readers to decide.
One more thing for SABRMatt, Lueke did not plead no contest to avoid further jail while awaiting trial. He was already out on bail and would have remained that way throughout any trial.
Also, Shoeless Joe and Buck Weaver did not admit any wrongdoing because they were acquitted at trial. There was no wrongdoing to admit to. I suppose, they could have made something up to get back in baseball's good graces, but what would that prove? Other than getting themselves brought up on new charges, maybe. :) Last I checked, Rose did admit some guilt in a recent book. 
 

Yes, Armstrong asked Zduriencik point-blank, the day of the trade, before it had taken place, what the suspension was about. And Zduriencik says he told him it was an incident at a bar involving a woman and her fiance and that Lueke was acquitted.
Except he wasn't. So, did Zduriencik not know the full story, as he says? Which is a little incredible, since the word "acquitted" would conjure up images of a court case and prompt most people to have done at least a cursory Google follow-up. So, if this is true, it speaks to serious lack of dilligence by the entire front office
Or, did Rick Adair tell him the whole deal 10 days before the trade? And maybe Zduriencik chose to ignore it and hope to get it by his boss? Or, maybe he thought his boss wouldn't care all that much? That's not a miscommunication. That's not sharing the truth. So, there are lots of statements hanging out there that don't all reconcile.
Our story asked these questions. The Mariners have yet to answer them. Two weeks later.