For the past seven weeks, a group of 46 players, including many of the Mariners’ top young prospects took part in a High Performance Camp at the club’s Spring Training facility in Peoria, Ariz.

Players used the time to expand their minds in mental-skills and meditation classes. They refined their bodies with a heavy dose of weight-room work. For the most part, the focus wasn’t on hitting and pitching in the immediate aftermath of their long seasons, but on thinking and conditioning.

Yet, not all the work revolved around helping themselves and their budding careers. For the Mariners, helping others is part of the process, as well. Which is why the entire group spent one day at a food bank packing Thanksgiving meals for the homeless, another at a local park playing baseball with kids with disabilities in a Miracle League program and another taking part in a Phoenix Alzheimer’s Association walk to raise funds for teammate Braden Bishop’s 4MOM charity.

“It’s just to remember that not everything is about you,” said 20-year-old third baseman Joe Rizzo, the Mariners’ No. 15 ranked prospect, per MLB Pipeline. “As players for the Mariners, we’re very privileged to have what we have, and do what we do. So going out and helping people in the community is a good reminder that we can help others, too.”

Rizzo returned Saturday to his offseason home in Virginia, where he was greeted by snow in the air and a reminder that Thanksgiving is near. And he carried that fresh reminder of what the holiday spirit is about.

“It’s fun working with kids and helping people,” he said. “I’m not big on charity events just to put pictures on social media and all that, because that just puts it back on you. But to spread joy to others, that’s a great feeling.”

And that is music to the ears of Andy McKay, Seattle’s director of player development, who is a big believer in the benefit of teaching young players the positive impact of helping others as they are integrated into the Mariners’ system.

McKay said community service has been a “major year-round push” throughout all levels of the organization, with an extra effort recently at the High Performance Camp in Arizona as well as in the Dominican Republic last week where bench coach Manny Acta’s foundation, ImpACTA, put on a clinic for 90 kids with help from the Mariners.

McKay said the benefits are two-fold for both the young prospects and the Mariners’ organization.

“One, it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that need help and we’re trying to provide services. And two, we’re trying to develop character in our people. In their, at times, individualized pursuit of getting to the big leagues, which is perfectly understandable, you have to balance that with activities that remind it’s not always about yourself.”

McKay was hired as farm director by Jerry Dipoto three years ago and said Dipoto encouraged the community involvement from day one. It helped immensely, he said, that the Mariners already had a strong history of community service at the Major League level and longtime Mariners like Dan Wilson and others already had deep connections in that area.

Now young players like Rizzo, Bishop and the rest are quickly learning the value of community involvement as well.

“Our guys now know, especially ones that have been here, that it’s part of the program,” McKay said. “You find people that have different niches. There’s different ways to help. Not everybody is comfortable reading a book in front of a first-grade class. And that’s OK.

“But between schools, hospitals, building houses with Habitat for Humanity, there’s lots of ways to get that internal reward of feeling good about yourself for helping others and that begins to build over into teams. Who can I help today in the locker room to make our team better?”

Rizzo spent his regular season with Class A Advanced Modesto in the Cal League and said his club did work nearly every week with the area Boys & Girls Club and also took part, en masse, in a Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event to raise awareness of domestic violence.

He said when he was drafted out of high school in the second round by the Mariners in 2016, he knew charity work was done by Major League stars, but has been surprised to see the emphasis runs throughout the entire system.

“I didn’t know it was such an organizational thing,” Rizzo said. “I knew a lot of higher-up guys did stuff that way. I didn’t know it spread so deep.”

Jimmy Van Ostrand, who oversees mental-skills coaching throughout the Mariners’ Minor League system, said the focus on community-service work and developing leadership skills is one of his favorite parts of the job.

“It can be humbling at times,” Van Ostrand said. “The ability to have a positive impact on other people can really shine through. Sometimes we picture that being these huge, crazy activities and fundraisers. But a lot of time, if you just help somebody’s day a little, that can go a long way.”

The Seattle Thunderbirds are excited to reveal the promotional and giveaway schedule for the 2018-19 season. The T-Birds will kick off the regular season against the Portland Winterhawks on Saturday, September 22 at 6:05pm at the accesso ShoWare Center.

Reynolds may be the co-host of MLB Network’s Hot Stove, and he may have earned a Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality / Studio Analyst in 2013, but he apparently doesn’t have the stones to go to bat for his older brother — one of the 645 men who played in “The Show” who isn’t receiving a pension from Major League Baseball (MLB).

Donald Edward Reynolds was a football star at Corvallis High the year the team won the 3A State Championship. He later attended the University of Oregon and was inducted into its Athletic HOF in 1993.

But he also played parts of two seasons for the Padres, in 1978 and 1979.

Reynolds and 644 other men don’t receive MLB pensions because they didn’t accrue four years of service, which is what you needed before 1980. However, in order to avert a threatened players strike during the 1980 Memorial Day weekend, the union representing the players, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), accepted a proposal from the league in which the vesting requirements were lowered to one game day of service credit for health care, and 43 game days of service credit for a pension.

Regrettably for Mr. Reynolds and the other men, the union didn’t request that this change be made retroactive.

Thirty-one years later, in April 2011, the league and the union partially remedied the situation. The non-vested retirees were awarded $625 per quarter for every 43 game days of service they accrued on an active roster, up to $10,000, for their service credit.  And that’s before taxes are taken out.

However, these days, the maximum pension a vested retiree can earn is $220,000.

And while vested retirees get to pass their pensions on to a loved one, spouse or designated beneficiary, the non-vested players don’t.

Harold Reynolds, who also attended Corvallis High but was born in Eugene, has never publicly commented or taken a stance about whether the pre-1980 players such as his brother should get real pensions from the organization that pays his salary.

To date, the union representing the current players, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), has been loathe to divvy up anymore of the collective pie. Even though Forbes recently reported that the current players’ pension and welfare fund is valued at $2.7 billion, MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark— the first former player ever to hold that position — has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages, having banks foreclose on their homes and are so sickly and poor that they cannot afford adequate health care coverage.

Unions are supposed to help the hard working women and men in this country get a fair shake in life. But the so-called executive director of the MLBPA doesn’t seem to want to help anyone but himself — Clark receives a MLB pension AND an annual salary of more than $2.1 million, including benefits, for being the head of the union.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Douglas J. Gladstone authored the 2010 book, “A Bitter Cup of Cofee; How MLB & The Players’ Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.” His website is www.gladstonewriter.com

By:DOUGLAS J. GLADSTONE

“Bernie” Smith back in the day

Former New York Met minor league prospect Calvin Bernard “Bernie” Smith, who played for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970 and 1971, and who later guided the team’s Single A Danville Warriors affiliate to the Midwest League Finals in 1973, is among the 644 retired major leaguers being hosed out of pensions by the league and the players’ association.

Because they are not vested, all these men have been getting since 2011 are non-qualified retirement payments of $625 per quarter, up to 16 quarters, or a maximum payment of $10,000.

Meanwhile, the maximum IRS pension limit is $220,000. Even the minimum pension for a retired ballplayer who played after 1980 is $34,000.

The men are in this position because of a rule change that occurred during an averted strike in May 1980. The players’ union accepted an offer to make eligibility for health coverage for all players only one game day, and 43 game days for a monthly benefit.

Unfortunately, the union didn’t attempt to retroactively include the men like Smith.

Born in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, Mr. Smith turns 77 in September. He and future Hall of Famer Lou Brock were teammates at the predominantly all African American Southern University in 1960.

As a rookie outfielder for the 1970 Brewers, Smith appeared in 44 games, came up to bat 76 times and collected 21 hits, including one home run.

Neither the league nor the union want to retroactively restore these men into pension coverage; instead, taxes are taken out of the nonqualified retirement payment, which cannot be passed on to a surviving spouse or designated beneficiary. So when Smith passes on, the payment he is currently receiving is not passed on to any of his loved ones, such as his four sons. His wife, Creola, reportedly passed away circa 1985.

Men like Smith are also not eligible to buy into the league’s umbrella health insurance plan.

To date, the MLBPA has been loath to divvy up anymore of the collective pie. Though Forbes recently reported that the current players’ pension and welfare fund is valued at $2.7 billion MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark — a former All Star first baseman who is the first former player to ever hold that position, by the way — has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages, having banks foreclose on their homes and are so sickly and poor that they cannot afford adequate health care coverage.

By any standard, Smith has had a hard life. According to baseball card collector Tony Lehman, he hitchhiked 400 miles to earn a minor league baseball tryout. He then spent eight seasons in the New York Mets minor league system.
Smith was famously convicted in 1985 of receiving $500 in stolen goods at the store he ran on North Railroad Avenue in Lutcher, Louisiana. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but upon appeal, that sentence was set aside. Lehman, for one, believes he was railroaded, and that he was set up by the police.

Twenty-nine-years later in 2014, Smith couldn’t pay property taxes on the store.

What makes Smith’s treatment so especially unseemly is that Clark received the coveted Jackie Robinson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, in June 2016. In accepting the award, the former Detroit Tigers All-Star first baseman, referenced a quote from the late Muhammad Ali.

“Success is what you achieve,” said Clark. “Your significance is what you leave.”

How do you say that and then have the gall not to help a man like Smith?

If Clark, who gets a union salary of more than $2.1 million, including benefits, to go with his MLB pension actually does something about this situation, he really would be leaving Mr. Smith and all the other men something of great significance. And that would be a nice achievement on his part.

Douglas J. Gladstone authored the 2010 book, “A Bitter Cup of Cofee; How MLB & The Players’ Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.” His website is www.gladstonewriter.com