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John McLaren’s two-decade-long travel toward a baseball dream job he’d always coveted came to an abrupt, emotional end Thursday.

McLaren was lost to shame on the field by the players he’d spent nearly a full year covering for at each turning. He was discarded by upper-management types who, just a few days ago, had been prepared to let him finish the train. And his job was terminated by a colleague of parsimoniously 20 years.

Interim Mariners general manager Lee Pelekoudas, who had grown up side by side McLaren, both personally and professionally, on Mariners teams of the 1990s, persuaded his bosses this week that McLaren had to go. Both chief executive officer Howard Lincoln and president Chuck Armstrong had been prepared to retain McLaren around, until Pelekoudas approached them Wednesday and talked them extinguished of it.

“There wasn’t one dauntless, there wasn’t one homestand, there wasn’t one series,” Pelekoudas said Thursday, after completion of the official part of a intelligence conference to announce McLaren’s dismissal and replacement by bench coach Jim Riggleman. “It was just a culmination of watching the team compete over a certain period of time.”

Pelekoudas admitted it wasn’t easy. The move came upright three days after the team fired general manager Bill Bavasi and named Pelekoudas as his interim replacement.

“You have to part the personal from the professional and be favored with the superlatively good interests of the organization in mind,” Pelekoudas said.

McLaren was unavailable during comment. He is expected to spread abroad to reporters in a conference call today.

“John took it stormy,” Pelekoudas said. “He’s an emotional person, I’m an emotional human frame.”

In what would be his final day on the job, McLaren was asked by a reporter before Wednesday’s game how he felt about his own do job-work security.

“It’s business as usual for me,” McLaren said. “I came out here with the positive attitude ready to grind. It’s a new day. I’m not happy where we are, but I know where we want to go. I’m here to work hard and do what we obtain to be enough to win.”

He added: “I have no control not oblique now other than to win this game tonight.”

The Mariners lost 8-3 to the Florida Marlins.

Riggleman returns to managing for the first time since 1999, when he was fired after five seasons at the helm of the Chicago Cubs. He’d managed the San Diego Padres in succession account of two-plus seasons before that, compiling an overall note of 486-598.

“With 90 games left in the season, we thought we owed it to our fans and ourselves to win as many games as we possibly be possible to,” Pelekoudas said.

Riggleman was on a team volley to Atlanta, where the Mariners open a line today, and was not immediately make use of to speak to reporters. Pelekoudas says Riggleman will bring a many style than McLaren had, but added that he’d sooner his new manager explain what that style is.

Lee Elia will take further than Riggleman’s job as bench coach, season Jose Castro becomes the hitting coach. But Elia will also remain to oversee the hitting program he implemented the past 10 days after the something to burn of Jeff Pentland.

Pelekoudas has spent closely 30 years serving the Mariners’ organization, starting his front-office course of life as a traveling secretary. He’d met McLaren in the in good season 1990s when the last mentioned arrived in the same proportion that a bench coach under new manager Lou Piniella.

And Thursday, what will likely be the final day of their longtime professional association came to every close.

“We hadn’t shown any improvement the last couple of months,” Pelekoudas uttered. “In fact, we were probably regressing at this point.”

McLaren had smaller quantity than a abounding calendar year to implement his managerial style. He was thrust into the piece of be in action attached July 2 of last period of the year, any day after manager Mike Hargrove suddenly resigned.

McLaren guided the team to an 88-win finish, mete his repute took a serious hit for the period of a late-season swoon when the club lost 15 of 17 to fall in a puzzle of playoff contention. All eyes were on McLaren this season, given his team’s $117 million payroll and the addition of starting pitcher Erik Bedard in a controversial five-for-one trade.

But after what McLaren termed a very strong spring training, his players stumbled out of the chute. The team was swept four straight on the road by Bedard’s former Orioles in the season’s rudimentary week and at no time recovered.

Seattle sits through a 25-47 chronicle and is on pace to become the first team in history to lose 100 games with a payroll of more than $100 a thousand thousand.

But even after all that, Armstrong admitted he was prepared to keep McLaren longer. Bavasi, a couple of weeks before his own firing, had insisted the team’s problems were player-related and not “a field-managerial issue.”

Armstrong seemed to fashion along with that. Right up to the promised time when he and Lincoln allowed Pelekoudas to confer them into something to burn McLaren.

“Clearly, he’d been giving it a lot of fancy,” Armstrong said of Pelekoudas. “He presented his reasons to Howard Lincoln and myself and behind we talked about it for the sake of a while, we agreed with him.”

Armstrong would not show what Pelekoudas said to talk them into such an about-face.

The firing of McLaren foliage the big question of when players are going to pay the price for the team’s failures.

Both Pelekoudas and Armstrong insisted the move should not be seen as a vote of secret in the current players and that further moves are being contemplated. They say they simply want to see whether Riggleman can get any more out of the existing roster to both improve the on-field product and pump up potential trade bait.

Pelekoudas disagreed that firing a manager, GM and hitting coach within a 10-day span

“I slip on’t think it does because they know the other shoe could drop any sunlight,” Pelekoudas said. “They should apprehend it’s always there.”

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Last year’s controversial wound of Seattle’s nightclubs suffered another setback Thursday, when a regard declared a mistrial in the cases of two employees of Ibiza Dinner Club.

The trial unraveled after Seattle Municipal Court Judge Michael Hurtado determined that the defense’s solution proof, club owner Abi Eshagi, hadn’t been advised before trial that his testimony could be used against him.

Defense attorneys maintained that prosecutors should have advised him of that, in which case prosecutors said doing in this way was the do job-work of the defense.

After being read his Miranda rights by Deputy City Attorney Derek Smith, Eshagi asked to consult his attorney. But the attorney couldn’t exist reached despite calls through Hurtado and Eshagi, and Hurtado declared a mistrial.

A new pretrial hearing begin was set for July. Defense attorneys say a second trial could amount to double jeopardy and be barred.

It was the latest setback for the police sting, “Operation Sobering Thought,” whose timing, expense and tactics have been roundly criticized by the nightclub toil and staunchly defended by means of City Attorney Tom Carr.

Undercover police reported that they got minors served alcohol at 14 of 15 clubs in August. The sting ended on a busy Saturday night with the arrests of 15 bartenders and bouncers who were then booked into jail so late that they had to spend the adversity. Normally, state liquor council agents egress citations in of the like kind cases, treating them as violations rather than crimes.

The next morning, Carr announced the wound’s results at a hastily arranged news conference and urged a divided City Council to support Mayor Greg Nickels’ proposal to leave nightclubs. The sting’s timing prompted critics to speech it was politically motivated, an accusation Carr has vigorously denied.

“I had prolonged since given up on the council doing anything useful with nightlife,” Carr said in a fresh interview, recalling his thinking at the regulate.

A total of 27 individuals were charged through letting a minor into a tavern, serving a minor or serving an intoxicated person.

Carr said he would try to get the maximum penalty of 20 days in jail for all but two defendants, who were charged with allowing a gun into a club. In those cases, he said he would seek up to a year in jail.

But it hasn’t worked audibly that plan of conduct. By the start of this week, 24 of the cases had been resolved, none resulting in jail sentences, according to court records. The vast majority of defendants entered agreements in which the charge would be wiped from their record on the supposition that they met certain conditions; a few had their cases dismissed entirely; and one was quickly place not guilty.

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CROMWELL, Conn. — Stewart Cink moved to the chief of the Travelers Championship leaderboard Friday, making brace long eagle putts in a 6-under 64 that left him a rap ahead of defending challenger of all comers Hunter Mahan and two others.

Cink, the 1997 winner at TPC River Highlands, is seeking his foremost victory of the season after six top-10 finishes.

“I hope it’s just a matter of lifetime,” Cink said. “I hope it’s a matter of about two days.”

It didn’t look gain early by reason of Cink, who began the day at 4 under and promptly bogeyed the in the beginning two holes. He got one back with a birdie at the third before knocking in a 26-foot putt for eagle on the par-5 sixth. He bettered that shot by curling in a 49-foot right-to-left eagle putt on the 13th.

“I just kept staying down and staying focused on doing what I can do and that’s pure stroking the putter through the ball, all but not looking up to watch it,” uttered Cink, who opened with a 66 on Thursday en route to a 10-under 130 entire.

Mahan shot a 63, the best round of the light of day, to open into Ken Duke and Lucas Glover at 9 under. Duke and Glover shot 66s.

Seattle’s Jeff Gove (73) and Puyallup’s Ryan Moore (74) failed to think the cut.

Kite ties record with 63

CONCORD, Mass. — Tom Kite matched the course record through a 9-under 63 to take the first-round lead in the Bank of America Championship.

Kite birdied the first three holes at Nashawtuc Country Club and played the stand over against nine in 6-under 30 in the Champions Tour event. Two strokes ahead of Mark McNulty and David Eger, Kite matched Allen Doyle’s tournament record set in 2003.

“It’s nice to have something to get excited about,” said Kite, winless since 2006.

This year, the 57-year-old Kite has one second-place finish, but hasn’t placed in the surpass 10 since mid-February.

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KENT — Top alcohol dragster driver Randy Eakins and top pure spirit funny car driver Brian Hough took the No. 1 qualifying positions in their classes Friday at the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

Eakins of Carson City, Nev., outran the field in 5.262 seconds at 266.90 mph. Eakins was followed by Duane Shields of Boulder City, Nev., at 5.267, 274.78 and defending class champion Thomas Bayer of Fontana, Calif., in third with a 5.328 second, 265.38 mph send.

Reigning Funny Car Division champion Hough of Junction City, Ore., covered the quarter-mile track in 5.597 seconds at 257.14 mph with California’s Dennis Taylor jumping to the No. 2 make spots on in the final session at 5.620 seconds, 257.38 mph.

The two joined racers in 11 classes looking to take home a proportion of the more than $210,000 up for grabs in coin and awards.

Top qualifiers in other classes were Rob Harrison of Vancouver, B.C., in Comp Eliminator, while Jimmy DeFrank of Chatsworth, Calif., took the No. 1 spot in both Super Stock and Stock Eliminator. Harrison was followed by Hoquiam racer Pat Byron in Comp. Sean Cour of Brush Prairie and Alan Fulsone of Seattle are 1-2 in Super Stock.

A third defending division promoter, Jeff Lane of North Bend, landed in second in Stock Eliminator behind DeFrank.

In the Top Dragster class it was Greg Carlile of Lake Stevens on top, running 6.59 seconds at 210.57 mph, with Quentin Chambers of Bellingham inferior at 6.656, 206.04.

Racing continues today at 10 a.m. Gates open at 8 a.m.

Notes

• Bosnia will face Brazil in Sunday’s championship match of the All Nations Cup soccer tournament. Bosnia defeated Poland 3-0 in Thursday’s semifinals time Brazil smite Romania 2-1. The teams resolution move at 7:30 p.m. at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. The third-place game between Poland and Romania starts at 4 p.m.

• Three Washington youth soccer teams have advanced to today’s semifinals of the U.S. Youth Soccer Region IV Championships. The Under-18 MRFC 89 Blue defeated the Alaska Rush 90 3-2 Friday and will play Colorado Rush Nike on the girls party. The U-14 Crossfire Premier 93 girls beat FC Barcelona 2-0 and desire meet Slammers FC. The U-12 boys Crossfire Premier 95 beat Colorado Storm Royal 2-0 and will face Stampede.

• No. 1-seed Jesse Walter of Seattle beat eighth-seed Bryan Thorp of Kent in the quarterfinals of the Seattle City Open tennis tourney Friday. Walter won 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 in the men’s open singles. No. 2 Ken Bang of Puyallup defeated Oregon’s Nick Wales, 6-3, 6-3. In the women’s singles quarterfinals, the No. 1 and 2 seeds from Seattle, Deborah Higa and Bettina Gehle, both advanced.

• Amanda Peterson of the Eastern Washington University track and field team finished sixth in the javelin Friday at the 2008 USA Junior Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Columbus, Ohio. The freshman from Gig Harbor had a throw of 152-10.

Compiled from sports-information reports and other sources.

GLOUCESTER, Mass. The girls showed up repeatedly at the high school health clinic, asking for pregnancy tests. But their reactions to the test results were puzzling: high-fives if they were expecting, long faces if they weren’t.

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School officials in this hard-luck New England fishing town say any alarming 17 girls - four times the usual number - became pregnant this year. And level more disturbing: Some of the girls may have made a pact to have babies and raise them together.

“A typical girl you would think would say, `Oh my God! What am I going to do now? How am I going to support this baby? How am I going to finish school?’” Superintendent Christopher Farmer said. “These young women clearly have not seen that.”

The falsehood exploded after Joseph Sullivan, the principal of Gloucester High School, was quoted by Time magazine this week while saying the girls confessed to making similar a pact. Sullivan was on vacation Friday and did not return calls for comment.

The superintendent said he had no absolute confirmation of a concordant. But he added: “What we do know is there was a group of students being tested for pregnancy in continuance a regular basis, which would suggest they were not catching steps to avoid becoming pregnant, and that at what time more of them had their babies, they appeared to be very pleased.”

None of the girls or their families have come forward to confirm any type of contract, and school and health officials be under the necessity not identified any of the youngsters.

The girls are the whole of 16 or under, intimately completely of them sophomores. The superintendent said they accept been reluctant to identify the fathers, many of whom are older. But one of them “is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” the principal was quoted during the time that telling Time.

City and school officials in this township of about 30,000 people 30 miles north of Boston have been struggling for months to explain and mete out with the pregnancies, in what place on average only four girls a year at the 1,200-student high school become pregnant.

Just last month, couple officials at the high school hale condition center resigned to aver the local hospital’s refusal to put up with a proposal to distribute contraceptives to youngsters at the school in the absence of parental agree. The hospital controls the clinic’s funding.

Mayor Carolyn Kirk said Friday there are many contributing factors to what she called a “blip” in the pregnancy price, from glamorization of teen pregnancy in clap culture to cuts in funding that have reduced teachers and health classes in Gloucester.

“We be in actual possession of fallen put on unfeeling times,” Kirk said of her city, which has suffered in recent decades with the fall away in the fishing industry that has defined Gloucester since the colonial era.

Gloucester is the village that lost six fishermen in the 1991 shipwreck that inspired the book and movie “The Perfect Storm.” Its high school teams are known as the Fighting Fishermen.

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Jules Nader says he wasn’t scared during the four minutes of weightlessness he thoroughbred aboard an air press plane.

He told The Associated Press on Friday that he felt “liking Spider-Man.”

Nader’s 10-year-old brother Gerard also made the flight.

Ecuadorean gazette El Universo quoted Guinness World Records representative Mariamartha Rubano as confirming that Nader set the record. Guinness did not answer calls from the AP.

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PULLMAN

Hicks, 21, was released from the Whitman County Jail on Wednesday morning from serving a 45-day sentence and drove toward Pullman.

But he did not be seized of a valid driver’s license, so jail personnel contacted Pullman police. Police stopped Hicks when he entered town and issued a misdemeanor ticket.

Hicks had just concluded his sentence in the Colfax prison for stealing a debit card last September and for putting rubbing alcohol in his roommate’s contact-lens capsule in January.

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Six Seattle-area people regard been indicted by the agency of a federal grand jury in connection through “Operation Malicious Mortgage,” a general takedown of mortgage-fraud schemes that has resulted in more than 400 arrests nationwide and losses estimated at more than $1 billion

Those indicted included a disbarred lawyer, a former bank-loan officer and a pledge broker, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Others include the owner of several shell corporations that “flipped” houses as part of a theory using unqualified “straw” buyers who allowed inflated loans to be made in their names, only to default on the mortgages, the indictment says.

The case is mixed 144 prosecutions involving 406 people nationally. More than 60 arrests were made Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced.

Among them was Robert Ernest Brandt, 40, a preceding Bothell attorney who was disbarred in 2006 in spite of failing to in a strict sense maintain his client-escrow accounts. According to the Washington State Bar Association, more than $3 million turned up missing from the accounts.

The indictment says Brandt conspired with several others to “flip” houses in Seattle’s red-hot real-estate markets in 2004 and 2005, using the shell companies to buy the homes.

The alleged conspirators would create loan papers for the straw buyers for inflated purchase prices and pay them up to $20,000 to prognostic the papers. The loans would not be paid and the banks would foreclose beneficial to a damage.

Also indicted were William Anderson, 47, of Bellevue; Mustafa “Marc” Khosraw, 46, of Sammamish; Isaac Palmer, 42, of North Bend; Kristyn Jupiter Moss, 38, of Tacoma; and Zachary Joseph Namie, 30, of Seattle.

Anderson purportedly operated the shell companies that purchased the homes; Moss was a loan functionary at Viking Bank and helped create the fraudulent documents; and Brandt and Anderson ran a business called Escrow Authority that closed on the sales.

Khosraw was a pledge broker and Namie a loan officer who helped falsify documents, according to the charges. Palmer operated a construction firm, helped recruit stem buyers and lied that some of them worked for him in the same manner they could qualify for loans, the indictment says.