I saw this about former Mariners coach and Rainiers manager Dan Rohn, courtesy of the Traverse City Record Eagle:

BY JEFF PEEK

TRAVERSE CITY — When the Seattle Mariners struggled through a long losing streak last August, Dan Rohn became the people's choice to replace Mike Hargrove as the team's manager.

That support may have gotten him fired.

Traverse City's Rohn leaves for spring training in Arizona on Monday to begin his first season as skipper of the San Francisco Giants' AAA minor league baseball club in Fresno, Calif.

It isn't exactly the scenario he had planned, but Rohn is excited to be managing again after spending most of last season as the Mariners' administrative coach.

"It worked out OK,” said Rohn, 51. "Things change. On the plus side, I was coaching in the big leagues (last summer). But on the minus side, I spent half my time in the computer room scouting other teams.

"There was a lot more paperwork involved than I expected — or wanted.”

There also appeared to be some behind-the-scenes politics going on.

Rohn spent 10 seasons in the Seattle organization and joined the team's major league staff for the first time in 2006. His promotion kept Mariners fans busy on Internet blogs speculating that he was being groomed as the team's next manager. When Seattle went into a tailspin last August, the talk heated up.

Rohn, who interviewed with the Detroit Tigers before Alan Trammell was hired as the team's manager in 2003, said reporters began asking if he was about to replace Hargrove.

"I told them I didn't know anything about it, that no one had said anything to me,” Rohn said.

Someone eventually said something to Rohn, but it wasn't what he expected to hear.

Following a 10-0 loss to Toronto on Sept. 13, general manager Bill Bavasi announced that Rohn and bench coach Ron Hassey had been fired.

"(Hargrove) told me he was eliminating the position,” Rohn said. "He said he didn't like the negative publicity.”

Fans suspected there was more to it, blogging that Hargrove had simply eliminated his competition. One fan wrote that Hargrove was "afraid that Dan was after his job, so he stabbed him in the back.”

The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune reported on Sept. 15 that Hargrove and Rohn's personalities "clashed” and that Rohn "disagreed with Hargrove's managing and, worse, talked to other coaches and players about it. When that got back to Hargrove, Rohn's departure was a matter of time.”

Hargrove is still the team's skipper.

And while Rohn wasn't happy about being dismissed, it didn't take him long to find another baseball job.

The Giants came calling within hours.

"I was fired at about 4 o'clock, and I was already talking to them on my way to the airport at 6:30,” Rohn said. "I flew home to Traverse City and by the next afternoon there was a contract on the table.”

Rohn, who played 54 MLB games for the Chicago Cubs (1983-84) and Cleveland Indians (1986), has already given the Giants reason to feel good about their decision to bring him aboard.

Rohn, who coached in the Minnesota Twins organization for 10 years before joining Seattle, led Indios de Mayaguez into the Puerto Rico Winter League championship series this winter. That earned him manager of the year honors.

Rohn said he won't have trouble feeling comfortable in his new position because "I know a lot of the guys from managing against them in the PCL (Pacific Coast League).”

He was named PCL manager of the year three times while with the Mariners' AAA Tacoma club.

On Monday, Rohn will head back to the Phoenix area for spring training for the 11th consecutive year. The Seattle and San Francisco camps are only 32 miles apart.

"I'm just going to the other side of town,” Rohn said. "I'm ready. It's a little warmer there than it is here.”