The Mariners informed the Public Facilities District on Thursday that they had a profit of more than $8 million for last season, according to information obtained by The Seattle Times.

The club is required to report annually the amount referred to as a special calculation, which was created specifically to determine when the club begins sharing profits with the PFD.

However, they are not required by terms of their lease for Safeco Field to declare their net profit/loss totals from business operations, but have done so in recent years.

Their letter to the PFD stated that they had net income of $8.3 million for the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, 2005, which resulted in a special calculation figure of $7.3 million.

This is the second time this year the Mariners have opened their books in a sense and revealed financial figures.

Earlier, in response to a confusing wire report that indicated they had a 2005 payroll of $70.5 million, the club released their player contract figures that showed they spent more than $99 million — or about $1 million per loss — for the season.

The significance of the special calculation is that when the Seattle club retires its cumulative net loss, or debt, from July 1995 through October 1999, the public will share in whatever profit the team generates.

That debt total started at $200.2 million — roughly $143 million on expenses from the construction of Safeco Field and $57 million in operations losses from a period fixed by lease negotiations (July 1995 through October 1999).

That amount has been cut almost in half. The total debt left is $100.8 million and when that is wiped out, the club will give the PFD 10 percent of its profits.

The Mariners' lease for Safeco Field runs through the 2018 season.
The team sold 17,100 season tickets for the 2005 season. However, while the club will not release season-ticket totals for the upcoming 2006 season until just after opening day, officials are said to be expecting a decrease after consecutive seasons of 90-plus losses.

Drilling the rookies

Manager Mike Hargrove had an outburst Friday, but not at the players you might think.

When the frontline Mariners had trouble with a pop-up workout — the same one Hargrove interrupted last spring to criticize his squad for sloppy effort — the manager was understanding.

Not only was it the roughest kind of day to judge balls in the air — a high sky on a bright, cloudless day — Hargrove also noted, "It's the first day of this drill, so it was bound to be like a monkey fumbling a football."

While he gave players a pass on one field, he got loud on another field, at a group of minor leaguers taking leads at third base in a first-and-third exercise. In the drill, when a runner breaks for second, catchers either throw through to that bag or fake a throw and try to trap the runner off third.

Runners continually kept in motion despite orders to come to a full stop straddling the third-base line until the catcher commits a throw to second.

"When you tell them, then critique the first two when they don't do it right, and then they keep doing it wrong ... " Hargrove said. "Then, you got a little tired of it. Sometimes when a cow won't let you milk her, you have to snap her on the head with a 2 by 4."

He then ordered coaches to continue the drill for some extra time, "until they all do it right at least once."

Under contract

Raul Ibanez's agreement to a two-year contract extension offer for $11 million, which will be finalized when the results of Friday's blood draw come in, gives the Mariners 10 players under contract for 2007, at about $62 million.

They are: Richie Sexson, $14 million; Ichiro, $13.5 million; Adrian Beltre, $11.75 million; Jarrod Washburn, $9.38 million; Ibanez, $5.5 million; Kenji Johjima, $5.2 million; Julio Mateo, $1 million; Willie Bloomquist, $850,000; Yuniesky Betancourt, $400,000; Carl Everett, $600,000 buyout.