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ST. PETERSBURG - Today he comes home, ragged and torn.
One more game, one more lineup, and the lost season of Lou Piniella is complete. There is a weariness to him, the worn look a man gets when he has spent too long in last place, when he has stared too closely at 100 defeats, when he has finally seen the size of the beast in his path.
This is Piniella at the finish line, a little fatigued and a little frustrated, a few more scars around the heart.
On the other hand, there is this:
The guy's head didn't blow up, after all.
That, at least, is something.
There was a time when you wondered, remember? There was a time when you wondered if this rotted tooth of a franchise was going to chew up Piniella the way it had all the others. There was a time when you looked at the calendar and circled a date - July seemed to be a popular month - when the nervous facial tic would appear and the ulcers would begin and Piniella's blood pressure would soar until, after another particularly devastating loss, plasma would spew through the top of his cap like a gusher from an oil derrick.
Isn't that what is supposed to happen when a man known for his competitiveness signs on with a team that is known for not having any of its own?
Well, guess what? One-hundred sixty-one games have passed, and Piniella doesn't need a psychiatrist.
Not unless the guy can pitch, anyway.
"I'm fine," Piniella said.
"Really, I'm fine. Look, 10 years ago this type of season would have been extremely, extremely, extremely difficult for me. Extremely. If you think I've handled it well, well, 10 years ago I wouldn't have."
Ah, but there is handling it well, and there is wearing it hard. At times Piniella has done both.
For the most part Piniella has been patient, darned near placid. However, there have been times when the losing has stacked up on him, nights when he has walked grim and silent through the locker room, when his tight lips and glassy eyes hinted the losing hurt more than he let on.
It bothers him. There are the nights he goes home and turns on the television, staring at the images until 3 or 4 in the morning. That never used to happen. Now it does. Piniella has spent most of his recent Septembers managing veteran players in games that mattered; how could he not miss that?
"At times it's been frustrating," Piniella said. "But I cling to the fact this is a four-year process instead of one. I understand we had to go through this. It's no fun, but it's the only way to get better in a hurry.
"This really isn't managing. This is teaching and evaluating, seeing what we have and what they can do, deciding what role they should be used. As far as that goes this season has been a total success."
As far as anything else?
The Rays still are in the cellar. They still may lose 100 games. They still haven't caught the fancy of the public. And, yes, losing still stinks.
"I don't like to lose," Piniella said. "(Yankees owner George) Steinbrenner made the statement the other day that I'm not a good loser. And I'm not. Losing is no fun. It's ... no ... fun."
And it is there, in the bite in his voice, you feel the difference between this awful season and the awful seasons that came before it.
It's silly, of course, to try to find something warm and fuzzy about a third consecutive 100-loss season. But, darn it, this year does feel a little different than the past two. Maybe it's because of this: Two years ago you knew the Rays were going to lose another 100 last year, and last year you knew they were going to lose another 100 this year. It looked like 100-loss seasons without parole.
Now, with Huff, with Baldelli, with Crawford and, most of all, with Piniella, you don't feel as if they'll lose another 100 next year.
"I don't think that's going to happen," Piniella said, as if he had never considered the possibility. "I see a team that can reach the .500 level.
"Of course, we can't stay the same. We've got to go out and sign some veteran players."
This has been Piniella's mantra for months. Give him more payroll to get more talent, and he'll provide more victories.
For the Rays, it is time. This is the most critical offseason in the franchise's history. In two more seasons baseball revisits contraction. In three more Piniella's contract is up. In three more the trio of Huff, Baldelli and Crawford, plus the other young players in the system, become too expensive for a wobbly franchise to hang on to.
In other words, the onus is on ownership. Either it gets considerably closer to the next-to-last payroll in baseball, or it announces it has decided it's never going to work. Personally, I like Piniella's way better.
Despite the defeats, despite the cellar, don't doubt the guy's impact on his franchise. Put it this way: If anyone had told you some team was going to challenge for the all-time loss total, wouldn't you have thought it was going to be the Rays, not the Tigers?
Maybe that isn't much. Maybe it isn't enough. For Piniella it's a good place to start.
"You know what it does to me?" Piniella said. "It makes me hungry. It makes me want to work as hard as I can to improve this team. Believe me, I've got lots of energy. And I don't have any quit in me."
And so Piniella limps home, his losingest season behind him. And you wonder what will make this team better next season.
Piniella. Because those who know him best will swear to this:
The guy will not be able to deal with such a season again.