Hargrove’s three-year contract with Seattle ends after this season. Until then, Bavasi said Hargrove will serve as a team adviser — but only after Sharon Hargrove has some long overdue time with her husband.

By the time McLaren assumes his first managerial job since 1985 at Knoxville of the Southern League, the Hargroves will be driving down the Pacific Coast in a new, red pickup truck. They plan to drive to see one of their five children, son Andy (25), play for Seattle’s Class-A affiliate at High Desert, in Adelanto, Calif. Then comes relaxation in a newly purchased cabin in rural New Mexico.

“If it feels good, we’ll stay. If not, we’ll go (back to their home in Cleveland),” Sharon Hargrove said, holding a battered broom she waved again after one, final series sweep of the Blue Jays, as her husband left the game he’s played or managed or coached since 1972.

“We’ve been married for 37 years. Gone together since junior high,” she said, fighting back her own tears. “He’s slept in his own bed four days in eight months. I don’t know too many people who would sign up for that. And he’s done that for 35 years.”

The 55-year-old McLaren, who said the startling events were tough for him “to comprehend,” rejoined the Mariners this season, after 15 years working on the staffs of manager Lou Piniella that included 1993-2002 in Seattle.

“This is not a perfect scenario to take over a ballclub,” the 12th manager in Mariners history said, his right arm in a sling following rotator cuff surgery last week. “But I’ll run with it.”

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