An inside look at the success of legendary Mariners infield coach Perry ‘Bone’ Hill

At 8:12 a.m. on Monday, a parade of cameras and crew members converge on the Peoria Sports Complex. They’re here to follow Mariners legend Ken Griffey Jr., as fans from behind barriers loudly ask for autographs. They’re here to film another episode of “The Caddie and The Kid,” an internet show built around Griffey and former PGA caddie Michael Collins. They’re here to capture baseball’s breeziest content, such as Collins taking humorous hacks in a batting cage.

But the cameras don’t care what’s happening here.

Here, at the wall roughly 50 feet away, where three words and one number serve as a silent mission statement.

27 OUTS

NO MORE

Here, where Mariners infield coach Perry “Bone” Hill bestows the basics.

Hill — who turns 73 on March 19 — is an infield institution, a 5-foot-10 fountain of fielding philosophy. He wears a glove on his left hand and a sweat-stained teal hat on his head, with a laminated sheet bulging from his back pocket. The white stubble on his chin is a rare indication of his age.

The fact is, Hill’s been doing this longer than I’ve lived. While playing in the Mexican League in 1976, he developed “the six Fs” — feet, field, funnel, footwork, fire and follow — a repeatable playbook for effective fielding. It’s the bedrock upon which countless careers have been built.

“It’s just like all those skyscrapers in Seattle. What all of them have in common is clay, sand, rebar, cement. The shapes may be different up here,” Hill says, motioning into the Arizona air, “but they all have that same basic foundation. That’s what I base the six Fs on, the foundation of fielding.”

He’s been laying clay, sand, rebar and cement for nearly four decades.

Here’s what that looks like. On Monday morning, Hill places a baseball on the turf and tells prized prospects Colt Emerson and Ben Williamson, “Here’s the perfect bunt.” Both players take turns simply walking to the ball, simulating the footwork and route required to efficiently field a bunt. When Williamson tries to run, Hill reminds him to walk.

Emerson walks. Williamson walks. Hill pretends to be a hitter.

Another assistant also throws a ball against the wall, allowing Emerson and Williamson to gobble up grounders. Hill perfected that practice “when I was six or seven and I couldn’t find any friends to play with me.”

These are exercises in extreme simplicity.

“He had a group of [younger] guys down here before camp, and he tells the young guys the same thing he tells the big-league guys,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson says of Hill, who earned his nickname as a child after pocketing chicken bones from his plate. “It’s a simple approach. Simple is good when you’re in the heat of the moment.”

There’s ample evidence. Hill’s career has included stints as infield coach for six MLB clubs — the Rangers (1992-95), Tigers (1997-99), Expos (2000-01), Marlins (2002-06, 2011, 2013-18), Pirates (2009) and Mariners (2019-present). His defenses led MLB in fielding percentage during his debut seasons in Pittsburgh and Detroit. After Hill stayed home as a health precaution in 2020 because of the pandemic, the Mariners finished no lower than eighth in that statistic in four seasons since.

Recent Mariners signee Donovan Solano — who spent three seasons alongside Hill in Miami — calls his coach “the GOAT of infield. He’s the best infield coach I’ve ever had.”

More often, though, he calls him “Hueso” — the Spanish word for “bone.”

9:45 a.m.

It’s 54 degrees on Field 1, and you cannot help but hear Hueso. While coaches send stinging grounders to a carousel of rotating players, Hill roams the edge of the infield, conducting his symphony.

“Funnel!”

“There you go, Polo!”

“Last round!”

“5-4! 6-4!”

“Move your feet! Right there!”

“You don’t need that stinking drop step!”

“Slow roller! Gotta go!”

“Keep your arm short!”

“Stop it!”

That last order requires extra explanation. In Hill’s head, “Stop it!” is both a catchphrase and a compliment — reserved for plays so scintillating they boggle even Bone.

It’s also ironic.

While the carousel keeps spinning, Hueso hasn’t stopped.

“It’s something that’s inspired me here, to see him still with the same energy. It’s unbelievable,” says the 37-year-old Solano, who hadn’t played for Hill since 2015. “Like, ‘It’s unbelievable that you’re still here. I think you have more energy than me.’ He’s a special soul, a special spirit for everyone around him. Nobody forgets him.”

10:33 a.m.

Which makes a sign unnecessary.

Still, there once was a sign with the symbol of a bone chained to the fence at Field 7, until most believe it blew away in a storm. The Mariners coaches and players call this the “bone yard” nonetheless.

With a pushed-in fence and hardly any outfield, the intent is obvious. In this corner of the complex, infield defense is king.

Now, an equally unnecessary sign is tethered to the bone yard’s backstop:

BEWARE OF OBJECTS LEAVING THE PLAYING FIELD

Foul balls, of course, are uncommon. There’s hardly any hitting here.

Today, first baseman Luke Raley and third baseman Jorge Polanco - Seattle’s expected starters - interrupt batting practice to visit the bone yard. They are perhaps Hill’s most important pupils, given that Raley (outfield) and Polanco (second base) have significantly more experience at previous positions.

For a team that wins with dependable defense and a minuscule margin for error, the pressure to convert Raley and Polanco into serviceable corner infielders is significant.

But on Monday, Hill notes that their “work ethic is through the roof. They’re good, hard-nosed grinders and have really put in the work.”

While fans face Griffey, the bullpens and rounds of batting practice, Raley picks balls out of the dirt at first base. Then the 31-year-old Polanco settles in on the opposite side, charging grounders while Hill provides constant commentary.

“Right foot to the ball for what reason?”

“What are you doing if you throw it there?”

“You know what happens on that third hop: it picks up spin and eats you alive.”

“What do you do when the ball hits the dirt? You gotta go!”

Despite an offseason knee surgery, Polanco impresses, sprinting forward without hesitation to snare high hoppers. At one point he widens his stance to swallow an unnatural bounce, earning an eruption from the bone yard’s youthful namesake.

“That’s why you’re wide, Polo!” Hill shouts, pumping his fists for punctuation. “No! Blind! Spots!”

The bone yard, of course, is a blind spot for cameras and fans, a place where dingers and heaters and highlights go to die. Where games are won, even when no one notices. Where baseball’s boring basics make the Mariners better.

At 11:01 a.m., Hill offers Polanco a fist bump and a tap on the chest as they exit the bone yard.

“Progress today,” he tells him. “You made strides today, Polo. Big strides.”

11:05 a.m.

Here’s a surprising sight.

As the Mariners take batting practice, Hill leans on the cage behind home plate, making a silent statement. Though all 38 years (and counting) of his career in professional baseball have come as an infield coach, Hill insists his players see that he cares about every aspect of their life.

Case in point: Hill’s offseason hobby. Last year, he suggested that Mariners first baseman Tyler Locklear try yoga to improve his flexibility.

“I told Lock, ‘I won’t ask you to do something I won’t do. So I’ll take the class if you promise me you’ll take the class,’ “ Hill recalls. “That’s what happened.”

Though they lived in separate states, Hill and Locklear kept each other accountable.

(A 72-year-old infield coach contorted in downward dog? Another surprising sight.)

“We won’t talk about my end [of the classes],” Hill says with a laugh. “I think it helped him. It was tough for me. It was not pretty.”

For four decades, Perry Hill has had no time for pretty. He has dedicated his life to the gritty, thankless minutiae of an unmerciful game. That means setting an alarm for 5:45 a.m. every day, reveling in the same routine - to the bone yard and back.

“It goes from the wall, back to the clubhouse, back to the field, back to the bone yard, back to the clubhouse, to the game,” he says. “You just follow the bouncing ball.”

But how much longer will Hill throw a ball against a wall? How much longer will he chart every play with a four-color Bic ballpoint pen, searching for blind spots? How much longer will he lay clay, sand, rebar and cement, while the world sees only shapes?

“I think at this spot in his life, the only way he’ll stop doing baseball is because God calls him,” Solano says. “If he has life, I will see Hueso around baseball still.”

Says Hill, surrounded by his symphony: “I’ve had friends that retired early, and I just saw them wither away. I don’t want to wither away.”

Soon, he’ll head into the clubhouse.

There’s another game to play.

This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 11:09 AM with the headline "An inside look at the success of legendary Mariners infield coach Perry ‘Bone’ Hill."