Spring Training / Highlights : Rangers Say Goodby to Mickey Rivers

The Texas Rangers placed outfielder Mickey Rivers on waivers Thursday for the purpose of giving him an unconditional release.

Rivers, 36, hit .300 in a part-time role for the Rangers in 1984 and has a guaranteed contract that will pay him $450,000 for 1985. If Rivers clears waivers, he will become a free agent next Wednesday and be eligible to sign with any club at the major league minimum. Texas would be obligated to pick up the rest of his salary.

The Rangers kept outfielder Tommy Dunbar, who is hitting .378 this spring, instead of Rivers.

“It was not an easy decision,” Ranger Manager Doug Rader said, “but one we felt was best for the ball club.”

Rivers, who played for New York Yankees championship teams in 1976-77-78, is a career .295 hitter in the big leagues. He was hitting .259 this spring.

Exhibition Notes

Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Rod Scurry, treated last season for cocaine dependency, has confirmed that he verbally agreed to undergo 10 random drug tests this season. Scurry made the agreement during the winter when he negotiated a new contract that will pay him $350,000 this year and $400,000 in 1986 if the Pirates exercise their option to retain him. “It’s no big deal,” Scurry told the Pittsburgh Press of the drug-testing. “I wanted it in there to show them everything is fine. It was my idea.”

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Lonnie Smith was suspended for three exhibition games and fined an undisclosed amount of cash for his role in an altercation last month with two umpires. The ruling in New York from the office of Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth allows Smith to open the regular season Tuesday in New York against the Mets. Smith’s situation had been in limbo since the incident March 20 during a game at St. Petersburg, Fla., against the Boston Red Sox.

Darryl Strawberry hit a three-run, wind-blown home run off John Candelaria in the eighth inning to rally the New York Mets to a 5-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Bradenton, Fla., in a game that saw Met pitcher Dwight Gooden ejected for the first time in his professional career. Gooden was tossed out after he argued the second of two balk calls. Gooden tied for the league lead in balks with Steve Carlton of Philadelphia last year, each with seven.

Lloyd Moseby drove in two runs with a first-inning triple and Jesse Barfield contributed a two-run homer to Toronto’s 10-hit attack as the Blue Jays defeated the Detroit Tigers, 6-3, at Dunedin, Fla. The victory was the Blue Jays’ 18th this spring, the most in their history of spring exhibition games and their third over the Tigers this year. Toronto earlier in the day sent outfielder Rick Leach to the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League and designated infielder Fred Manrique for minor-league assignment.

The Cleveland Indians have placed designated hitter Andre Thornton on the 21-day disabled list effective March 24 and have sent four other players to their minor-league camp. Thornton is recuperating from arthroscopic surgery to repair torn cartilage in his knee. The Indians said he is expected to return in late April or early May.