There’s Real Trouble Brewing in St. Louis Regarding Ozzie Smith

Privately, Ozzie Smith is telling friends he figures he’s gone and he sure has that figured right.

He’s gone.

The question is when the St. Louis Cardinals are going to trade him and the answer is most likely by May 1. Possibly even before the end of next week.

I don’t know if Ozzie Smith knows this or not, but the Cardinals traded him once already. To the Dodgers, a few weeks ago.

It was one of those package deals with all the players, Smith included, agreed upon by both sides. The Cardinals thought they had a deal and so did the Dodgers. But then Dodger president Peter O’Malley was told of the money that would be involved to keep Smith after his contract expires at the end of this season, and he killed the deal.

Both clubs probably will deny it now, but that’s what happened. That was the “miracle deal” Dodger vice president Al Campanis had been talking about, the one he kept telling everybody had nothing to do with Mike Schmidt.

Anyway, that takes care of any deal with the Dodgers. You can check with O’Malley. He’ll tell you there’s no way the Dodgers are going to get Ozzie Smith. Not with what he’s asking.

The Cardinals say they’d like to sign Smith.

That’s simply a smokescreen, some PR for hometown consumption so that the fans in St. Louis won’t look upon Smith’s upcoming exit as much of a catastrophe as the departure of such former Cardinal favorites as Bruce Sutter, Keith Hernandez, Ted Simmons and Steve Carlton.

After all, you have to think about the fans once in awhile. You don’t want to get them any madder than necessary.

Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb, are asking for $12.5 million over five years and that’s over three times more than Smith’s current $3.6 million contract. They have also talked about a beer distributorship for Smith.

A word about that. A beer distributorship is better than winning the lottery. Gussie Busch, the Cardinals’ board chairman and president is also honorary chairman of Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. He once gave a beer distributorship to one of his ballplayers, Roger Maris, because he liked him.

But that was it. The Cardinals aren’t giving out any more distributorships to their ballplayers. It causes too much internal friction down at the brewery.

By now, everybody knows Ozzie Smith is available.

The Pirates wanted to find out what it would take to get him, so they called the Cardinals. The Cardinals told them what they’d need. A front-line reliever and a front-line catcher. Say, a catcher like Tony Pena.

End of conversation. End of negotiation.

When the Cardinals got Ivan DeJesus from the Phillies last week, they were sending Smith a positive signal he’ll be playing for someone else soon.

To give you some idea to what extent the Cardinals were committing themselves in that direction, they accepted right-handed reliever Bill Campbell in the same deal even though they didn’t really want him. The Phillies, looking toget out from under Campbell’s contract, told the Cardinals if they didn’t take him, they couldn’t have DeJesus. P.S. the Cardinals took Campbell.

Now they have to find someone to take Smith, and my guess is they’ve found someone already.

The first thing the Cardinals have to find is a club that can afford Smith. Remember, the Dodgers have taken themselves out of the picture already.

Okay, then, let’s take the clubs one by one.

How about the Mets?

Frank Cashen tells me he’s not interested.

What about the Braves? After all, if Ted Turner can afford CBS, what’s Ozzie Smith?

Forget it. The Braves have no interest at all in him. They’re very happy with Rafael Ramirez as their shortstop. So happy, they signed him to a nice fat five-year contract not long ago.

How about the Cubs?

Nothing there, either. They believe they’ve got a winner in 22-year-old Shawon Dunston.

The Expos told me no, too, and you already know how the Padres feel about Smith. They had him once and let him go when his asking price got too high.

Over to the American League then. It’s okay. The Cardinals have waivers.

What about the Angels? They’ve got plenty of money.

They say Dick Schofield is their man. The Angels like him and they’re going to go with him. More than that, Gene Autry has made up his mind. He’s going to get rid of his high-priced players one by one.

Scratch the Blue Jays also. They love Tony Fernandez at short.