Angels, Mariners Pack Up Uneasily

It was 3:30 Tuesday afternoon as Ruppert Jones stood at his locker in the Angel clubhouse at Anaheim Stadium and piled gloves and spikes into an equipment bag.

He was surrounded by a dozen photographers who treated the event as if it were a coronation.

“Rupe, do it slow,” implored club publicist Tim Mead, eager to provide the photographers with a measure of action, inasmuch as this was all they would get.

The baseball strike forced cancellation of Tuesday night’s game with the Seattle Mariners, depriving the Angels of an opportunity to extend their five-game lead in the American League West before an anticipated crowd of 40,000.

The series finale was scheduled for 1:05 today, after which the Angels were to leave for Minnesota.

Angel player representative Ron Romanick and his Seattle counterpart, Jim Beattie, held little or no hope that today’s game would be played.

“I doubt it very much,” Romanick said in the Angel clubhouse. “Maybe (we’ll play again) sometime next week. Every day we miss means that it will take two days to get guys back on planes, and that’s a conservative estimate.”

Beattie told Bill Plaschke of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the union had instructed him to give his players permission to leave.

“It looks like that no matter what happens,” Beattie said, “the rest of the series is washed out.”

All the Mariners were forced to check out of their Anaheim hotel rooms Tuesday, for the club was no longer picking up the tab. Those who decided to remain through today re-registered at their own expense, many doubling up. About a dozen players reportedly checked out and left.

Angel General Manager Mike Port and Manager Gene Mauch were hoping for a Tuesday night settlement that would allow them to play today. But Romanick implied that the chances of an early settlement were poor.

This was late Tuesday afternoon, and Romanick had just been asked to characterize the status of the renewed and extended negotiations.

“The latest status,” he said, “is that the owners are still trying to break the union.”

His information, he said, came from a phone conversation with union counsel Eugene Orza.

“Yesterday,” Romanick said, “we made a $125 million concession in our pension proposal. Now the owners apparently want another $42 million, plus the cap on arbitration. What will it be next time? Free agency? Where do you draw the line. We’ve worked 20 years for these rights. I mean, every time we concede something, they want more. They’ve obviously pushed us into a strike, and they obviously think they can break us. I don’t think so.”

Romanick had a brief meeting Tuesday with about a dozen players who picked up gear in the Angel clubhouse. Infielder Rob Wilfong said they were instructed to sit tight or leave a phone number if traveling. “No one knows for sure how long this is going to last,” Wilfong said.

A number of his teammates reiterated puzzlement over why the owners had refused to negotiate for six months and now expect the players to help the owners police themselves by making concessions on the issue of arbitration.

Relief pitcher Donnie Moore said it was all very depressing. Rod Carew said he was frustrated and would be leaving today on a family boat trip. The normally passive Geoff Zahn, having just returned from three months on the disabled list, uncharacteristically told a reporter to get away, that he had nothing to say.

Manager Gene Mauch shared his players’ unrest. His team was on a roll again, having won four in a row. He is concerned that an older team may have trouble rebounding from a long layoff. He is concerned that the season may not resume, leaving first place meaningless.

“I’m disappointed that we’re not playing tonight,” he said, “but I’m optimistic we’ll play tomorrow. It’s a stoppage, but I don’t know that you can even call it a strike yet. I’m encouraged that they’re still working on it. I was afraid that the breech was so wide it couldn’t be resolved. Obviously some concessions have been made.”

Mauch admitted that he did not know for sure if concessions had been made. He said he had heard that the canceled games, providing the strike does not linger, would be rescheduled as doubleheaders, providing they have an impact on the standings. He said he did not know if that was fact or rumor. He said he was certain his team would stay in shape, though it can’t use club facilities or equipment.

He also said that he was now prohibited from giving orders to his team, though he forced a smile, pointed across the clubhouse and said: “I could always give orders to that pillar over there and hope a player overhears it.”

Said Port: “Logistically, because of the time difference to the East Coast, I think we’d be in good position to play tomorrow if it was settled tonight.” He acknowledged, however, that he was dealing in optimism and lacked inside information on the status of the negotiations.

Owner Gene Autry asked his secretary to inform an inquiring reporter that he was not prepared yet to comment on the strike.