Spring Gets Early Start in Florida and Arizona : Pitchers and Catchers Are Getting Baseball Training Camps Off the Ground

Bring on those pitchers and catchers. Baseball is back.

Spring may not be here, but spring training is--at sun-splashed sites such as Clearwater and Vero Beach in Florida and Mesa and Yuma in Arizona.

“All I know is I feel terrific and I report to spring training on Feb. 21,” Chicago White Sox pitcher Tom Seaver said. “I’ve got a job.”

That’s more than Rod Carew, Cesar Cedeno, Tommy John and Al Oliver can say. When the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants opened the first workouts Thursday, several aging stars may still be out of work and the status of others, including Reggie Jackson, may still be in limbo.

It may stay that way well past March 6, when the Tigers and the White Sox play the first game of the 1986 exhibition season.

Age has a cruel way of forcing men out of a child’s game.

“We’re looking for a position,” Carew’s attorney Jerry Simon said last week.

Carew, a 15-time All-Star with a .328 career batting average, spent the past seven seasons with the Angels. But the Angels, like many teams in the majors, do not want a singles hitter without speed as their first baseman--especially when they have young players on-deck.

Carew got his 3,000th hit during 1985 and finished at .280, his second straight year under .300 after 15 consecutive seasons over that mark. When the season ended, the Angels dropped Carew and his $900,000 annual salary, making him a 40-year-old free agent.

Oddly, the Minnesota Twins, the team Carew broke into the majors with and then couldn’t wait to leave because of disagreements with former owner Calvin Griffith, had shown some interest.

“The truth of the matter is that I don’t think it’s very likely, at this time, that we have a position for Rod,” said Andy MacPhail, the Twins’ director of player personnel. “That’s not to close the door on future negotiations. But at this time, we owe it to ourselves to look at some of our young players this spring. We want to do that first.”

Also out of a job is Cedeno, though he was a wunderkind for the 1985 the St. Louis Cardinals.

Cedeno was languishing on the Cincinnati bench last August when he was dealt to St. Louis, which needed an immediate fill-in for injured first baseman Jack Clark.

Cedeno batted .434, including 6 home runs and 19 runs batted in with only 76 at-bats, helping to spark the Cardinals get into the World Series. But St. Louis did not re-sign Cedeno, who will turn 35 this month.

His agent, Barry Meister, said a few teams have shown interest in Cedeno, including some American League clubs who talked of using him as a designated hitter.

Whether John, 42, gets a job this year will depend on how well he does in the next month or so. The left-hander, with a career record of 259-207, has slumped badly the last three years and has been bothered by injuries.

In 1985, John pitched for the Angels and Oakland and had a combined 4-10 record and 5.53 earned run average.

The New York Yankees, for whom John posted consecutive 20-victory seasons a few years back, have invited him to spring training. If John wins a starting job, he could join one of the oldest rotations in history--soon-to-be 47-year-old Phil Niekro and 41-year-old brother, Joe, and Ron Guidry, 35.

Oliver, meanwhile, says he has retired though he still is 257 hits shy of his longtime goal of 3,000.

A career .300 hitter, Oliver spent the first half of 1985 with Los Angeles, the second half with Toronto. He hit only a combined .252--the first time he was under .300 since 1975--but won two AL playoff games for the Blue Jays with basehits off Kansas City relief ace Dan Quisenberry.

But the Blue Jays did not re-sign Oliver, and when no other clubs expressed interest in the 39-year-old free agent, he quit.

“When you don’t get the cooperation to continue an outstanding and productive career, it was time to go on to other things,” Oliver said, adding: “I’m still in shape, though.”

And his agent, Peter Rose, is cautious about saying Oliver will never pick up a bat again: “I think you should never say never.”

Seaver and Jackson, on the other hand, have jobs but even their situations are unsettled.

Seaver, 41, who went 16-11 last season and got his 300th career victory, has let it be known he would like to play closer to his Connecticut home, either in Boston or New York.

But a deal that would have sent him to the Yankees fell through late last season, and a trade that would have placed him with the Boston Red Sox did not pan out during December’s winter baseball meetings.

“I just read Ken Harrelson (Chicago’s new general manager) says I’ll still be with the White Sox,” said Seaver, who was sixth in the AL last season with a 3.17 ERA. “They haven’t been able to move me.”

The Angels have moved Jackson from the outfield and Mr. October is said to be steamed.

Last season, Jackson, who hit 27 homers and drove in 85 runs, played 81 games in the outfield for the Angels. But his fielding percentage of .944 was the worst among major-league outfielders with at least 100 chances.

Manager Gene Mauch plans to platoon Ruppert Jones and George Hendrick in right field this season, and wants to use Jackson as his DH.

But Jackson, who will be 40 in May, considers himself an all-around player and isn’t wild about the idea.

But an Angels spokesman puts it this way: “He might not be totally happy with it, but he’s got a position on this team.”