Baseball / Ross Newhan : When Perspective Is Added, It Is Nothing More Than a Game

The initial intent was to say that the Angels’ bid for an American League West title may hinge on how the Kansas City Royals play on the road and how the Texas Rangers play at home.

The initial intent was to say that:

(1) The Royals, who must rebound from a third straight July deficit of 7 1/2 games or more if they are to win their third straight division crown, were 15-28 on the road in the first half and play 16 of their next 19 games on the road, starting Monday. The opposition: Boston, New York, Baltimore, Detroit and Toronto.

(2) The young Rangers must prove they can withstand the heat of a pennant race and the furnace that is a Texas summer. The Rangers have had a winning record in the second half only four times in 14 years and only once in the last seven. If it wasn’t the heat that did them in, it was the apathy of another losing season.

Then came the stunning news regarding the serious illness of Kansas City Manager Dick Howser, making all the other issues seem insignificant. Howser is scheduled to have surgery for a brain tumor this week.

Howser is a proven winner, a class act, a man who responded to his uncalled-for firing by George Steinbrennner and that streak of 11 straight managerial losses in postseason games with equal style and resiliency, eventually enjoying the last laugh when his undermanned Royals rebounded from 3-1 deficits against the Toronto Blue Jays and the St. Louis Cardinals to first win the American League pennant, then the World Series.

While managing the American League All-Star team at Houston Tuesday night, Howser basically kept the discomfort of his headaches and stiff neck to himself. The extent of his illness was not discovered until Friday morning, although he had not been feeling well for several weeks.

The Royals lost 11 in a row in late June and early July. George Brett strained his right rotator cuff, did not play during the final week before the All-Star break and was to be examined again this weekend, his future still uncertain.

Howser and his staff were also privately concerned about pitcher Bret Saberhagen’s lack of intensity and concentration. Howser recently described Saberhagen’s attitude as “silly-willy.” Saberhagen, 5-10 in the wake of his 20-9 season, got the message, perhaps, winning his last start of the first half and his first start of the last half to avoid a bullpen demotion.

The managerial problems fall to coach Mike Ferraro, who can relate to the challenge facing Howser.

Ferraro had a cancerous kidney removed shortly after getting his one managerial opportunity with the Cleveland Indians in 1983. Can he bring the Royals back?

Said Brett, after learning of Howser’s condition:

“We don’t want to waste all of Dick’s work. We know what we have to do.”

There had been some doubt about it before.

In a midseason analysis, Royal co-owner Ewing Kauffman said Saberhagen wasn’t his only employee spoiled by success.

“I’m sure that winning the World Series had an effect on our players, and they weren’t as hungry,” he said. “They had achieved the ultimate, climbed the mountaintop and surveyed the world at their feet. So I’m sure they didn’t have as serious an attitude. They didn’t come into spring training in as good a shape as they could have.

“I’m sure all the contracts and endorsements had an effect, and maybe it’s a good thing they’re getting knocked down. Maybe they’ll learn something from it. We were not a dominant team last year like Detroit was in ’84. We had problems in right field, somewhat in left field, at shortstop, and we didn’t shore them up too much, so things caught up to us. We’ll fight back.”

Those who know him believe that Dick Howser will, too.

Can Texas overcome its second-half pattern?

“That’s history,” Manager Bobby Valentine said. “I wasn’t there for it, and most of these players weren’t part of it. It has nothing to do with this team. Zero.”

Valentine may be right. Of the 26 players on the roster, including two on the disabled list, 17 have joined the team since Valentine was hired in May 1985. Even then, amid last year’s transition, the Rangers played better than .500 at home after Valentine took over.

He calls that his ammunition when people predict that the Rangers will soon wilt. Larry Parrish, a link to the past, sees it a different way.

“The real difference is we’ve never had the talent before,” he said. “Now we do.”

Ethics Dept.: Ted Dawson of Channel 7 forgot his when, on the air, he gave out the phone number for the hotel at which Howser, the American League’s All-Star manager, was staying in Houston. Dawson, who has released phone numbers before, urged fans to protest Howser’s decision to let Angel rookie Wally Joyner bat only once.

Joyner handled it with more class than Dawson, pointing out that he was allowed to play three innings in his first All-Star game, and that he was just 1 of 28 deserving players on the squad.

Howser’s decision to give first base successor Don Mattingly three at-bats while not playing either first baseman Eddie Murray, who was nursing a hamstring strain, or major league home run and RBI leader Jose Canseco, did seem strange, but hardly important enough to urge people to disturb a man’s sleep--and privacy.

Add Howser: The Kansas City manager ended up on the same bus shuttling players to the Astrodome as San Francisco Giants outfielder Chili Davis.

Davis couldn’t resist needling Howser regarding Howser’s inexplicable decision to reject a winter trade that would have sent the productive Davis to the Royals for Mark Gubicza, Darryl Motley and minor league prospect Van Snider.

“I looked at him and said ‘I can’t believe you didn’t do it, but I’m glad you didn’t,’ ” Davis said. “We’ve finally got a group of guys who want to play hard. I’ve gone through the dog days with the Giants. It’s fun to be on top.”

The Atlanta Braves’ Rick Mahler, 6-0 in June when he was the National League’s pitcher of the month, is 0-4 with a 14.92 earned-run average in July, symptomatic of a breakdown in the Braves’ rotation.

A loss in Thursday night’s second-half opener at Montreal was Atlanta’s 10th in its last 11 games, a period during which the starting pitchers are 1-10 with a 10.91 ERA, having allowed 57 earned runs and 71 hits in 47 innings. The Atlanta staff has been such an easy touch, in fact, that opposing pitchers have driven in 22 runs in the last 48 games. Dale Murphy drove in only 15 runs in that span.

Rebounding from a rough start and the belief that he had lost his fastball, the Detroit Tigers’ Jack Morris has thrown three straight shutouts and six straight complete games--in which he allowed only six runs. Morris resurrected his slider so effectively that Kansas City’s Greg Pryor said, “It looks like he’s throwing the ball with butter on it.”

Add Morris: On Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd’s reaction to not making the All-Star team, the outspoken Morris said: “I read about Mr. Boyd and I wanted to throw up. I have a pretty good friend in Mr. (Mike) Boddicker (of the Baltimore Orioles). He’s having a pretty good year, but he didn’t act like a child (when he wasn’t named to the team).”

Boddicker actually has fallen on tough times. In his last five starts, he has a 1-4 record and a 7.34 ERA. Boddicker’s complaints about chronic elbow soreness have increased, and he may have to be put on the disabled list.

The Red Sox are desperately trying to trade Boyd, but no takers. Will Boston take him back? Manager John McNamara pondered the question, realized, perhaps, that there may be no alternative, and said: “It’s my nature to forgive and forget. I’ve done it before with him.”

Boyd’s run-in with the police was the last straw for his roommate, shortstop Rey Quinones. “I’m moving out,” Quinones said.

Baseball Notes The scouts say that Steve Howe’s fastball, clocked at 91 and 92 m.p.h. during his good years with the Dodgers, was never more than 84 or 85 at San Jose. . . . The Cleveland Indians, who have drawn 818,203 fans, have not been over 800,000 this early since 1959, the last year they challenged for a pennant. . . . San Francisco Manager Roger Craig now has Steve Carlton throwing a split-fingered fastball on the sideline and says Carlton will be ready to throw it in a game within three starts. . . . Roger Clemens went to Boston Manager John McNamara and said he is willing to leave games he is leading in the seventh inning or later, that he has no macho hangup about complete games. “Why not?” Clemens said. “Maybe we can conserve some pitches for September.”

When Eddie Murray, the Baltimore first baseman, returned from the All-Star game, he was put on the disabled list for the first time in his career. The Orioles have had 12 players on the disabled list this year, a club record. And with relief pitcher Tippy Martinez out for the season, they will eventually end the year having had at least one player on it every day. . . . This is the way it is for the Orioles: Larry Sheets, who had been sidelined with a pulled muscle in the rib cage, was scheduled to leave Thursday for a rehabilitation assignment in Hagerstown. The Orioles canceled the trip at the 11th hour and started Sheets at first base against Minnesota--his first start against a left-handed pitcher--because Juan Beniquez had called in from Puerto Rico, saying that he would not be returning immediately because of a family illness.

Andy Van Slyke said it has been such a bad season for St. Louis that “there have been times I’ve fallen asleep in the outfield.” Responded Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog: “I’ve never seen him fall asleep in the outfield. I’ve seen him fall asleep at the plate.”