Morris, With a Shopping List, and Dawson to Test Free Agency

In a move seemingly designed to test the owners’ free-agent solidarity of the last two years, attorney Dick Moss said Wednesday that Detroit pitcher Jack Morris and Montreal outfielder Andre Dawson have ended negotiations with their respective clubs.

Dawson, he said, hopes to sign with the Chicago Cubs.

Morris, he said, hopes to sign with the Angels, the New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Phillies or the Minnesota Twins, the latter his hometown team.

Moss said that Morris, 31, baseball’s winningest pitcher in the 1980s, would rank the four teams in order of preference within the next two or three days. Then, he said, Morris would be willing to go anywhere to meet with the top team on the list and present a series of contract proposals requiring only a yes-or-no answer.

If Morris gets an affirmative response, he will sign on the spot, Moss said. If not, he will go to the next club on the list.

“I have reason to believe that given the nature of the proposals Jack is prepared to make, he will be signed next week.”

By the Angels?

Owner Gene Autry said Wednesday that although he has been burned by earlier signings of high-priced free agents and has withdrawn from that market in the last few years, he would probably approach Morris with an open mind.

Autry, reached by phone in Los Angeles, alluded to the nearly $3.2 million he has saved by the departure this winter of Reggie Jackson, Bobby Grich, Ruppert Jones, Rick Burleson, Doug Corbett, Vern Ruhle and Terry Forster when he said:

“If we felt that one man might make the difference in winning a playoff or World Series, we can take a realistic look at it because a lot of our big salaries are gone now.

“I don’t really know enough about this situation because I haven’t talked to (General Manager) Mike Port since Monday, but I’m not at all averse to signing a free agent if the price is right.

“If this looks possible, we might definitely talk.”

Port had said before the winter meetings that he had received a letter from Moss expressing Morris’ interest in signing with the Angels and that he had responded to it by telling Moss that the Angels would be interested in receiving a contract proposal to which they could say yes or no.

Wednesday, Port said he wanted nothing to disrupt his attempt to re-sign free agents Bob Boone, Doug DeCinces and Brian Downing. He said he considered Moss’ press conference Wednesday as somewhat theatrical.

“If Jack Morris is really as interested in the California Angels as Dick Moss would have us believe, he would have responded in a more timely fashion to the proposal we had already made, rather than waiting until we have other things on our mind,” Port said.

“I mean, if he hasn’t responded by now, how interested can he be? The parade may have passed us by (as far as Morris is concerned).

“If they think they can pop up and expect an answer in 15 minutes, I’ve got news for them.”

Port’s cool response seemed at odds with the owner’s apparent receptiveness--based on the salaries the Angels have recently jettisoned.

Morris made $850,000 in the 1986 season, when he went 21-6, including 14-2 in the second half. Now his reported goal is to reach parity with the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela, who has a three-year, $5.5-million contract. The Tigers, adhering to the owners’ new policy of offering pitchers only two years, had not budged from an initial offer of $2.5 million for two years, Moss said.

Morris, like every other free agent still in negotiation with his own team, had not received one other offer. Now, if his current concept is unavailing, he still has until Jan. 8 to re-sign with Detroit. But Moss said, “He has no intention of playing for the Tigers.”

Nevertheless, Jan. 8 remains a key date. If a free agent has not been signed by his own team by then, he can not re-sign with that team until May 15. Last year, when Donnie Moore and Kirk Gibson had not received any other offers, they returned to the Angels and Tigers on the night of Jan. 7 rather than facing the unknown.

Will Morris, despite having severed ties with the Tigers, get a positive response from the four clubs or will they still feel a moral--or conspiratorial?--obligation to the Tigers to wait until Jan. 8.

“I can’t respond to that,” Port said.

The other three clubs?

Bill Giles, the Phillie president, said he would listen to a Morris proposal only if it truly required a yes-or-no response and Morris was prepared to sign immediately. He said he would not join a bidding war. Minnesota General Manager Andy MacPhail said it would be unwise to make an “off-the-cuff remark to something he’s orchestrating.” MacPhail said he would be more definitive today. The Yankees had no comment.

If Morris is successful in this plan, other free agents--such as Tim Raines--may follow. Moss said they are strictly doing what is best for Jack Morris and not attempting to test the conspiracy. He said it was obvious that the owners have been following instructions from Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and their Player Relations Committee.

“The commissioner and the PRC must think the owners are idiots because they won’t let them negotiate,” Moss said. “Clubs have said to me that the only way they’ll negotiate is if we make an offer that they can say yes or no to, so we’re playing their game.”

In playing it, Moss implied, Morris may be agreeable to a two-year contract, having felt that his loyalty and longevity in Detroit entitled him to more. He said Morris selected the Twins because of an affection for his hometown and the others because they are contenders playing in favorable environments.

For the Angels, of course, the workhorse Morris would be a spectacular addition to a quality rotation of Mike Witt, Kirk McCaskill, John Candelaria and Don Sutton. For the Tigers, Morris and batterymate Lance Parrish, also a free agent, are irreplaceable. Manager Sparky Anderson had said that just the other day. Wednesday? He and others in the organization were speechless.