THE RELUCTANT SPOKESMAN : JACK MORRIS : The Winner of a $1.85-Million Salary Through Arbitration, Tiger Pitcher Is Convinced of Collusion by Owners

In this spring of holdouts, walkouts and the continuing appearance of collusion by the owners, the Detroit Tigers’ Jack Morris has taken on the identity of a union jack, a spokesman for the causes and concerns of the Major League Players Assn.

It is a wearying role that he does not enjoy, but he seems to realize that it comes with the territory he covered last winter when he was a free agent and the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Minnesota Twins and Angels all rejected his proposals.

Morris was forced to go back to the Tigers and go through salary arbitration. The Tigers, who earlier offered $1.25 million, filed at $1.35 million. Morris, who earned $850,000 en route to a 21-8 record last year, countered at $1.85 million and won.

The award was the highest in arbitration history--for a few days, at least. Then Yankee first baseman Don Mattingly got $1.975 million.

The $1.85 left Morris tied with the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela as baseball’s highest-salaried starting pitchers.

Valenzuela got there in six full seasons. Morris needed nine, a span in which he has been baseball’s winningest pitcher since 1979--not to mention a proven workhorse and competitor.

So, is Morris asked about his 144-94 record? His unmatched string of 15 or more wins and 35 or more starts in each of the last five seasons? His 14-2 record and 2.44 earned-run average in his final 18 starts of last year?

“It isn’t exactly a normal spring,” he said. “Nobody wants to talk about the game. It’s as if the off-season has extended into spring training.

“I should have just written a book and made it easy for myself.”

The questions seem to pertain mostly to labor issues, the same questions from a string of visiting reporters. Morris has resigned himself to them, although he would rather discuss something else.

“It doesn’t do me any good to talk about (his situation),” he said. “It doesn’t resolve anything. It really only gets people angry at me again.”

But he does talk about it, saying that when he gets tired of talking about it and hearing about it, when he thinks it is interfering with his concentration and preparation, he will “just turn rude like the media feels I’ve been at times in the past.”

Rude? Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson says that it is simply a matter of Morris’ intensity as a competitor, that he has trouble leaving the game on the field.

“He’s the kind of guy who sets up a pension for his dad so he can retire early, and buys cars for his sisters and brothers,” Anderson said. “But he’s so arrogant as a competitor that he never thinks he should lose and never gives the other team credit. I wish every pitcher I had was like that.

“I mean, anyone who asks me if I think Jack will have trouble gearing up for another year with the Tigers, considering he tried to leave, just doesn’t know Jack. I’ll have no problems with him. He’s the best athlete I’ve ever managed and one of the hardest workers.

“You lose a guy like him and it would be like the Dodgers without Valenzuela. They’re in the same category. You can find 10-game winners, but you can’t find 20- game winners. We’d have been 10 games down to start with (if Morris had left).”

Morris said that he tried to leave because the Tigers’ offer of $1.25 million wasn’t commensurate with his credentials or the salary of Valenzuela, whose own credentials aren’t comparable.

“It was important to me to be paid properly for the sake of the salary structure,” Morris said.

“If I had accepted $1.25 (million), the owners could say (to other pitchers), ‘Look what one of the best in the game is making.’

“I wouldn’t have satisfied myself or helped anyone else.”

But in his barnstorming attempt to sell his services, Morris could not even get a counter offer to his various proposals. The Phillies and Angels, in fact, did not even care to listen.

Collusion?

“They’re all singing the same song,” Morris said. “Someone must have taught them. It’s too coincidental to believe they all woke up at the same time.

“The unfortunate thing is that ownership is making no attempt to improve their clubs. That’s not a priority anymore.

“They’ve all now come up with a philosophy that’s dictated by their billfolds. They’re staking the future on rookies, but what happens when the rookies get good? They’ll have to be paid, too.”

When did Morris realize that his only real recourse was to return to the Tigers and go to arbitration?

“When I have a guy with George Steinbrenner’s reputation say no to my offer of one year, nonguaranteed, with the salary determined by an arbitrator, then I know there’s no sense going on,” Morris said.

“The strange thing is that I knew just from talking to him that George wanted me but that this was one time he was taking orders from someone else.

“I mean, at one point I mentioned the fact that Lance Parrish was also available and he lit all up and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if the Yankees opened the season with a battery of Morris and Parrish?’ The way he said it, you knew he could really envision it.

“Of course, I’m sure he’d probably deny that if you confronted him about it.”

Does Morris feel he might have let down the unsigned free agents and aroused their antipathy by returning to the Tigers through arbitration rather than remaining out?

“I would have supported the strength of those free agents by staying out, but I don’t think it would have been any different for them or for me,” he said.

“I sympathize with them to the extent that I don’t think they’re being treated fairly, but I don’t control them and they don’t control me.

“I did everything I could to generate a contract as a free agent and I finally realized that the only way I was going to get my price and strengthen the salary structure was by arbitration with the Tigers.

“I can’t believe there’s even one player who would question what I did or suggest that I didn’t have the overall picture in mind.”

Where is it all leading? The direction may be clearer when a decision on the union’s collusion grievance is reached in mid-summer, Morris said.

He implied that any decision jeopardizing the collective bargaining agreement or rejecting the owners’ obvious violation of it could result in a scenario where baseball comes to a halt.

“All I can say is that I find it difficult to believe that the players will put up with this much longer,” he said.

In the meantime, Morris said, he feels good physically and mentally.

“I’ve always been able to shut everything off when I go between the white lines,” he said. “I’m looking for the games to start and these questions to stop.”

So is his manager, who spends a significant portion of each day answering questions about the return of Morris and the departure of catcher Parrish.

Anderson wasted no time going to work on his team’s psyche.

“We had a meeting after everyone reported,” he said. “I told them that the odds makers had made the Yankees 5 to 2 to win the (American League) East and that we were 18 to 1. Eighteen to one! I said, ‘What’s happened to us in two years that we’ve gone from world champions to a piece of (bleep)?’

“ ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘I don’t accept it. I know we’re not 18 to 1 and I know that you know we’re better than that and are going to prove it.’ ”

They will have to prove it without Parrish, a big reason they are 18 to 1.

Anderson knows that, of course, but as Pete Rose says of his former Cincinnati manager: “A manager has to be a psychologist. Sparky is the best I’ve ever seen at that.”

So, with Parrish now playing for the Philadelphia Phillies, Sparky is attempting to convince his Tigers that he “doesn’t want Parrish’s absence used as a cop-out no matter what happens.”

He also seems to genuinely believe that the Tigers will be better than people anticipate.

“I’m not saying we’ll win it, but it may be a mistake to have already written us off,” he said. “We’re going to be good. We’re going to be a contender if we stay healthy.”

The 1986 Tigers got 20 or more homers from each of their four infielders--Darrell Evans, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell and Darnell Coles--and 28 more from right fielder Kirk Gibson, who had a sub-par season because of a lingering ankle injury.

“You start with that solid nucleus and add a pitching staff that should be the best I’ve had in the eight years I’ve been here,” Anderson said.

The re-signing of Morris and the return of Dan Petry from elbow surgery has helped restore the manager’s faith. He is also ecstatic about Eric King, who was 11-4 as a rookie.

Anderson said he is tempted to use King in a rotation of Morris, Petry, Walt Terrell and Frank Tanana, but that he will first employ King in relief, a right-handed complement to left-hander Willie Hernandez.

The Tigers will physically replace Parrish with a platoon of Mike Heath and Dwight Lowry.

Said Anderson, who had Johnny Bench before he had Lance Parrish: “Now I have what everybody else has.” He added: “Gary Carter may have an argument, but for me Parrish is the best catcher in baseball. He’s improved so much defensively. He’s so strong and so durable--at least, he had been.”

His reference was to the back problem that sidelined Parrish over the second half of a season in which he hit 22 homers and drove in 62 runs in 91 games.

“We’re going to get hurt offensively, we know that,” Anderson said. “We’re going to have to play a different style--bunt some, hit and run some, move a little more. I like that style anyway. We’re going to have to pitch, but I think we can.”

He knows Morris can, and Morris knows that the Tigers will miss Parrish, from his catching skill to his consistent power to his leadership quality.

“Lance went about his job quietly, but people listened when he talked,” Morris said.

Morris has matured, but there was a time when Parrish had to direct a lot of his leadership at the young pitcher who was kicking the mound or throwing the resin bag or glaring at a teammate.

Does Morris agree with his manager? Can the Tigers be competitive in baseball’s most competitive division? Can they survive without Parrish?

“We can compete with anyone if we make up our mind to sacrifice,” Morris said. “We’ve got to want to win. I call it heart. One or two guys have to come forward as leaders. I don’t necessarily mean vocal leaders. I mean leaders by example. We did it in ’84 when we had a good attitude to start with and just kept building on it.

“We’ve still got some guys here who can play on anybody’s team, and that’s what the organization is obviously counting on. I mean, they didn’t go out and sign a Tim Raines or Rich Gedman or Bob Boone or Andre Dawson. They didn’t spend any more than they had to.

“That’s a disappointment, of course, but it gets back to what we’ve talked about.

“It’s the way the game is now and we just can’t let it affect us.”

Morris said he wouldn’t. He said he is comfortable putting on a Detroit uniform most figured he would never wear again.

“Hey,” he said, ‘this was the only one I could find. I’m glad to have a uniform, period.”

JACK MORRIS’ CAREER STATISTICS

Year Team G IP W-L H R ER SO BB ERA 1977 Detroit 7 46 1-1 38 20 19 28 23 3.72 1978 Detroit 28 106 3-5 107 57 51 48 49 4.33 1979 Detroit 27 198 17-7 179 76 72 113 59 3.27 1980 Detroit 36 250 16-15 252 125 116 112 87 4.18 1981 Detroit 25 198 +14-7 153 69 67 97 78 3.05 1982 Detroit 37 266 17-16 247 131 120 135 96 4.06 1983 Detroit 37 293 20-13 257 117 109 232 83 3.34 1984 Detroit 35 240 19-11 221 108 96 148 87 3.60 1985 Detroit 35 257 16-11 212 102 95 191 110 3.33 1986 Detroit 35 267 21-8 229 105 97 223 82 3.27 Totals 302 2122 144-94 1998 910 842 1327 754 3.57

-led league

+-tied for league lead