OFF AND RUNNING : Dust Will Fly as Team, Having Failed to win It All With Power, Has Switched to Speed

Legendary moments from the sedentary days of the California Angels:

1977--For the first time in their history, the Angeles have two players steal more than 40 bases in the same season. How does the club mark this achievement? Within a span of three days that December, the Angels trade both players--Bobby Bonds to the white Sox and Jerry Remy to the Red Sox.

1978--Rick Miller wins a Gold Glove in the outfield and virtually nothing on the basepaths. Miller attempts 16 stolen bases. He is thrown out 13 times.

1982--Brian Downing, former catcher who still runs like one, is named Angel leadoff hitter. Downing tries the league record by opening a game with a home run six times. He steals two bases.

1983--A 25-year-old named Gary Pettis is recalled from Triple-A when big-league rosters are expanded on Sept. 1. Pettis appears in 22 games and leads the Angels in stolen bases for the season...with eight.

You’ve heard of the Go-Go White Sox? These were the So-Slow Angels. As baseball’s oldest team in existence, they were living proof that the legs are the first things to go. That is why such great emphasis was placed on hitting the ball out of the park. Do that and you get to take your time trotting around the bases. Much easier on the old bones than sprinting and sliding.

But more than that, the entire ballclub was built away from speed. Running and stealing usually meant playing for one run at a time. What good was that when you had a pitching staff giving them up in twos and threes and a bullpen capable of vaporizing any lead in a matter of seconds? The Angels had to rely on the quick striking power of their offense.

So they went out and hired proven sluggers. And they won three divisional titles.

But the old home-run hitters got older and eventually began to fade away. Joe Rudi...Dan Ford...Don Baylor...Fred Lynn...Bobby Grich...Reggie Jackson.

Jackson represented the last vestige of the old Angel strong-arm, slow-feet policy. He was their mightiest long-ball threat, a man who hit 39 home runs at the age of 36 and 27 home runs at 39. But he turned 40 last summer and the Angels turned him loose. Jackson is playing out his final days in Oakland.

“Reggie was a presence,”” Angel Manager Gene Mauch acknowledged. “He represented potential power. We don’t have that presence anymore. Obviously, we felt we could outrun what we lost.”

Meet the 1987 Angels. Outrunning people, they hope, will be their business.

“There’s going to be a lot of dust flying around the bases that you haven’t seen before,” Mauch promised.

Some of it by faces you haven’t seen before.

Rookie Devon White, 24, is the leader of the get-moving movement. Excluding pitchers, he has been called the Angels’ best prospect of the 1980s. In his previous four minor-league seasons, White has stolen 37, 36, 58 and 42 bases.

Then there’s Mark McLemore, 22, another rookie. He stole a combined 67 bases for Midland and Edmonton in 1986. Before that, he stole 59 at Redwood in 1984 and 31 in Midland in 1985.

Add these young legs to a lineup that includes such incumbents as Pettis, who has stolen 106 bases for the Angels the last two seasons, and Dick Schofield, who was 23 for 28 in steal attempts in 1986, and you can see that times are not only changing in Anaheim, they’re getting faster.

“We’ll be different,” Mauch said. “The power potential may not be as it was in the past, but the speed potential is much greater. And when you add speed, it’s not just running and stealing bases. Defensive speed is also very important. You’re going to see a lot of balls caught that haven’t been caught in the past.”

An outfield of White in right, Pettis in center and 25-year-old Jack Howell in left will be the Angels’ swiftest since the Mickey Rivers-Dave Collins-Morris Nettles outfield of the mid-1970s. The double-play combination of McLemore at second base and Schofield at shortstop could--and the hope is soon--rival the fabled feats of Jim Fregosi and Bobby Knoop.

And the prospect of turning Pettis, White, McLemore and Schofield loose on the bases could place the Angel club record of 220 stolen bases in jeopardy...if they hit.

This is no small concern, considering that a) Pettis has never hit .260 in the major leagues; b) Schofield has never hit .250 in the major leagues; and c) White and McLemore have only combined for 13 hits in the major leagues.

Ask Pettis about the Angels’ 1987 speed infusion and, interestingly, he casts a skeptical eye.

“Everybody’s saying that with more speed, things are going to happen for us,” Pettis said. “We still have to hit the ball. What is we never get in a situation where we can use our speed?”

Mauch hoped to get an indication this spring, which is why he played White in every exhibition game and at least temporarily halted the platoon at second base, giving McLemore as many at-bats as he could.

Through the Angels’ first 24 spring games, the indications were promising. White batted .396 while leading the club in runs (20), hits (42), doubles (9), triples (2), home runs (3), RBIs (22) and stolen bases (8). McLemore’s impact wasn’t as spectacular, but it was noticeable--.313 with 16 runs and 8 RBIs.

And every time they beat out an infield chopper or took and extra base, Mauch nodded and smiled. “Those are the things that accompany speed,” Mauch said.

Maybe White and McLemore will hit enough to earn their keep this summer. Maybe they’ll generate new ways to score runs.

Even so, will that still enough to offset the loss of power that carried this team for so many years?

By playing White in right field, Mauch is sacrificing the 31 home runs and 96 RBIs the platoon of Ruppert Jones and George Hendrick produced last year. Jackson (18 home runs, 58 RBIs in 1986) is gone. McLemore has to replace the power-hitting Bobby Grich.

Howell remains an unproven big-league hitter, meaning the Angels will start Pettis (12 career home runs) and two virtual rookies in their outfield. And a big power source from 1986, Wally Joyner, can hardly be expected to duplicate the stunning 22 homers he provided as a rookie. Joyner hit just two home runs after last year’s All-Star break and calls himself “a Keith Hernandez-type hitter--11 or 12 home runs a season.”

Doug DeCinces and Brian Downing represent the only established home-run hitters in the Angel lineup. And DeCinces frankly wonders if they will be enough.

“It’s going to make it more difficult on Brian and I,” he said. “Pitchers are going to know that we are the power producers and they’ll stay away from us. In the past, they’d get past two guys in our lineup and there’d be two more with the threat of power. They couldn’t afford to pitch around you.”

DeCinces said the Angels will have to make up the difference defensively.

“We can’t beat ourselves fundamentally,” he said. “We don&t; have enough in our lineup to make up for mistakes. We can’t afford to make a lot of mistakes and expect to get five runs back in one inning.”

Mauch knows what his team has lost. But given his druthers--power or speed--he says he prefers going by foot.

“The threat of power can be unsettling to some pitchers,” Mauch said, “but speed can have the same disruptive effect as power. Any time you’re dividing a pitcher’s concentration, you’re helping yourself.

“Some days, pitching can take your power away. But they can’t take your speed away. We’ve already seen plays messed up because they knew one of those kids was speeding down the line.”

Mauch also has the benefit of what could be the American League’s best starting pitching staff behind him. The first four starters, at any rate, were without peer in the league in 1986.

Mike Witt was 18-10 with a 2.84 earned-run average.

Kirk McCaskill was 17-10 and 3.36.

Don Sutton was 15-11 and 3.74.

John Candelaria was 10-2 and 2.55.

Witt and McCaskill are both in their mid-20s. They should get better. If Sutton, 42, and Candelaria, 33, hold the line for another season and Urbano Lugo becomes the long-lost answer to the problem at fifth starter, the Angels won’s need to hammer out six and seven runs a game to remain in contention.

So, if every there were an opportune time to make the switch from home runs to run-run-run, 1987 is apparently it.

At least until May 1, when the Angels can resume contract negotiations with in-limbo catcher Bob Boone, the defending champions of the Al West will be breaking in four new starters--White, McLemore, Howell and catcher Butch Wynegar. That’s almost half a lineup.

What to expect from the newcomers, a capsule look:

White: He has had a better spring in 1987 than Joyner had in 1986, so if omens mean anything, White should be a leading contender in American League Rookie of the Year voting. Scouts have likened him to a Willie Wilson with power and to this point, the description has fit.

“The kid is playing like hell right now,” said Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ minor league director. “He seems to be the kind of hitter who gets better at each higher level he plays at. He wasn’t given the type of swing God gave Wally, but from Day 1 to the end of the season, he works hard at it.

“He has superstar potential. He’s showing what he can do right now.”

Right now, White has been a disappointment only at what is supposedly his forte--defense. He has appeared tentative on fly balls and hasn’t come close to supporting his “Pettis Jr.” scouting report, but White blames part of that to adjusting to a new position. A natural center fielder, White will play mostly right and some left in 1987.

McLemore: If McLemore hits anywhere between .230 and .250, the Angels say they’ll be happy. Already, he has lent flash to the Angel infield that hasn’t been evidenced in years.

“In my six years with the organization, he’s the best defensive second baseman we’ve ever had,” Bavasi said. “With Wally at first, Schofield at shortstop and Doug DeCinces at third, I’m having a hard time thinking of a better infield.”

McLemore doesn’t have the speed of White, but he’s a more accomplished base stealer. “He’s faster, but I might be a little quicker,” McLemore said. “Devon doesn’t like to run as much as you’d think. I look more for the steal than he does. I love to run. As soon as I get on base, I think--Go!”

He is a less-accomplished switch-hitter than White, however. As Bavasi admits, “He has to work at hitting from the left side of the plate.”

Howell: The Angels’ third baseman of the future was unable to dislodge DeCinces in 1985 and ‘86, so Howell is now the Angels’ left fielder of the present.

He is a near-legend in Edmonton, where he batted .373 and .359 the last two seasons, but his career as an Angel, to date, has been forgettable. In 106 big-league games, Howell has a .236 batting average.

Bavasi said the difference can be attributed to the sporadic playing time Howell has received with the Angels.

“If he’s playing day in and day out, he’ll be a good hitter. You can count on that,” Bavasi said. “If he hits for power, I don’t know. But he’ll hit for average.”

To bulk up his power potential--he has hit just 33 homers in four professional seasons--Howell bulked up over the off-season with weights. Angel team therapist Roger Williams says Howell ranks second to downing as the strongest Angel. Through the first 24 games of sprint, Howell hit .291 with 2 home runs and 11 RBIs.

Wynegar: Wynegar figures to hit better than Boone, but then, who doesn’t? What Boone brings to a pitching staff--pitch selection, defensive finesse--is his value and Wynegar has been rough around the edges behind the plate. He began the spring throwing out just 6 of 15 base stealers.

Mauch will rely on a tag-team catching staff until Boone--if and when-- is re-signed. Darrell Miller led the team in hitting through most of the spring to earn one assignment, and Mauch could keep a third catcher, Jerry Narron, for April insurance.

Pluses for Wynegar: Mauch likes him (the two spent six years together in Minnesota), he has 11 years’ experience and he seems to be responding to a change of environment after last season’s nightmare with the Yankees.

Another newcomer, in effect, can be found at designated hitter, where Downing moves in to replace Jackson. Downing had one of his most productive power seasons in 1986--20 home runs, 95 RBIs-- and says the switch to DH will free him to concentrate fully on hitting.

“I used to spend 75% of my idle time thinking about defense and 25% hitting,” Downing said. “I’d much rather think 100% hitting. I have no problem being the DH. I relish the role.”

Downing and DeCinces (26 homers and 96 RBIs in ‘86) comprise the Angel power axis. Joyner had 22 home runs and 100 RBIs last year, but he was at 20 and 72 before the All-Star break. Bothered by a staph infection last fall and a sore hamstring this winter, Joyner enters this season as a question mark. He spent most of the spring hitting below .250.

The biggest question mark, though, remains the bullpen. The three top relief arms are attached to suspect shoulders.

Donnie Moore and Steward Cliburn are coming off season-long shoulder ailments. Moore began a weight-training program last winter and his shoulder, so far, has appeared strong. Cliburn underwent off-season surgery and his shoulder, too, looks well. His problem this spring has been elbow tendinitis, which he credits to rustiness.

Gary Lucas, who missed the first four months of last season with a bad back, developed shoulder trouble during camp and could begin his second straight Angel season on the disabled list.

That would make second-year man Chuck Finley the leading left-hander out of the bullpen and an open spot in short relief for rookie Willie Fraser, the hardest thrower in the Angels’ camp. The best bet for long reliever is Mike Cook.

So Mauch may have to do it again with a patchwork bullpen. He managed the Angels to 92 victories in 1986 while relying on such names as Doug Corbett, Terry Forster, T.R. Bryden and Todd Fischer. “If we handled last year,” Mauch said, “we can handle anything.”

He’ll also do it without a good portion of the power that drove the Angels to within a pitch of the World Series. Mauch doesn’t know if speed will produce the same results, but he does make one promise:

“If these kids are hitting, I think there’ll be a lot of dust flying around the infield. And if flying dust excites you like it does me, then we’ll be exciting.”

THE POWER OF THE PAST Since the 1979 season, the Angels have regularly ranked among division leaders in the number of home runs. . . .

1979 164 HOMERS 1980 106 HOMERS 1981 97 HOMERS 1982 186 HOMERS 1983 154 HOMERS 1984 150 HOMERS 1985 153 HOMERS 1986 167 HOMERS

SPEEDSTERS STEALING THE SHOW The Angels are beginning to leave their lead-footed past behind them. They ranked third in the division in steals in 1986.

1979 100 STEALS 1980 91 STEALS 1981 44 STEALS 1982 55 STEALS 1983 41 STEALS 1984 80 STEALS 1985 106 STEALS 1986 109 STEALS