An Unhappy Rick Dempsey Has Something to Prove

Rick Dempsey’s new life is a shambles. He calls a downtown Cleveland hotel home, he must fish clothing from luggage with “Baltimore Orioles” stamped on the side and he’s getting accustomed to teammates with names like Niekro and Carlton.

His wife Joanie and his two sons are back in Los Angeles until school is out, while back in Baltimore--yes, he still thinks about that, especially with his arrival there this week with the Cleveland Indians--new Oriole Rick Burleson is renting his home.

Except none of this was as big as the shock he suffered Friday when the Orioles, Dempsey’s former team, and the Indians, his new one, lined up for opening-day introductions.

Dempsey said his eyes filled with tears and his heart raced as he looked across at some of his best friends, especially Manager Cal Ripken Sr., who was “finally holding that job he’d waited years for.”

Then, aghast, he saw reliever Dave Schmidt wearing jersey No. 24, the number Dempsey wore for 11 sometimes glorious, sometimes frustrating seasons in Baltimore. Dempsey was incredulous. There had been talk the Orioles would have a day for him, might even retire his uniform number, and now here was a stranger wearing it.

“It hit me again, what a business it is,” he said.

In the six months since Dempsey last put on the Orioles uniform, his life has endured about a dozen major tremors. First came an announcement that the Orioles had traded for catcher Terry Kennedy and intended to start him in the 140 games that were Dempsey’s.

Then came word that they wanted Dempsey back only if he would play for considerably less than the $650,000 that was written into the option year of his contract. The club’s first offer was $250,000, and that was the beginning of long, bitter negotiations that would end with angry parting words and Dempsey’s search for a new team.

Now, Dempsey said he has many feelings for the Orioles, many of them unhappy. He said he remembers a September team meeting in which owner Edward Bennett Williams said he considered the Orioles “family,” and asked players to come to him if they had problems.

Dempsey said he wrote Williams a letter about his problems and got a three-line response. “Basically, it said, ‘Take your problems to Hank Peters,’ ” Dempsey said. “That was it.”

He also thinks about his last conversation with General Manager Peters and how he always had considered Peters a friend.

“But then he took the job away from me, period,” Dempsey said. “There was no discussion. He told me I couldn’t play and would have no chance to be the starter. Then he phoned and said I didn’t have the right attitude to play for the Orioles. If he meant accepting a backup role, he’s damn right.

“I have very mixed feelings about being here and I’m nervous a little bit. In that other clubhouse, they’d seen me do things like go into the grandstands to catch foul pops and block the plate and hit home runs. I was part of a team that was one of the best in baseball for seven years and really didn’t have to prove anything.

“Over here, I have to prove I belong, and that’s a weird feeling. I like it here because I’m wanted. This is a good team and a young team, and they needed me, which is a great feeling. But if I told you I didn’t miss the Orioles, I’d be lying. I got a little misty Friday when I looked over there.”

Peters said of Dempsey: “He was a great competitor for the Orioles for a long time. He was a big part of this community, but I think he just couldn’t accept that he wasn’t the player he once was.”

On a franchise that has had Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer and Eddie Murray and Frank Robinson, it’s possible Dempsey is the most popular Oriole ever.

He was never a .300 hitter, and outside of the 1983 World Series, never much of a run-producer. But in a city that was proud of pulling itself up by its bootstraps, Dempsey was like a favorite son.

He represented the kind of Baltimorean that Baltimoreans wanted to be. Not the crooked salesmen in the movie “Tin Men,” but the guy who fought and clawed to keep his job. At Memorial Stadium, grandmothers wore shirts that read, “Rick’s my boy.”

When Dempsey’s Oriole career ended last December, he received letters by the hundreds. They remain unopened.

“I just don’t feel up to reading them right now,” he said.

With a bubbly personality, he made music videos, led on-the-field sing-alongs and made dozens of public appearances on the Orioles’ behalf. He has a quick temper and seldom made an out when he didn’t slam some piece of equipment into something, but fans appreciated that, too.

People knew Dempsey cared, and near the end of last season, when things were going bad, Earl Weaver told a reporter, “When we get into the seventh and eighth innings, we’ve got only two players still rooting for the team.”

Weaver pointed to them--Murray and Dempsey.

Dempsey denies it now, but almost everyone who knew him thought his ultimate goal was to finish his career with the Orioles and someday manage them.

“I thought about it,” he said, “but it was never a real serious thing. It wasn’t my crusade or anything. My goal was to finish my career playing for Cal Ripken Sr. That was it.”

He might have succeeded if the Orioles hadn’t fallen apart the last two years. When Peters began to look for ways to improve the team, he couldn’t help but notice that Dempsey hit .175 against right-handed pitching and .132 with runners in scoring position (fourth-lowest in the American League).

What’s more, at 37, his once-formidable throwing arm was just a memory. He threw out only 29% of opposing base runners; suddenly, the weaknesses in his game became more noticeable. When Dempsey threw everyone out and the Orioles were piling up 95-victory seasons, no one cared much that he consistently left runners in scoring position or that pitchers thought he was absent-minded behind the plate.

When the San Diego Padres phoned offering Kennedy for pitcher Storm Davis, that was it.

“I don’t believe my skills have diminished that much,” Dempsey said. “I did have a sore arm the last couple of years, but our pitchers were so bad at holding runners on, they never gave me a chance. I think it wasn’t fair for the Orioles to get down on me without considering that stuff. I’m going to surprise them. I’ve got a lot more pride than they think and a lot more baseball left in me.”

He has moved into perhaps the perfect situation with the Indians. He’ll start about 60% of the time--he won’t catch knuckleballers Phil Niekro and Tom Candiotti--for a team that doesn’t need a bat but a first-rate receiver, which Dempsey still is.

A year ago, Cleveland’s Andy Allanson led AL catchers with 20 errors and had 12 passed balls. Having put together an outstanding offense and a decent pitching staff, the Indians thought Dempsey might make them a championship-caliber team.

“Everything is going to work out for the best,” Dempsey said. “I had a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of days when I couldn’t believe it was over. But I see now I’m going to keep my head above water.”

Of his return to Memorial Stadium with the Indians, he said, “It’ll be interesting. I’m sure there’ll be some fan reaction. But you know, I’ll be wanting to kick their tails.”