Former Sportswriter Goes From Covering the Team to, Suddenly, Running the Show : FRED CLAIRE

Even back when he was just another sportswriter pounding the Dodger beat for a living, Fred Claire seemed unalterably destined to become one of the people he wrote about.

In fact, if you want to trace the genesis of an ascent that has seen Claire become the second-most-powerful man in the Dodgers’ organization, behind owner Peter O’Malley, it might be that late March morning in 1969 when Claire was covering spring training for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Claire and his press-box cohorts had boarded the team bus bound for Orlando, Fla., when Claire was called back outside by the manager of the Dodgers’ Triple-A team in Spokane, Wash., a guy named Tom Lasorda. A few nights earlier, after both had finished work, Claire had asked Lasorda if he could work out with his Spokane team on a slow day.

Lasorda, however, told Claire that morning he wanted him in the lineup when Spokane played Bakersfield, another Dodger affiliate. Claire entered in the third inning, replacing Bobby Valentine at shortstop, and Lasorda told spectators that this kid was just acquired from the Angels. There was some truth to it. Claire had covered the Angels the previous season.

After striking out twice, Claire came to bat with a runner, Steve Sogge, at third and two outs in a tied game. But he lined weakly to first base. Lasorda, for some reason, never asked Claire to suit up again.

Proving that the pen is mightier than the bat, Claire filed this story for the next morning’s newspaper:

S cribe Blows Chance

to Wow Dodger Brass

VERO BEACH--Dear Boss:

I didn’t cover Friday’s game between the Dodgers and Minnesota at Orlando. You’re probably not going to believe it, but I was playing shortstop for Spokane . . .

It’s not much consolation, but if I tell the story often enough I may score Sogge yet.

--Fred Claire, Staff Writer

Stability and forward-thinking have long been the foundation of the Dodger organization, considered one of baseball’s best. But all it took was one interview to shake up the club’s corporate structure.

Al Campanis, the vice president of player personnel, questioned the inherent abilities of blacks to manage major league teams, saying they neither had the “necessities” nor were willing to “pay the dues.”

Two days later, amid pressure from civic groups, politicians and media coverage, Campanis, 70, was fired from a job he held since 1969 and from an organization for which he had worked for 46 years.

Claire, who did not accompany the Dodgers to Houston to open the season, did not watch Campanis’ nationally televised interview. As executive vice president, Claire technically ranked ahead of Campanis on the Dodger front-office marquee. But Claire’s duties were almost entirely administrative, while O’Malley and Campanis made the high-profile decisions on player moves.

Now, though, O’Malley was on the phone from Houston offering Campanis’ job to a surprised Claire, who accepted. Claire may or may not have aspired for this job--he won’t say, now--but he took it.

“My main concern was the company,” Claire said. “What was happening was just complete turmoil. Certainly, it was the most unfortunate thing that happened to us. Unfortunate would be my best summation.”

One man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity, and it made a steady, two-decade climb to power nearly complete for Claire, who unblushingly says he’d like to keep the job.

That, of course, is the intrigue encircling Chavez Ravine these days.

Will Claire remain the club’s top decision-maker? Or will Claire return to his administrative duties and be replaced by Lasorda, who has expressed a desire to move into the front office?

At the time of Campanis’ firing, O’Malley said Claire had the job “for the time being.” O’Malley has not wavered since, saying the club is constantly evaluating its personnel, both players and front office.

It still may be too early to know whether Claire has the necessities for the job.

His only professional playing experience was that one inauspicious spring training game in 1969. Other than that, Claire didn’t make it past the Torrance High School junior varsity team.

But his background in baseball covers just about every other non-playing, scouting or managing position. He wrote about baseball, served as the Dodgers’ public relations director and vice president of promotions before becoming executive vice president in 1982.

This position, however, is totally different from any other he has held. It’s one thing to write about or promote the Dodgers, quite another to chart the team’s future.

Claire lacks experience, but he says he has compensated by regularly consulting with Lasorda, Bill Schweppe, vice president of minor league operations, and the Dodgers’ stable of scouts and advisers.

But, as Claire proclaimed on his first day on the job, it’s his job and his signature will be stamped on every decision.

“I’ve been with the Dodgers for almost 20 years, so I have a good foundation for knowing what takes place here as related to the team and all other aspects,” Claire said.

“I’ve had the advantage in the past of dealing with all the elements involved in this job. I’ve known every player we’ve had here in 20 years, I’ve dealt with the players’ representatives. I have an understanding of baseball’s overall labor standpoint.

“Because baseball has changed so much, the job of a ‘general manager’ has changed drastically. I have a feel for the business areas that have become so important.”

It is the question of Claire’s baseball knowledge that is constantly brought up.

Although Campanis was often criticized for making questionable trades and touting some players over others, he was drawing on years of first-hand baseball experience in making his decisions. Claire says he will draw on the experience of his colleagues as well as knowledge gleaned from years of talking baseball with Campanis and others. Still, inside and outside the clubhouse, people are wondering about the course Claire will chart for the team’s future.

“He may not know as much as Campanis and he might make some mistakes for a while, but we all do,” one veteran Dodger player said. “Campanis had his faults, but he knew the game. I have no idea what to expect now.”

Dodger players are beginning to find out. Last Friday, Claire completed his first major trade, sending reliever Tom Niedenfuer to the Baltimore Orioles for center fielder John Shelby and left-handed reliever Brad Havens, both of whom had been demoted to the minor leagues.

The trade was criticized by some in the media and questioned by others in baseball. Niedenfuer had struggled the last two seasons, but he ranked fourth on the Dodgers’ all-time save list. The thinking was that the Dodgers could have acquired something more than two minor leaguers for Niedenfuer.

But Claire and his team of scouts are convinced that Shelby, who had played with the Orioles since 1983 before recently being sent down, is a good player.

“Fred had me follow him around for two weeks, every game he played,” Mel Didier, a Dodger scout, said. “It was a thorough job. Fred said he wanted to do a lot of back-tracking and checking on him. Fred liked him, and I think he’s got all the tools.”

There really has been no grace period for Claire. Two days after the Niedenfuer trade, disgruntled third baseman Bill Madlock demanded to be traded. Claire says he is in the process of doing that.

His first significant move, coming two days into the job, was signing utility infielder-outfielder Mickey Hatcher, who had been released by the Minnesota Twins. The same day, his second on the job, Claire solved the problem of an 11-man pitching staff by releasing veteran Jerry Reuss, a decision that Campanis had delayed for a week.

Both moves are in harmony with Lasorda’s views on the team, but Claire insists he made the decisions after considering the opinions of his subordinates.

“That talk (of a lack of baseball background) doesn’t bother me, because I’ll ultimately be judged in terms of performance,” Claire said. “I’m certainly not uncomfortable with it. There were hundreds of days when I’d have lunch with Bill (Schweppe) and Al. I’d spend hours talking about the game with them. I don’t mind saying I learned a lot from Al.”

Front Office Should Attempt

to Perform as Well as Dodgers

By Fred Claire, Staff Writer

HOUSTON--The Dodger organization didn’t enjoy the best of communication Friday. The words attributed to club officials in Los Angeles didn’t match up with what the Dodgers were saying here.

Fortunately, for the Dodgers, the players made better contact as they blasted out a dozen hits in the Astrodome to turn out the lights on the Astros, 9-3 . . .

In an unusual display of strong-arm management tactics, Al Campanis literally wrestled relief pitcher Ken Howell to the ground before a workout one spring morning.

Players squawked and the media gawked as the 70-year-old Campanis playfully pinned the 26-year-old Howell, who was involved in a contract dispute at the time. Victorious, the gregarious Campanis was ready to take on all challengers.

There will be no such rematch between management and players under the new regime.

“If Fred were to do that, it would make banner headlines,” Howell said, laughing.

Or, as pitcher Orel Hershiser said: “Fred would more likely want to beat you on the tennis court.”

It is unfair to compare Campanis and Claire, who come from different backgrounds and eras. But the contrasts are so stark, from personality to ideologies to wardrobe, that comparisons are unavoidable.

Campanis is baseball tradition personified. Opinionated and outgoing, Campanis would regale anyone who requested an audience with old stories that inevitably would include sage advice from Branch Rickey, his former boss and father confessor.

Campanis was sardonically nicknamed The Chief by a sportswriter--no, not Claire--and he liked it. Not that he dressed like a boss. Campanis favored the same blue cap and windbreaker, or the alternative rumpled suit and splotchy tie. In either attire, he sometimes would show players proper sliding technique or participate in hi-jinks such as wrestling on the field.

Claire, on the other hand, almost could pass for an O’Malley clone. Restrained and self-effacing, the trim, silver-haired Claire is supremely careful about what he says, to the point where his comments could be described as colorless.

His wardrobe, if not colorless, mostly is corporate blue and gray on weekdays and yacht-club casual on weekends. One widely told Claire story is that, years ago at a luncheon, the dapper Cary Grant asked Claire where he bought his clothes.

The story may be apocryphal, but instructive as all apocryphal stories can be.

Prudence has been Claire’s major attribute since joining the Dodgers as public relations director late in the 1969 season.

“Fred isn’t one to make rushed decisions,” said Steve Brener, the Dodgers’ public relations director. “He takes everything in. He listens and is a great evaluator of personnel. He’s taken to this job. He’s reading books like (Elias’) Baseball Analyst and studying media guides from every team, talking to all our scouts. He’s taking in the big picture.”

Claire, who has delegated most of his administrative duties to other departments, does not want to make it seem like he’s cramming for a test, even if that is the case.

“I want to know as much as I can know about our team,” Claire said. “I know what’s going on. I can evaluate. I’ve had almost every job in baseball, including writing about it.”

Willie D. Out

3-4 Weeks!

By Fred Claire, Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH--Dodger center fielder Willie Davis has a hairline fracture of the humerus bone. And there’s nothing humorous about it to Willie . . .

When Claire graduated from San Jose State in 1957 with a journalism degree, he didn’t know whether he wanted to be the next Red Smith or Red Patterson.

All he wanted was a job.

“I graduated on a Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning I had a job at the Whittier News,” Claire said. “I was real happy to have it, too.”

Happy, but not content.

Claire, a Reds fan as a child growing up 50 miles outside Cincinnati, wanted to be involved with baseball in some way. He told colleagues both at the Whittier News and later at the Pomona Progress-Bulletin, where he was sports editor for nine years, that he wanted to be a baseball beat writer. “Fred was a darn good writer,” said Jerry Miles, a colleague of Claire’s at the Progress-Bulletin who has worked for years at the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and now is executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Assn. “I’m not surprised that Fred made it, knowing how hard he works.

“But to say that we knew then he’d be running the Dodgers, no way. It’s really strange how things worked out.”

Indeed, Claire has come a long way from the guy who used to play baseball with rubber erasers and 18-inch rulers after deadline on Friday nights in Pomona.

That was long ago, though, and it seems as though Claire is trying to disown his sportswriting roots. And now that he finds himself the subject of interviews, Claire is especially tight-lipped.

He has already informed Dodger beat writers that he will not talk about trade rumors, even if it is only to deny talks have taken place. “I don’t want to put any part of my life behind me, but I’ve invested 20 years with the Dodgers,” Claire said. “So, I don’t think the headline should be, ‘Former Sportswriter Makes Good.’ I loved newspaper work. I like the creative aspect. You go home and you’re work is wrapped up in a rubber band. That’s immediate results in terms of what’s happening that day.

“It’s kind of like what happens here (at a Dodger game). It’s there to be immediately judged, and you can always improve on your product.”

Dodgers Happy With Their Hustler

By Fred Claire, Staff Writer

VERO BEACH--Tommy Lasorda is a man who truly loves the game of baseball. When he’s around baseball people he seldom stops talking. And he’s around baseball people most of the time . . .

Tommy is a guy who never gives up. He’s on his way back up to the big leagues. And when he gets there he may be the man in charge--the manager. There are those who say talkative Tommy Lasorda is being groomed as the next Dodger manager . . .

The Dodger organization, which hasn’t made many major mistakes over the years, may be guilty of poor grooming in recent years.

When Schweppe, 73, announced his retirement, effective at the end of the season, the Dodgers had no one in the organization to replace him. They currently are searching for a replacement.

Many just assumed that Lasorda, 59, not Claire, was being groomed to eventually replace Campanis, who said in spring training he had no plans to retire in the near future. All that changed after Campanis’ infamous television interview, and Claire has leaped ahead of Lasorda.

But speculation persists that Lasorda eventually will be Campanis’ permanent replacement, that Claire is merely a caretaker until either the end of this season or the end of 1988, when Lasorda’s managerial contract expires. Others speculate that Lasorda will move to a front-office job for another team if not eventually made the Dodger vice president.

“I’ve always said I would like to be a general manager some day,” said Lasorda, who will not elaborate further on the subject.

Claire has several advantages though:

--He already has the job.

--What he lacks in long-time baseball knowledge he makes up in knowing all aspects of baseball’s business end, which is important to O’Malley.

Claire said he does not approach the job as temporary, but he isn’t looking too far ahead, either.

“I’ve always approached my jobs from that standpoint--never look ahead, just do the job as well as you possibly can,” Claire said. “It was the same thing when I a writer and P.R. director, vice president of promotions . . .

“Peter hasn’t talked to me about it, and there’s no reason to right now. I’ll do it until he says don’t do it anymore. Peter is the president of this company. If he says there is a better man for this job, fine.”

Until that happens, Claire will continue to be the author of the Dodgers’ future.

Dodgers Will Be

Best In West--Claire

By Fred Claire, Staff Writer

The St. Louis Cardinals will run away with the East title in the National League, and the Dodgers will win a wild West scramble. That’s the view from here in the first divisional races of the National League, which now is a bulky 12 teams.

The wild West is anybody’s guess, but if it’s pitching that wins games, the Dodgers should w in the title . . .