Baseball / Ross Newhan : Saberhagen May Be Shut Out of an All-Star Game Appearance

He is 14-2, baseball’s best pitcher over the first half of the 1987 season, but it seems unlikely that he will start or relieve in the July 14 All-Star game at Oakland.

In fact, there’s even the possibility that Bret Saberhagen may not be chosen for the American League staff.

This is the situation: The Kansas City Royals’ ace is scheduled to go after his 15th win Tuesday night in Cleveland, then make his final start of the first half Sunday in Toronto, two days before the All-Star game.

Saberhagen has pitched 10 complete games and gone at least seven innings in all but one of his 16 starts, so it seems unlikely that his Sunday start will be short enough to allow him to bounce back Tuesday.

The league, in the meantime, apparently wants eight or nine pitchers who are prepared to contribute.

Said Bobby Brown, the league president: “Any time you have a pitcher who is a starter and is scheduled to pitch Sunday, you have to think he may go nine innings. You have to take into consideration the chances of his being any good for you on Tuesday are limited. Your pitching choices are optional. What you don’t want is players who can’t play.”

Brown and his All-Star manager, John McNamara of the Boston Red Sox, will pick the staff with recommendations from the other managers. Saberhagen opposes a change in his Kansas City schedule that would facilitate his employment in the All-Star game.

“I’m not going to adjust my season for the All-Star game,” he said. “The season comes first. The honor is making the team itself. Whether I start, relieve or don’t even pitch doesn’t matter at all.”

And in the unlikely event that the league pulls an unpardonable gaffe and doesn’t select him, ignoring his remarkable first half? “If I don’t make it this year,” he said, “well, let’s say I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

In 1985, in fact, Saberhagen was 10-4 with a 2.78 earned-run average at the break and didn’t make it. Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson’s All-Star staff included three of his own Detroit pitchers: Jack Morris, Dan Petry and Willie Hernandez.

“I thought I should have made it that year, but Sparky decided to take a few of his guys and a few from Toronto instead,” Saberhagen said. “Who knows what he thought, but I wasn’t real disappointed.”

Morris, who is 12-3 and makes his final first-half start Thursday night against the Angels in Anaheim, figures to start the 1987 game on a normal four days’ rest.

“There ain’t no way I should start,” Morris said. “Saberhagen deserves to start. Fourteen and two and he’s not going to pitch? C’mon.”

Are the Dodgers destined to blow the estimated $150,000 bonuses they gave their No. 1 selections in each of the last two drafts?

Thomas White, their No. 1 pick in 1986, is on the club’s suspended list. The Dodgers haven’t announced it, but the 18-year-old outfielder left their Bakersfield farm club last week to return to his home in Loudon, Tenn., and weigh a football offer from the University of Kentucky.

The Dodgers hope it’s only a case of homesickness and have offered White a chance to move to their Vero Beach, Fla., team, considerably closer to Loudon.

Pitcher Dan Opperman, their No. 1 pick in 1987, joined the Dodgers’ rookie league team in Great Falls, Mont., only to experience a recurrence of the elbow problem that plagued his senior season at Las Vegas Valley High, a problem the Dodgers were aware of before drafting him. Opperman will not be allowed to pitch for six weeks while being examined regularly by Dr. Frank Jobe.

On the recent report that he may eventually move to the Philadelphia Phillies as manager or manager-general manager, Tom Lasorda, the former resident of Norristown, Pa., raised his voice and said:

“I traded Philadelphia for California 24 years ago. What makes you think I’d trade California for Philadelphia now? Do you think I’m (bleeping) nuts?”

It had been speculated that Reggie Jackson might choose the All-Star forum to announce a midseason retirement, closing out a struggling season. He has decided against that. Seven homers and 19 runs batted in over his last 21 games are one factor. The A’s pleas are another.

“I’m not going to retire at the All-Star break, no way,” he said. “I thought about it a lot because I was a bum, I stunk. But (Manager) Tony LaRussa, the coaches and a lot of the players said, ‘We need you here, we don’t care if you hit nothing, we need you here.’ They all went out of their way to take me aside to tell me these things.”

Jackson seems appreciative but not really thrilled by the efforts of close friend McNamara to have him appointed to the All-Star team in an honorary or playing capacity so that he can make a farewell appearance.

“Yeah, I’d go, but I’ve told John that it really isn’t necessary, that I don’t need it to round out my career,” Jackson said.

--New York Mets center fielder Mookie Wilson asks to be traded because he’s dissatisfied sharing center field with Len Dykstra.

--Darryl Strawberry, after several days of sharp exchanges with teammates who criticized him for missing two games against the St. Louis Cardinals because of a gland infection and low-grade fever, asks to be traded, strengthening this column’s recent view that the Mets and Dodgers will ultimately renew talks involving Strawberry and Mike Marshall.

--Reliever Jesse Orosco, unhappy about his irregular employment, says he feels like a piece of meat on the mound, has no idea of what he’s doing out there and feels it boils down to a contract situation, which is a suspect conclusion. Orosco needs only eight more appearances to automatically qualify for a $1-million salary next year and is certain to get it.

The saddest story of the baseball summer--aside from the comments by Al Campanis and his ensuing firing--is the continued deterioration of the Baltimore Orioles. No organization produced better pitching over a longer period. Now?

The Orioles were 5-23 in June, their worst month ever. The pitchers had a 6.20 ERA and gave up 50 homers in the 28 games, including seven by Tom Niedenfuer in his first 19 innings with the team. The current pace projects to a major league record of 242 homers.

Said third baseman Ray Knight: “This is the worst major league pitching I’ve ever been around. We’re out there still trying, but it’s tough when you’re down, 4-0, every night.”

How big is Terry Forster, now pitching for the Minnesota Twins’ Portland Ore., farm team? Forster was leaving the clubhouse alone the other night when spotted by Manager Charlie Manuel, who yelled: “Where are you guys going?”

Said farm director Jim Rantz: “Terry says he weighs 247, but nobody can get him on a scale. I’d guess he weighs about 260 with most of the bulk between his belly and chest.”

The Seattle Mariners are 21-16 on the road and only 19-24 at home, where their average attendance (14,495) is the lowest in the American League.

Manager Dick Williams reflected on the poor home record and said: “We can’t blame the fans. We don’t have any.”

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth may not like it, but the Chicago Cubs’ Gene Michael is one of the few managers who still encourages clubhouse card playing.

“It puts gamble into their heart,” Michael said with a poker face. “They’re not afraid to take risks. It transfers to the field. I really believe that.”

Swept by the hapless Chicago White Sox in a three-game series that ended Wednesday with a 12-3 rout, A’s third baseman Carney Lansford shook his head, called it embarrassing and said: “The White Sox have got three good players and that’s it.”

Lansford was apparently alluding to Harold Baines, Ozzie Guillen and Greg Walker, but the normally mild-mannered Lansford was in such a sour mood that A’s writers didn’t ask him. He even went on to attack teammate Jose Rijo for his continued failure to challenge hitters with his 90 m.p.h.-plus fastball.

“He’s got to stop nibbling,” Lansford said. “It’s frustrating to sit there and watch that trash.”

The Cubs completed a 3-6 trip to New York, Pittsburgh and Montreal during which Andre Dawson, Jody Davis and Keith Moreland, the heart of their lineup, hit a combined .213 and drove in six runs. Dawson hasn’t hit a home run since June 7.

Said club president Dallas Green, dissatisfied with the attitude: “When we lose a game, we look flatter than we are. That bothers me. Let’s forget the cool. Let’s forget the macho . Let’s play team baseball.”

Who knows what it means, but the Cubs’ Lester Lancaster became the fourth rookie pitcher to register his first major league victory against the Montreal Expos this season. The others: Cincinnati’s Bill Landrum, Pittsburgh’s Mike Dunne and Philadelphia’s Michael Jackson.

Now that he has been hit by more pitches than any batter in history, Don Baylor says he holds malice toward only one pitcher: John Denny.

“He was a headhunter,” Baylor said. “He was one of those guys I’d like to get--off the field or on. It doesn’t matter. He’s one of the guys who deliberately tried to hurt people.”

Baseball Notes The management of the Cleveland Indians, having previously done nothing to strengthen their pitiful pitching, has made pitching coach Jack Aker the scapegoat for a 5.34 ERA, moving him into player development and scouting while appointing Steve Comer as the new pitching coach. . . . The continued good hitting of Kevin Seitzer and the poor hitting of Steve Balboni has prompted Kansas City to put George Brett at first and Seitzer at third on a full-time basis. . . . A recent four-game series between Bend (Ore.) and Boise (Ida.) of the Class-A Northwest League is believed to have represented a historical milestone in organized baseball, the first meeting of two black managers: Mel Roberts of Bend and Derrel Thomas of Boise. . . . Noting a decline in the stock market, Dave Winfield said: “Platinum’s down. My glove isn’t worth as much now.”