Baseball : Mattingly Souring on Big Apple After Boss’ Barbs

There was a period in which it seemed that Don Mattingly would be the first New York Yankee to escape the verbal blasts that George Steinbrenner has laid on everyone--from his general managers to bat boys--since becoming the club’s owner.

Mattingly, after all, was the comparatively quiet Indianan, the quintessential team man, the best all-around player in the American League and the ultimate heir to Lou Gehrig’s legacy.

Forget all that.

Steinbrenner has been going at Mattingly, and Mattingly has been going at Steinbrenner.

It even reached the point the other day that Mattingly predicted he will not end his career with the Yankees, prompting people who know him to say that he would probably like to leave after this season.

“For some reason, I just don’t think it’s going to work out,” Mattingly said of his relationship with the Yankees and Steinbrenner. “I think the owner will run me out of New York before it gets too late there.”

Responded Steinbrenner: “It won’t be the end of the Yankees if and when Don Mattingly leaves. If he thinks he’s going to end up somewhere else, he might be right. I don’t know, but it doesn’t bother me what he says. I’m not offended by that, and I hope he doesn’t think he’s threatening me. I’m not threatened. I have the say of who goes and when he goes and where he goes until he’s eligible to be a free agent.”

Mattingly won’t be a free agent until after the 1989 season, but Steinbrenner has said he will trade any player who wants out. Mattingly, however, presents a problem. What do you get in return for the league’s best player? Who can take on a salary, $1.975 million, that figures to keep climbing?

What triggered all this?

Sources close to the Yankees cite the challenging sarcasm with which Steinbrenner responded to Mattingly’s victory in salary arbitration, the constant roster upheavals that Mattingly feels has destroyed team chemistry and stability, the owner’s tendency to storm the clubhouse and rip players after defeats, and Steinbrenner’s absurd contention that the attention given Mattingly’s recent home run streak was a distraction to the club, as if Mattingly should have stopped hitting homers.

“I’ve got a lot to say but I’m not going to say it until this (the division race) is over,” Mattingly said. “I don’t want to interfere with the club. I don’t want to mess myself up. It wouldn’t do the club or me any good now for me to say what I feel. Once this year is over, I’ll have something to say.”

Is Steinbrenner threatened? Not in the least.

He said that Mattingly has become “the typical baseball player” and is no longer the “innocent young man” who came to New York.

“He said he was going to concentrate on baseball and not get into books and commercials,” Steinbrenner said. “But he’s like the other guys. I’m not saying he’s wrong, but he’s out to make a buck outside baseball just like a lot of players, when he’s making a lot just to play.”

Steinbrenner added that Mattingly’s recent remarks probably stemmed from the frustration of inconsistent play.

Snapped Mattingly: “Frustration? What does he know? He never played the game.”

Columnist Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, apparently agreeing with many of the Yankees, wrote an open letter to Steinbrenner in which he suggested that the owner stay out of the clubhouse and leave the roster alone. The headline read: Lupica to Boss: Butt Out.

Players clipped the “Butt Out” portion and affixed it to the clubhouse door.

Did Steinbrenner get the message?

Sort of. He stayed out of the clubhouse after losses to Cleveland Monday and Tuesday, but told reporters: “We’re close to falling apart. Lou better shake things up.”

Manager Lou Piniella did hold a clubhouse meeting before Wednesday’s victory over the Indians, but it wasn’t to shake up his players as much as to tell them to relax and enjoy the division title race.

Dave Winfield, another of Steinbrenner’s recent targets, applauded the message.

“We don’t have a lot of players who have been through it before,” he said. “We’re learning. So maybe we won’t run away with it. We’ll still win it.”

On Saturday, Steinbrenner said he and Manager Lou Piniella aren’t speaking and announced that he might leave the club alone for the remainder of the season.

Steinbrenner, in a statement issued by the Yankees, also confirmed published reports that he had told Piniella and Yankee General Manager Woody Woodward not to discuss bringing up a new catcher until the owner had first talked with Piniella.

Steinbrenner was irked that the manager was unavailable for a pre-scheduled telephone call last Tuesday in Cleveland.

“I don’t know of too many guys--even sportswriters--who if their boss told them to be available for a call at a certain time, wouldn’t be there,” Steinbrenner said in the release. “That type of behavior . . . won’t be tolerated by the Yankees, either!”

Steinbrenner also said he would not get so involved in the running of the team.

“I’ve got enough other things to do,” he said. “We’ll just try it that way, and we’ll see how well they do.

“They think they can do better that way, that’s just fine. I’ll keep the whole month of October open anxiously awaiting the World Series at Yankee Stadium. They can put up or shut up. Maybe it’s about time for it.”

Steinbrenner and Piniella disagreed about the Yankees acquiring catcher Mark Salas in a trade with the Minnesota Twins for pitcher Joe Niekro, but the owner said he went along with the deal.

The owner said that he and Piniella had a difference of opinion regarding whether to put outfielder Rickey Henderson on the disabled list because of a hamstring injury. They also disagreed about the outfielder’s willingness to play. Steinbrenner said the manager felt that Henderson was malingering.

Phil Niekro saw nothing funny about brother Joe’s ejection for allegedly scuffing baseballs with the emery board, sandpaper or both Monday night in Anaheim.

“This is nothing to laugh about,” the elder Niekro said. “You’re talking about the whole Niekro name.”

The Niekro who has brought most of the fame to the name said that he, too, has carried an emery board to the mound but most often leaves it in the dugout, where he prepares his finger tips and nails for throwing the knuckler.

How does a man scuff baseballs with an emery board that’s in his hip pocket?

“You’d have to be a magician to do that,” Niekro said. “It’s almost like (it was) a setup.”

Phil Niekro had hoped to be with Joe Monday night in Anaheim. He had hoped to be traded to the Twins but lost out to Steve Carlton. He still hopes to be traded to a contender for the stretch run.

“No matter how good I pitch here, it’s not going to matter,” he said of the Cleveland Indians, who are buried deep in the AL East. “I told them (before the season started) that if this club was out of it and if there was a chance to move me, to do it. They know how I feel. I know I probably won’t come back here next year and that way they won’t get anything. This way, they could maybe get a prospect.”

Niekro is 7-11 with a 5.88 earned-run average. He is 48 years old and in his 23rd major league season but still carries the dreams of youth.

“Physically, I feel great,” he said. “My arm’s as good as it’s ever been. Mentally it’s tough. Watching a team that’s not going anywhere, that’s the tough part.

“The World Series goal has always been there. It’s still something I’d like to give my parents. It’s the ultimate goal players have, and the goal their parents have.”

Sid Fernandez became the seventh New York Mets pitcher, the sixth starter and the fourth member of last year’s rotation to be put on the disabled list this year when he was sidelined Tuesday night by an irritated tendon in his left shoulder.

The condition is not thought to be serious and should not impede a charge that has brought the Mets to within 4 1/2 games of the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Most of the guys feel we’re going to win it now,” Met third baseman Howard Johnson said.

Added catcher Gary Carter: “It makes believers out of you to see that the team that was running away with it can be beaten and is looking over its shoulder.”

The Cardinals may not be looking over their shoulders as much as looking for a return to health of Jack Clark, who suffered rib injuries against the Mets 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, the Mets were averaging 6.2 runs a game over their last nine through Thursday and had a 13-4 record since Darryl Strawberry was moved to fourth and Carter was dropped to sixth in the order.

They also had optimistic news about left-handed pitcher Bobby Ojeda, who was expected to miss the entire season after having surgery to repair a nerve in his left elbow May 11. Ojeda is throwing again and expects to pitch competitively by the end of the month.

After being accused of using a corked bat by Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog, Howard Johnson moved on to Montreal, covered one of his bats with wine corks and left it in the visitors’ clubhouse for the Cardinals, who were checking in next.

Bill Dawley, who yielded the homer by Johnson that resulted in Herzog’s charge, didn’t think it was funny.

“The next time I see him, I’m going to drill him,” Dawley said of Johnson.

Nolan Ryan’s frustrating winless streak continues. After a no-decision Saturday night against the San Diego Padres, he is 0-8 and without a victory in his last 10 starts since June 12, his record having disintegrated to 4-13 despite an excellent ERA of 3.04.

Ryan allowed more than three earned runs in just 3 of 23 starts, but his Houston Astros had averaged just 1.9 runs a game in his 13 losses.

“I’ve never seen anyone pitch so well for so long without having a win,” Manager Hal Lanier said.

Teammate Bob Knepper, by contrast, can’t claim nonsupport for his 4-12 record and 5.99 ERA. The Astros are befuddled by Knepper’s reliance on a sinker rather than his fastball. He and Ryan were a combined 29-20 last year. This season, they’re 8-25.

“I know we don’t have a chance of winning our division with one win a month from those two,” Lanier said.

Jack Morris, who loves Detroit and its fans, has failed in an attempt to negotiate a multiyear contract with the Tigers. All 26 clubs are adhering to an advisory from their Player Relations Committee that they refrain from negotiating contracts during the season. Morris is likely to try free agency again.

“There’s a very good chance George can talk to me again this winter,” he said, referring to Steinbrenner, who had so much pitching, of course, that he rejected the winningest pitcher of the ‘80s when he came calling last December.