POST ’87 SCRIPTS : A Former Slugger for Cleveland Turns Out to Be a Heavy Hitter in San Francisco Front Office, Too : Rosen and the Giants Trade Up, From Basement to Penthouse

Al Rosen, the president and general manager of the San Francisco Giants, has a unique way of dealing with stress. After watching his team play at Candlestick Park, Rosen returns to his office, takes a bat, or maybe just his foot, and knocks the bejeebers out of an inflatable punching bag.

“I got it good the other night,” Rosen said recently. “I felt a lot better, too.”

But, really, what does this guy have to be stressed-out about? In just two seasons with the Giants, Rosen and Manager Roger Craig, who also occasionally takes a few whacks at the bag, have transformed a team that lost 100 games into the National League West champions.

What is really impressive--or galling, if you’re the competition--is that Rosen and the Giants have made it look so easy.

The Cliff Notes version of the Giant resurrection might go something like this: Chant ‘Humm Baby’ every day, purge the deadwood from the roster, bring up kids from the minors, get on a party line with other general managers for trades and then make travel arrangements for St. Louis, where the playoffs open Tuesday night.

It did not unfold quite that simply, but the Giants’ success is proof that a good plan and good personnel can lead to prosperity.

But isn’t going from a dismal 62-100 record and last place in 1985 to 90-72 and first place in 1987 a little too much to ask?

“I can’t say I expected this this quick,” Rosen said. “The resurrection of a franchise that was downtrodden, laughed at and demoralized would seem to take longer. This year, we’ve got a chance to win it all. We had record attendance, we made a profit and hopefully are on our way to getting a new stadium downtown.

“All that’s happened in two years time. That’s not bad.”

Permit Rosen a few minutes to savor the success. But Rosen, who retains the conservative demeanor and dress (gray suit matching his gray hair) from his days as a stockbroker, does not gloat.

He credits the Giants’ revival to Craig, a strong candidate for the Manager of the Year Award, and to the Giant players.

Fact is, Rosen imported or shrewdly retained nearly all of the current Giants players. After Rosen took over as general manager in the final weeks of the 1985 season, 72 players have worn Giant uniforms. Rosen has added 12 players via trades in two seasons, and he has purged 34 players from the organization.

Rosen, criticized for not making significant trades during his five seasons as the Houston Astros’ general manager, nudged the Giants’ title hopes along with three major trades this summer, giving the club four quality pitchers. Each trade came when the Giants were sagging in the standings and needed a lift.

He talks about his summer acquisitions like a veteran retelling war stories.

The first and most publicized trade came on July 4, after the Giants lost 14 of 20 games and fell 5 games behind the West-leading Cincinnati Reds. A dejected Rosen went back to his hotel room in Chicago and called a friend, San Diego Padres’ General Manager Jack McKeon.

The result was a trade dubbed the “Chicago Seven.” The Giants acquired pitchers Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts and third baseman Kevin Mitchell from the Padres in exchange for pitchers Mark Davis, Mark Grant and Keith Comstock, and third baseman Chris Brown.

What the Giants received was a quality and experienced left-handed starter in Dravecky, a young, promising left-handed reliever in Lefferts and a reliable third baseman in Mitchell. They gave up two unproven pitchers and a disgruntled third baseman whom Rosen was trying to deal, anyway.

“I call that a dramatic deal because that was obviously the thing that set this club from being a .500 team to a club that really had a good shot to win,” Rosen said.

All summer, the Giants and Reds battled on the field and in negotiations for the rights to veteran Pittsburgh pitcher Rick Reuschel.

Rosen said his pursuit of Reuschel began shortly after the July 4 trade with San Diego. It took until the end of August for Rosen to finally snatch Reuschel away but, in the meantime, he also acquired Don Robinson, another experienced relief pitcher from the Pirates.

“I was after Reuschel the whole time, but I was told I could not get him,” said Rosen, who gave up minor league catcher Mickey Sasser and $50,000 to get Robinson. “I really had no interest in Don Robinson. All during that deal, I kept asking (Pirate General Manager) Syd Thrift about Reuschel.”

Persistence sometimes brings pennants--or at least divisional titles--and on Aug. 21, the Giants finally landed Reuschel. To do it, however, Rosen had to go against his basic rules of trading: Never give up talented youth for talented veterans.

“Syd wanted Jeff Robinson (a 26-year-old reliever), and I didn’t want to give him up,” Rosen said. “I called Syd back the next day and told him that if it’s going to take Robinson, let’s do the deal.

“That is the only place, I think, where we’ve dealt youth for experience. Some people said we gave up the future, and it’s true that Jeff is going to pitch a long time after Reuschel retires. (But) Reuschel was that important to us.”

Actually, all of the Giants’ deals have been important to their development.

The four pitchers acquired by Rosen have a combined 21-11 record with a 3.23 earned-run average since joining the Giants. Lefferts and Robinson have combined for 11 saves, and Dravecky and Reuschel have combined for seven complete games. The Giants are 18-8 in Reuschel and Dravecky’s starts.

All Mitchell has done is hit .367 since coming to San Francisco for the injury-prone Brown.

“If Al doesn’t make those deals, the Giants don’t win the pennant,” said Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, a friend of Rosen. “If they don’t give Al the executive of the year, they should get rid of the award.”

Rosen says he doesn’t care about that award. But, yeah, he admits it might silence many of his critics in Houston, where he took a lot of heat from fans and the media.

Some of it was justified. Mostly, Rosen was merely the recipient of fan abuse that also was directed at Astro owner John McMullen.

Rosen took the job in 1980, just after the Astros won the West title. But popular GM Tal Smith was fired for reasons that still are unclear, and Rosen inherited the resentment.

Said one former Rosen aide in Houston: “General Santa Anna received a friendlier welcome from the state of Texas than Al did.”

Rosen will only say that he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” in Houston. In actuality, Rosen made both good and bad deals with the Astros but was criticized most for not making enough changes.

Ironically, perhaps Rosen’s worst deal was trading Jeffrey Leonard and Dave Bergman to the Giants for Mike Ivie. But Rosen also acquired or signed Mike Scott, Glenn Davis, Kevin Bass, Jim Deshaies and Dickie Thon, among others. Those players were the core of the Astros’ 1986 West championship team.

Rosen will not criticize McMullen, even though McMullen’s meddling prevented Rosen from making many of the trades he sought. As Rosen told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1985: “When a man puts his money up, he has the right to do what he wants with it.”

Just after McMullen decided to fire Rosen in 1985, Giant owner Bob Lurie came calling. The Giants were staggering through the end of a 100-loss season. Players complained about everything from the weather at Candlestick Park to Lurie’s mismanagement. There was talk that the franchise would move to Denver. Lurie said he wanted to “fire himself” as the daily decision-maker.

Lurie sought out Rosen, a long-time friend. But friendship only goes so far, and Rosen wasn’t willing to come to such a bad situation unless certain assurances were made. Namely, he wanted total control over the baseball operations.

Said Lurie: “He was the one guy I could completely trust the franchise to.”

Said Rosen: “I never would have taken a (baseball) job if I didn’t have a free hand. I just didn’t want to have that kind of pressure again. There’s enough pressure sitting at this desk without having the pressure of having to justify every move.

“Often times, people in baseball will want to do something, but it’s pretty tough to explain to someone. I may see a different ballgame than you see. That doesn’t mean I’m right and you aren’t. That’s just the way I view things.”

What Rosen and Craig saw on their first day on the job, Sept. 18, 1985, wasn’t at all promising.

The Giants were a disaster.

“For two weeks, Roger and I didn’t see anything we liked,” Rosen said. “We decided that some radical moves had to be made about a number of things. Not only the quality of the players but the attitude.

“Some of the players were very disgruntled. They complained about playing for the Giants, complained about playing in Candlestick. They were looking for a way out, so we gave it to them. In the meantime, that gave us a lot of spots.”

Maybe one reason Rosen had the reputation as a hesitant trader was because he had quality--or, at least, adequate teams in the past.

But “Acquisition Al,” as the Giant publicity department refers to him, started his Giant reclamation project in the winter of 1985, trading backup catcher Alex Trevino to the Dodgers for outfielder Candy Maldonado, who has blossomed up north.

In spring training of 1986, Rosen signed free-agent pitcher Mike LaCoss and free-agent utility players Chris Speier and Harry Spilman. Infielder Matt Williams was the club’s first-round draft pick that season.

Those acquisitions, fused with a change of attitude, enabled the Giants to climb above .500 last season. Some of the tactics Rosen and Craig employed were to ban full-grown beards and prohibit players from complaining publicly about the hardships of playing in chilly, windy and often unbearable Candlestick Park.

“Al Rosen came in and shook things up,” Craig said. “We were not a disciplined team, so Al and I took some things away and gave some back to the guys. A lot of little things help you win.”

Added Rosen: “I wanted to build an esprit de corps , show them that wearing a Giant uniform was a prideful thing to do. We went so far as to bring in Willie Mays and Willie McCovey as evidence of what it meant to wear a Giant uniform.

“Roger made the big difference. He told the players in the first meeting we had that they were going to win and how it would be done. We listened. My role was to tell the players what I expected and let them get to know me. But players talk. They knew all about me.”

If you know much about Rosen’s background, you know not to cross him, or else be prepared for a battle.

As a four-time All Star and the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1953 with the Cleveland Indians, Rosen was known as a battler. That attribute helped him build a successful brokerage career in Cleveland, and it enabled him to survive two seasons with George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin in New York and five stormy seasons with McMullen in Houston.

Rosen’s reputation as a fighter dates to the summer of ‘42, when he was coming of age playing for a Class-D team in Thomasville, N.C.

A bench-clearing brawl erupted on the field--Rosen, apparently, was not the instigator--and eventually even some of the townfolk became involved.

Jimmy Cruzdis, Rosen’s coach then, told the San Francisco Chronicle the rest of the story:

“A guy ran up to Al, said, ‘I’m the police chief,’ and decks him. Al got up and said, ‘I’m Al Rosen,’ and decked the police chief. Four of my players, including Al, were hauled off in the paddy wagon.”

Rosen reportedly received a suspended sentence. But it was the beginning of a life sentence in baseball. He broke in with the Indians after World War II and held the American League record for most home runs by a rookie before the Oakland A’s Mark McGwire broke it this season. In 1953, Rosen barely missed the Triple Crown, finishing second in batting average but leading the league in home runs with 43 and runs batted in with 145.

Few of the current Giants--and many of today’s fans--don’t think of Al Rosen as a former player. And Rosen, who doesn’t like to live in the past, prefers that he should be judged, good or bad, for his record as a general manager.

Rosen wasn’t given much credit for the Yankees’ second consecutive World Series win in 1978, when they came from 14 games behind the Boston Red Sox to win. The team was pretty much set, but Rosen brought in Bob Lemon to manage after Billy Martin was fired.

In Houston, Rosen was caught in the McMullen-Smith feud and also was criticized for the trades he made and didn’t make. But the Astro club that won the National League West last season was assembled mostly by Rosen.

“I felt good about what they did,” Rosen said. “I think there was a misconception that I didn’t make deals. I acquired (Mike) Scott, (Kevin) Bass and Bob Knepper. There were a lot of deals that got overlooked because people felt bitter about John McMullen. Believe it or not, I enjoyed my years in Houston.”

But the Giants are Rosen’s club. Along with Craig, Rosen conceived, built, nurtured it and then sent it out conquer the other five West teams.

“To me, he’s our MVP,” Craig said. “It’s unbelievable, the trades he made.”

Without openly criticizing Steinbrenner (“I preferred being Steinbrenner’s friend than working for him”) or McMullen, Rosen says the autonomy Lurie has given him makes the job considerably easier.

“I’ve never had complete control before,” Rosen said. “Bob said, ‘You run it; it’s your club.’ Very few (general managers) have that. Ever. Of course, I tell Bob everything. Not one time, ever, has he questioned a trade or move I’ve made.

“When I made the decision to pay off Dan Driessen--it cost us $1.6 million--(Lurie) didn’t blink an eye. When I made the decision to cut loose Greg Minton, costing us $700,000, he didn’t blink an eye.

“When I wanted to make a deal, he never said, ‘What’s the salary?’ He works under the credo that the general manager has the responsibility and the owner has the authority. . . . If you don’t have total responsibility, sometimes you’ll condescend to the owners’ wishes.” Giving Rosen total power was the only way to get him to take the Giant job.

There certainly wasn’t much else attractive about it. And it wasn’t that Rosen didn’t have options, either. He was offered a job as American League president but turned it down. A friend in Houston wanted Rosen to become a partner in several business ventures.

“The minute Bob called me, I was ready,” Rosen said. “I had to have a free hand. I just didn’t want to have that kind of pressure anymore. There’s enough pressure in sitting behind this desk without having to justify and explain things all the time. Sometimes, you’d rather say the hell with it than put up with the talk.”

Rosen says he never really considered any other job. After all, what has happened to the Giants and the appreciation from the people in San Francisco cannot be found in the brokerage business.

“This is different,” Rosen said. “This is special. You set out to do something and, then all of a sudden, it happens. I’ve been telling people (lately) that we’ll win the Series. They thought I was crazy at a luncheon this past winter when I told this group that we’d win the West.”

Although he says he doesn’t want to look too far into the future, Rosen said he would like to stay around long enough to see the Giants win for a few years and move to a stadium downtown.

“I told Bob Lurie that I don’t need a contract,” Rosen said. “I’ll be here as long as he wants me. This is it for me. I’ve faced a lot of challenges. The Giants were a big one.”

But perhaps not the biggest reclamation project in baseball. The long-beleaguered Indians, Rosen’s former team, haven’t won a pennant since 1954.

Could this be Rosen’s next stop?

“No, no, no,” Rosen said, emphatically.

But . . .

“You know, there were times I always thought I’d like to go back to Cleveland,” Rosen said. “I love Cleveland. But this is it. I don’t want to move anymore. When I’m done here, I just want to sit back and enjoy it.”