DODGERS: A TEAM IN TRANSITION OR TURMOIL? : Hawkins Starts Job Amid Uncertainty

Tommy Hawkins, new vice president of communications for the Dodgers, reflected on his various pursuits and professions and described himself as a “cosmic functionary, a person you don’t confine or censor, a doer, a workaholic.”

The galactic simile seems appropriate, since the Dodger front office has experienced a Big Bang of sorts.

“These are very tumultuous times,” one club executive said.

The resignation of publicity director Steve Brener Tuesday was the latest in a series of shock waves that started last April when Al Campanis, the vice president of player personnel, was fired for saying on ABC’s “Night- line” that blacks may lack the “necessities” to handle management positions in the major leagues.

Fred Claire, who spent 18 years with the Dodgers in publicity, marketing and business, ultimately replaced Campanis, amid speculation that Manager Tom Lasorda wanted it and might leave if he didn’t get it. Lasorda, with one more year on his contract, remained as manager.

Farm director Bill Schweppe, who announced in the spring that he would retire at the end of the season, was eventually replaced by another business-oriented executive, Charlie Blaney, former Dodgertown director.

Then, on Oct. 28, when the Dodgers announced the appointment of TV-radio personality Hawkins as top man in communications, it was also announced that finance director Bob Graziano would become vice president, finance; front-office administrator Irene Tanji would become director of human resources, and system analyst Mike Mularky would become director of data processing.

An organization that hadn’t undergone significant change since the departure of General Manager Buzzie Bavasi in the late 1960s is turning up regularly now on the Richter scale.

President Peter O’Malley, who failed to establish a line of succession for his aging triumvirate of Campanis, Schweppe and scouting director Ben Wade, calls it a restructuring.

Others conclude that the “Dodger family” has become a corporation. Claire and Blaney, with business backgrounds, are running two of the three key player departments, and former accountant Graziano, after only two years with the club, is in a position of financial authority.

Sources within the organization say that Graziano, in pursuit of “economic efficiency,” has already been preaching a policy of belt-tightening in a series of meetings with department heads.

An organization that once traveled first class is now said to be going coach--apparently in more ways than one.

“We’ve become an organization of bean counters,” said one employee used to having it otherwise.

That source added that Graziano, a 29-year-old USC graduate, has joined Claire and general counsel Santiago Fernandez as O’Malley’s first lieutenants, the power junta.

Where does the restructuring go from here? O’Malley said he didn’t have a crystal ball. The suspicion is that aftershocks are still coming.

The hiring of Hawkins, with authority over the publicity, marketing and community service departments, has been perceived as a snub, a corporate slap at some of the capable and long-term Dodger employees operating in those departments.

Brener, the publicity director since 1975, has already left. Sources say he was urged to seek other employment when he went to O’Malley and expressed bewilderment over the hiring of Hawkins.

Brener refused to burn his bridges, saying he isn’t bitter. Nor did he specifically cite the hiring of Hawkins as his reason for leaving, though he said that the vice presidency should have been his. He said he has several job options.

“Peter made the decision to hire Tommy Hawkins and that’s fine,” Brener said. “I’m sure he’ll do a super job.

“After all that’s happened, it was time for Steve Brener to step back and look where he was headed. It was a tough decision, but it looked like it was time to move on and help someone else.”

Brener, a loyal workaholic himself, may not be the last to leave.

The hiring of Hawkins and the promotion of Graziano over another group of long-term employees--ticket director Walter Nash, stadium director Bob Smith and controller Ken Hasemann, among them--is said to have created widespread disenchantment.

How cold is it in Corporate City?

A source said O’Malley, dumping responsibility, has had meetings with his public relations staff, long considered baseball’s best, in which he blamed that staff for the negative press the club has received during the last two losing seasons.

It is as if the community services department made the decision not to sign Tim Raines, as if marketing were responsible for the farm system’s lack of productivity. It is as if Brener, a source said, was held responsible for allowing Campanis to go on “Nightline.”

Hawkins, caught in the middle, officially moves into the office formerly occupied by Brener and publications director Toby Zwikel--who has been moved to another area of Dodger Stadium--Monday.

It’s a delicate situation and certainly not one of Hawkins’ making.

“I would hate to think that my coming here would have anything to do with anyone leaving,” Hawkins said. “There’s no reason for anyone to leave. There’s no need for me to come in and swing a machete and say, ‘Here’s all the changes we have to make.’

“We’ve got some very good and talented people here, people I’ve known for a long time. I’m not looking to force any moves. I’m not interested in any internal infighting. You come into a new organization and you’re not going to be everyone’s darling. I don’t expect to be.

“All I expect is respect, cooperation and teamsmanship. It’s a breathing of new blood into the organization, new energy from another direction that will strengthen a traditional process.”

O’Malley agreed. He said that Hawkins’ hiring was not designed to force anyone out. He said that the more he met with Hawkins during the summer, the more impressed he became, with the man and the communicator.

O’Malley said he initiated those meetings as part of the restructuring process, knowing “in the back of my mind” that Hawkins is a “very able communicator” but not sure, really, where the meetings would lead.

“Communication is very important to our company,” O’Malley said. “We’re constantly communicating with fans, sponsors, players and employees. I feel that Tommy can help us do an even better job in those areas.”

The hiring of a black person, he added, may have been consistent with the club’s new policy of seeking a qualified minority candidate whenever there is an opening, but it was not a reaction to the firing of Campanis.

The Campanis situation, however, was discussed in their first meeting.

“I told Peter that I knew a different Al Campanis than the one being portrayed across the country as a total bigot,” Hawkins said. “But we live in a world today where one mischosen statement can ruin a career. It’s unfortunate because I’ve spent so many hours in conversation with Al Campanis from positions of mutual respect.

“I mean, I don’t believe he would look at me and say, ‘Tommy Hawkins, you don’t have the qualifications to work in the front office.’ As a matter of fact, he encouraged me and said to me at Vero Beach about four years ago that one day I would be an executive in either broadcasting or sports.

“That’s not to placate the situation or to make light of it. The (“Nightline”) statement was so inflammatory that there had to be a reaction (by the Dodgers). Otherwise, you would run the risk of endorsing what was said, as mistakenly stated as it was. I think there were a lot of community pressures exerted on the Dodgers, exerted on major league baseball. The after-effects are still being felt.”

Hawkins said, however, that he told O’Malley he didn’t want to be anyone’s “affirmative action window dressing.”

“I’m not a token. I don’t have to slide in the back door,” he said. “I’m a mainstream person and always have been.

“Integration is a way of life for me. If you’re going to be competitive, be competitive in the marketplace. If I put my resume on the table, I’m not saying, ‘Here’s my resume, keep in mind what affirmative action is all about and hire me.’ I’m saying, ‘Here’s my resume. Here’s what I’ve done. Compare it to whatever else you have and see where I fit in.’ I’m very proud of the stops I’ve made.”

At the same time, Hawkins acknowledged, he sensed a community and national “clamoring for someone of color to be allowed to function at the management level of a major sports organization” and saw in O’Malley’s eventual offer another opportunity to serve, perhaps, as a pioneer.

Which is what he was, he said, as one of only eight blacks at Notre Dame, the only black on the basketball team, the first black captain.

Which is what he was, he said, as the player representative during his 10 years with the Lakers, arguing labor issues with owners Bob Short and Jack Kent Cooke.

Which is what he was, he said, as the partner in one of Los Angeles’ first integrated public relations and advertising agencies, Bishop, Hawkins and Associates.

“I’m very conscious of image, I’m very conscious of being a role model,” Hawkins said. “I feel, and I say this in all sincerity and humility, maybe the way Jackie Robinson did when he was hired. I’ve been made to realize (by the positive nature of his mail and the response of people on the street) how important this is to the community.

“There’s more to it than just a man moving into an upper-management position. There’s a lot riding on it, more than I anticipated initially.”

The Dodgers once “thrilled the little Tommy Hawkins” growing up in Chicago, by hiring Jackie Robinson.

The chance to be a pioneer of sorts with that same organization, to be offered a top management position by it, induced him to give up the “total happiness” of his broadcasting career.

At 50, Hawkins was wearing three hats: He was co-host of KHJ-TV’s “The Morning Show,” was starting to do sports twice a morning for KLOS and was the host on a weekly national jazz show on KKGO.

“As far as I know, I was the first person in Los Angeles to handle all three of those areas and I’m very proud of that,” Hawkins said. “I’m a communicator. I love communication. I love the microphone. I’ll probably have to have a replica of one sitting on my desk so that I can still get the feel of it.”

Hawkins’ communication background:

--He has been a paid writer and a professional speaker.

--A sociology graduate of Notre Dame, he taught a course on mass media and the black athlete at Cal State Long Beach.

--He has been involved in ballot issues and political campaigns as an advertising executive.

--He was a life insurance underwriter and customer relations representative for a financial corporation.

--He founded and was president of Athletes for a Better America in the wake of the Watts riots.

--He was chairman of the Youth Activities Division of the Greater Los Angeles Urban Coalition and a field representative for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

As communicator and cosmic functionary, Hawkins has also developed an expertise in the areas of photography, jazz and wine. If his hiring by the Dodgers is questioned--other than because of its impact on the current public relations staff--it’s because he seems to have no background in baseball.

Hawkins dismisses that. He reminds that he formerly played first base at Parker High School in Chicago and might have pursued it expect for his love of basketball, that he spent a good deal of time during his 15 years with radio station KABC working on Dodger-associated shows, and that as a former professional athlete he can easily relate to other sports.

In fact, Hawkins believes as part of his new job, having been on both sides of the media-athlete relationship, he can help young Dodgers cope with it and get used to the pressure of playing in Los Angeles.

“I have a lot of teacher and counselor in me,” he said, adding that he also has some specific programs and ideas in mind but that it is too soon to share them, that he first has to get a grip on how the operation works.

The restructuring has left questions about that, but the confident Hawkins, as “an old Capricorn who keeps on climbing,” said he brings some of the same magical attributes to the Dodgers that Magic Johnson does to the Lakers, that he is “one of those people” who can successfully defuse and convert seemingly explosive chemistry.

Will he have the power to work that miracle? Where does he fit in on this new ladder?

“I don’t sense any restrictions within the umbrella of my responsibilities,” Hawkins said. “But I’m not looking at the stratification. I don’t have time right now. That type of totem-poling is boring. It can get in your way. I’m here to work and do what I can for the organization. I’ll find my rightful place.”