A TEAM IN TRANSITION : THE NEW DODGERS : After Two Losing Seasons, the Quiet Owner Took Action, Both Surprising and Painful

Christmas at Dodgertown can be confusing to the uninitiated. It’s always celebrated in the dead of March, a fancily trimmed tree and the standard North Pole scene decorating the grounds.

Santa’s sleigh is set up at poolside, so he can catch some late-afternoon sun before handing out gifts. One year, the Dodgers even imported snow, though some mistook it for an industrial-sized frozen margarita.

The Dodgers do this every year, for no reason other than to celebrate the dwindling days of spring training and entertain the children of players and employees. It is part family reunion, part company picnic, and it also epitomizes the concept of the Dodger Family , which the club has long tried to foster.

But every day is not Christmas, not even at Dodgertown, and there are signs that the Dodgers’ nuclear family has had a partial meltdown over the winter.

Once a fountain of stability, the Dodgers underwent an off-season of change, on the field and in the front office.

Change is not always welcome, but it can be for the better. The Dodgers, floundering in the standings the last two seasons, signed three free agents and pursued two others. The team’s opening-day roster will probably include 10 players who were not in the organization at this time last year.

Two longtime vice presidents have left. Al Campanis, who ran baseball operations, was fired in the wake of his remarks about blacks. Bill Schweppe, who ran the team’s minor league operations, retired after last season. Also, the club’s two public relations directors resigned, as did the director of community services.

Owner Peter O’Malley not only filled the openings but restructured the front office. He hired Bob Graziano as vice president of finance and Tommy Hawkins as vice president of communications.

The Dodgers clearly have deviated from recent policy by signing free agents Kirk Gibson and Mike Davis to lucrative contracts and Don Sutton to a contract loaded with incentives. The club also traded pitcher Bob Welch for a shortstop, Alfredo Griffin, and two relief pitchers, Jesse Orosco and Jay Howell.

As a result, the Dodger payroll, tops in baseball last season at more than $15 million, figures to stand at $17.5 million.

Although O’Malley denies that this is a critical season for the Dodgers, whose attendance dropped by more than 200,000 in 1987, their off-season actions show a definite urgency to win this season.

“As far as pressure or a critical year,” O’Malley said one recent morning, “there is no more pressure on Tommy (Manager Tom Lasorda) or Fred (Executive Vice President Fred Claire) to win this year than any other year. I don’t feel any more pressure to win this year than any other year.

“We haven’t been in contention for the last two years, but if we went about our job like the pressure is there to win in ’88 or ‘89, or else, that’s not the way to go about your business.”

The way the Dodgers have gone about their business always has been scrutinized, never more so than this past winter because of the free-agent pursuit and the front-office upheaval. O’Malley, who says it is possible to maintain a family atmosphere and still operate in the business world, found himself compromising in both areas this year.

In reorganizing the front office, he passed over many longtime employees, moves perceived by some as not rewarding loyalty. And in signing free agents, his resolve to stay out of that market also wavered.

In short, this isn’t the same Dodger organization. But maybe that isn’t so bad after all, given the club’s recent performance.

Much of O’Malley’s time has been spent explaining his moves and the motives behind them. The Dodgers’ fall has been chronicled in Esquire and Sports Illustrated, a contrast from earlier in the decade, when Forbes and the Wall Street Journal gushed about the club’s corporate and baseball savvy.

O’Malley said he has done at least one interview a day since coming to Vero Beach in mid-February. Most want to know about the club’s fall and the attempted rise through free agency.

The way O’Malley explains it, the Dodgers were forced to dabble in free agency as a final option to pull the club out of the depths of the National League West. He talks about it almost painfully, as if he had to compromise his standards.

And, in a way, he did.

“In October, when we gathered all the coaches and scouts and took inventory of what we had and what we thought we could do in 1988 . . . it’s obvious that we came to the conclusion that we could not go ahead with the same players we had in 1987,” O’Malley said. “As you know, there are three ways to put a ballclub together: One is through the farm system, which will continue to be the cornerstone of this organization; secondly is trade; and thirdly is the free-agent market.

“We . . . looked at free agency for voids we could not fill either from trade or the minor league system. . . . Looking back at the winter to the job Fred and Tommy have done, I think they’ve done everything possible to make the club as strong as possible. No one can look back at last winter and say, ‘Well, they didn’t do this or didn’t do that.’ ”

Last spring, O’Malley and other Dodger officials heard little else.

The Dodgers, coming off a fifth-place finish, needed a center fielder and more offense. Tim Raines, the Montreal Expo outfielder who won the 1986 batting title, was a free agent. Raines contacted the Dodgers but the team was not interested.

Some say the Dodgers did not pursue Raines because baseball owners were working in concert to squelch free agency.

Some say O’Malley was against free agency because he was burned in 1980, when he signed ineffective pitchers Dave Goltz and Don Stanhouse.

At the time, O’Malley said he felt the Dodgers didn’t need drastic changes, that now-departed Ken Landreaux was the center fielder and that salaries players were seeking were getting out of hand.

In an interview a year ago, O’Malley basically said free agency was not the Dodger way:

“We’re just not going to go out and buy a championship by buying players who have already turned down millions of dollars from other teams. Ray Kroc tried to buy championships (with the San Diego Padres). (George) Steinbrenner tried (with the New York Yankees). (Gene) Autry tried (with the Angels). We tried in Goltz and Stanhouse. Long haul, it doesn’t work.”

Reminded of the quote, O’Malley said: “I agree with that as much today as I did then. When we looked at our needs . . . changes had to be made. In the players we have acquired (through free agency), it’s not a quick one-year fix. We’re obviously hoping they will be playing here for several years, not just ’88.

“But again, when you look at your inventory, if you can’t get your needs from the farm system . . . or a trade, then the only other way to help your ballclub is free agency. Then, you got to go that way.”

In late fall, once Claire officially retained the job he inherited from Campanis on an interim basis in April, he said he told O’Malley that free agency was a viable option.

O’Malley apparently was convinced, since Claire tried and failed to sign New York Yankee pitcher Dave Righetti and Minnesota Twin third baseman Gary Gaetti and did sign Davis, Gibson and Sutton.

“I asked Peter for that,” Claire said. “I wanted to pursue free agents, and he gave me the green light to do so. . . . No, I wouldn’t say I did a selling job. Peter recognized we had two difficult years. He gave approval to the talks and gave his support in the signing of Gibson, Mike Davis and Sutton.”

Signing free agents and making a major trade to fill deficiencies doesn’t say much for the once-productive Dodger farm system. Dodger prospects such as Jeff Hamilton, Mike Devereaux, Craig Shipley, Chris Gwynn and Tracy Woodson have expressed frustration over the situation, and just Friday Hamilton, Shipley and Gwynn said they would like to be traded if their situations don’t change soon.

O’Malley and Claire maintain that player development still is their top priority.

“The stability, future and cornerstone of the organization has to be the farm system,” O’Malley said. “That should be the main source of supply for your ballclub.”

Added Claire: “I think we’re in a position now to give our minor league players more time to develop their talent. . . . If we have a need for a position player once the season starts, I think we can reach to Albuquerque instead of trying to sign someone (released) by another team. It’s consistent with the way we feel.”

Consistency is important to O’Malley. He wants it in his team’s play, in attendance figures, profit margin and, ideally, in the player payroll.

But the Dodgers’ problems on the field have adversely affected all areas of the corporation, which is why O’Malley set out to restructure the team and the front office.

O’Malley, however, scoffs when it is suggested that a declining profit margin or a significant attendance drop is the source of the changes. He says he simply is trying to run the most efficient company possible.

“Attendance is down, but it’s down from the all-time high, not just for us but in professional sports in the world,” O’Malley said. “For anyone to think our attendance would continue at what was record all-time levels, it just wasn’t a real evaluation of it.

“I really don’t think anyone can fairly accuse us of, quote, not having spent the money, if you look at our player payroll. . . . Player salaries are going straight up. They have been and will continue to do so.”

To partially offset that escalation, O’Malley gave Graziano the mandate to tighten spending and streamline the operation, a move that resulted in the club’s taking occasional commercial flights for road games and the elimination of a few employee perks.

That didn’t sit well with several longtime employees, but last winter’s front-office overhaul caused an internal stir that also found its way into the newspapers.

The concept of the Dodger family began to show cracks almost a year ago, when Campanis was fired. O’Malley said his decision had nothing to do with the pressure he received from many civic organizations, but a few current and former employees were distraught that O’Malley did not take into consideration Campanis’ 43 years of employment with the Dodgers.

Then, last winter, when O’Malley split the vice presidential duties into three areas--baseball, finance and communications--and turned over responsibility to Claire, Graziano and Hawkins, respectively, longtime employees passed over for promotions were angered.

Steve Brener, public relations director for 18 years, resigned in December, shortly after O’Malley had hired Hawkins--whose background includes playing professional basketball, broadcasting and public relations work--to head the communications department. Since Hawkins’ December hiring, three employees under his auspices have resigned.

Some co-workers have privately said that Brener was forced out and used that as an example of O’Malley’s failing to reward loyalty to the company. Brener, now director of marketing at Hollywood Park, declined to be interviewed.

O’Malley, who normally speaks in measured tones about even the most sensitive of subjects, aggressively confronted those charges.

“Some of the people in the company were disappointed that they didn’t get that (communications) job,” O’Malley said. “Just as, I’m sure, others in the company were disappointed when Bob Graziano jumped over two or three people that had been with us longer and who were more senior in age and more experienced.

“What I did, I thought was the best way to structure the company with the most talented individuals, knowing that everybody was not going to be happy. . . . The CEO has to make calls and decisions. Everybody didn’t agree with it. Everyone didn’t like it. Some left the company. I don’t find fault with that. That’s real life.”

Some analysts have accused the Dodgers of acting too slowly, of not grooming replacements for Campanis and Schweppe, both in their 70s at the time of their departures. Said Claire: “I think Peter has now addressed that point. You do want to prepare for the future. At the same time, I think he had great consideration for the people involved, the work they had done and the success they had enjoyed. . . . I think he has shown compassion.”

Publicly, that side of O’Malley manifests itself in inviting longtime friends and some former employees to Dodgertown each spring and picking up expenses, as well as spring traditions such as Christmas at Dodgertown and a St. Patrick’s Day party.

To some outsiders, though, O’Malley remains detached, almost overly formal. He is accessible to the media, but nearly every response to a question is an exercise in diplomacy.

Even Bowie Kuhn, former commissioner of baseball and friend of the O’Malley family, noticed a difference between flamboyant Walter O’Malley and his more restrained son.

“Peter’s style is quieter, more diplomatic,” Kuhn said during a visit to Dodgertown last spring. “Walter’s was more colorful, flamboyant and outgoing. . . . Peter is more popular with club owners than Walter was.”

Unlike owners such as Steinbrenner, Cincinnati’s Marge Schott and even Autry, O’Malley maintains a low profile.

Veteran Dodger players say they can only recall two occasions when O’Malley visited the clubhouse: when the club won the World Series in 1981, and last April, to inform them that Campanis had been fired.

“I don’t know him at all,” Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser said. “I just know him by sight and a few small conversations we’ve had. I don’t think it’s necessary to know him well. Some owners have a childhood dream of owning a team and relating to the players. This (club) is run like a business.” Added catcher Mike Scioscia: “He’s in control, but doesn’t get in the way. His family has built the best franchise in pro sports. And I’m sure if you talk to Mr. O’Malley, he’ll admit he made some mistakes, if you put a magnifying glass to every move he’s made.”

Some players were upset that the Dodgers did not make an attempt to sign Raines before last season. Hershiser, for one, does not place all the blame on O’Malley.

“I think the arbitrator (in the players’ association collusion case) told us why free agents weren’t signed last year,” Hershiser said.

The Raines issue dogged O’Malley last season. Fans, columnists and even a few players criticized O’Malley for non-action.

O’Malley says he reads all of Southern California’s newspapers, watches the evening sportscasts and generally keeps abreast of public opinion. But he also has seemingly grown sensitive to some of the criticism.

“I thought most of the critics and writers and columnists and experts were fair,” O’Malley said. “I also think a few reached for reasons to bang us. That’s understandable.”

But in the recent Esquire article, O’Malley was quoted, in part, as saying of the Los Angeles media: “If you don’t sign Garvey, you’re going to get ripped. If you don’t sign Timmy Raines, you’re going to get ripped. If you don’t trade Charlie for Harry, you’re going to get ripped. . . . You’ve got to keep it in perspective.”

O’Malley is extrememly careful with his comments to the media.

During a recent interview at Dodgertown, he occasionally took notes of a reporter’s questions on a yellow legal pad before answering. He scrawled Campanis and underlined it before addressing that subject, a dollar sign before discussing salaries. He drew the triangles of a corporate tree to better illustrate the new front-office alignment.

But when asked to how he was affected by the losing, by the Campanis incident and by the media criticism, O’Malley avoided a direct answer.

“I think everybody in the organization handled it well,” he said. “I mean, not just the staff, but people who worked in the ticket office, accounting. . . . I think everybody took it in stride. . . . But we knew, fortunately, that all storms pass and brighter days were ahead.

“We’re so visible. We do good things and we make mistakes. And when we make mistakes, we fully expect and anticipate that we’re going to get banged for it.”

Claire said O’Malley personalizes neither the successes or setbacks.

“He hasn’t looked at any of these difficult decisions selfishly, like, how it affects Peter O’Malley,” Claire said. “His great strength is this: He’s not afraid to make tough decisions.”

Whether those decisions are the right ones and whether the Dodger Family will ever again live harmoniously is not known.

But even before the first pitch has been thrown, O’Malley said he has no regrets about any move.

“I think if we do the best we can--and there’s no doubt in my mind we’ve done the best we can to put the best team on the field--we will do well,” O’Malley said. “Whether we finish first or second remains to be seen.”