Baseball : Blue Jays Have the Horses--but Can They Pull Together This Season?

First, there was the controversial spring generated by his inflammatory remarks about teammates and management in Esquire magazine. Then Darryl Strawberry opened the season by ripping the Montreal Expos--with his bat. He had 8 hits in 12 at-bats, including 3 home runs during a three-game series.

Said New York Mets teammate Bob Ojeda: “Controversy is Darryl Strawberry’s phone booth.”

Does George Bell thrive on it in the same way? Bell’s smashing start--3 home runs in the opener against the Kansas City Royals and a 5 for 5 in Game 2--seemed to suggest that Bell has shrugged off his displeasure with serving as the Toronto Blue Jays’ designated hitter.

Hardly. He responded to his three home runs by saying he was as unhappy as ever. Now, however, he is only one fuse in a powder keg situation.

The Blue Jays had not even completed their first series when Cecil Fielder suggested that he should be traded.

Fielder assumed that when the Blue Jays sold Willie Upshaw to the Cleveland Indians, he would be platooning with Fred McGriff at first base. McGriff, however, will be playing regularly, Manager Jimy Williams said.

In addition, not even a $1.1-million contract extension has seemed to mollify Lloyd Moseby over his move from center field to left field, part of the Bell to DH plan.

Moseby sat out Wednesday night’s second game in Kansas City with what he said was a strained groin muscle suffered during the final weekend of spring training. The injury did not prevent him from playing 18 holes of golf Tuesday, however. Is it possible that the left-handed hitting Moseby didn’t start hurting until he thought about facing left-hander Charlie Leibrandt? Can the talented and troubled Blue Jays continue to win two of every three as they did against the Royals?

Only time will tell, but they may have unveiled a pivotal new element when rookie catcher Pat Borders, a converted third baseman up from Class A, drove in five runs in his first start, setting the tone with a two-run triple on his first pitch.

Borders will platoon with Ernie Whitt, who thinks it’s fortunate that he joined Moseby and Rick Leach in recently purchasing a franchise in a Canadian pizza chain.

“I may be going into the restaurant business sooner than I expected,” Whitt said in the wake of Borders’ debut.

Added Bell, when asked about Borders: “He’s the way a rookie should be. He listens and does what he’s told, not like a lot of the smart (guys) we have at triple A.”

Or like a high-salaried veteran who refuses--or is reluctant--to do what is deemed best for the team?

Having viewed Bell’s three home runs from ground level in left field, Bo Jackson was asked how he would pitch to Bell.

“Walk him, hit him, throw over his head. Just don’t let him hit the ball,” Jackson said.

Concluded George Brett: “We had the wrong George on our team.”

John McNamara, Boston Red Sox manager, intent on his continuing effort to dispel the country club image of the past, will not permit players to take golf clubs on the road this year. A mistake, implied Roger Clemens.

“Golf is good for me,” he said. “It stretches my back out. I played 36 holes of golf the day before I struck out the 20 guys in one game.”

The Red Sox were picked to win the American League East by the Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Inside Sports, USA Today and ESPN. McNamara may have been letting his paranoia show when he told the Boston Globe: “A lot of people pick you to see you get fired, to put heat on you.”

Then again, maybe it wasn’t paranoia. McNamara has already heard club president John Harrington say that a season similar to last year won’t be tolerated.

“I don’t think I need to tell John what the situation is,” Harrington said. “He’s been around long enough. He knows there’s pressure on him.”

The Mets hit six homers, including two by Strawberry, in their season-opening victory over the Expos before a crowd of 55,413 at Olympic Stadium. Neither team homered when it next played before a crowd of 11,112. Was there a correlation between the home runs and large crowd? Some players think so, saying that with the roof in place and the air blowers employed to provide ventilation when the attendance is up, balls seem to travel farther on the air current.

“It’s like Chicago,” said Hubie Brooks, the Expos’ right fielder. “When you wake up in the morning there, and you’re on a certain side of the hotel we stay at, you can look out a window where the flagpoles are and know whether it’s a hitter’s day or pitcher’s day. The only difference here in Montreal is you’re going to have to know whether we’re supposed to have a big crowd that day.”

In his book, “Winfield: A Player’s Life,” Dave Winfield quotes New York Yankees’ teammate Willie Randolph as saying that Yankee tradition prevents a black player from ever being a “true Yankee.” Randolph has called Winfield’s version a lie, much to the glee of owner George Steinbrenner, who has used Randolph’s denial in his continuing and disgusting attempt to discredit and debase Winfield.

But two respected ex-Yankees, Don Baylor and Ken Griffey, told Claire Smith of the Hartford Courant the other day that Randolph did say it, though Griffey added that Winfield and Randolph have both taken so much abuse, have been criticized by the media and management so many times, that it might have been said in jest as they tried to analyze any one of those moments of abuse.

Ted Higuera, who allowed only three hits in seven innings in the Milwaukee Brewers’ 12-0 opening-day victory over the Baltimore Orioles, is 3-0 in openers, having permitted just 2 earned runs in 21 innings.

Of Higuera, who won 11 of his last 14 decisions in 1987 and is 54-29 in three-plus seasons, teammate Dan Plesac said: “In my opinion he’s the best pitcher in the league. He may not have the overpowering stuff of a Roger Clemens, but as far as his ability to mix up pitches, he’s the best.”

Rocked by injuries en route to their National League East title last year, the St. Louis Cardinals are off to a similar start.

They have six players on the disabled list, including John Tudor, who will spend another two weeks recovering from knee surgery and a tender shoulder, and Ken Dayley, the valuable left-handed reliever who tore back muscles pitching Monday in Cincinnati and will be sidelined six weeks.

Also out are outfielder John Morris, who could miss the entire season after back surgery; first baseman Mike Laga, who has a separated shoulder and will miss three months, and pitchers Ken Hill and Lee Tunnell.

Manager Whitey Herzog forced a laugh and said that people are now getting concerned about his own health.

“They’re putting me no higher than the second floor,” he said, alluding to the team’s road hotels.

In an interview with the Cincinnati Post, owner Marge Schott was asked which team she expects to give her Reds the most trouble.

“Let me see,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe the Kansas City Royals.”

No, the interviewer said, which team in the National League West?

“Well, Pittsburgh has some young guys coming,” she said, “and L.A. is going to come back. It’s hard to say.”

Obviously.