Analysis : Baltimore’s Makeover Is Now Complete

Six months after Baltimore Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams began reorganization of his troubled franchise, after he finally stopped believing his “baseball people,” the hiring of Frank Robinson as manager marked the completion of his work.

Robinson’s hiring comes a little less than nine years after Williams bought the Orioles, but it signals for the first time that the franchise truly belongs to and is operated by the famous Washington trial attorney.

For the first time, the people who run the Orioles were all hired by Williams and, more important, all like and respect him, don’t see him as a bully or a threat and believe that every part of the organization is pulling in the same direction.

“We’ve got good people in place,” first-year general manager Roland Hemond said, “and we’re working hard. You do things a bit at a time, and try to go from here.”

Around major league baseball this week, the surprise to officials wasn’t that Cal Ripken Sr. was fired after six games, but that it took Williams almost four years to finish the job he started after a fifth-place finish in 1984. It may be fitting that Robinson is the final piece to the puzzle because in 1984 he was the first.

That was the autumn when Williams overruled his baseball people and hired Robinson to be a bench coach--and manager in waiting--for Joe Altobelli. Club sources believe that was the first time Williams made a baseball decision on his own, and it marks an important point in the history of a proud franchise.

“It goes back to Earl Weaver’s retirement (in 1982),” a prominent club source said. “When Earl retired, he let Hank Peters hire the manager--no interference. Williams had heard so often what a great baseball man Hank was that he probably never thought of making a decision himself.”

That may have changed when Altobelli arrived for the 1983 season, when Williams met the man and was so thoroughly unimpressed.

“He wants a man of intellect,” the source said. “And he liked Weaver for that reason. Earl wasn’t a big book-reader or anything like that, but he knew the game and could explain it to Williams. If Williams called up with one question, Earl had six answers ready.”

So, apparently, when Williams allowed Peters to hire a manager, he didn’t much like that it turned out to be a man who bragged that he’d read only one book in his life--a biography of a hockey player. Then when the Orioles fell from first to fifth in 1984 and Williams saw Altobelli as a less than inspirational figure, he decided to make a move or two on his own.

Thus ended the old era. The 3 1/2 years since have been a period of adjustment, as Williams began to mix his people into a front office that acted as if it was being asked to swallow fire. Williams, saying the farm system had disappointed him, spent $11.2 million signing Fred Lynn, Lee Lacy and Don Aase a few days after hiring Robinson. The following summer he urged Peters to make a trade for Alan Wiggins, who had a $2.8 million contract and many problems.

He fired Altobelli in early 1985 and brought back Weaver--against the wishes of Peters.

Later, Williams paid for two other aging players, Rick Burleson and Ray Knight, and the problems may not have been so much in the moves as what they signaled to employees. Sources say morale plummeted because much of the staff was loyal to Peters and saw Williams and his moves as trouble.

For the last three years, sources say the dynamics of the organization have been awful, with one group of employees loyal to Williams and another to Peters. Working conditions weren’t the best, and a question around the Orioles may forever be: What would have happened if Williams had never interfered?

Or: What would have happened if Williams had fired Peters in 1984 and brought in people he trusted?

Williams often has said he signed Lynn and others because there were no players left in the farm system, and many baseball people agree. Peters has said he signed them to sell tickets, that the farm system was never as bad as supposed.

But Williams had some indisputable evidence on his side: From the time Cal Ripken Jr. joined the team in 1981 until the time Bill Ripken came up in 1987, the Orioles didn’t produce one complete player. Every player who came up had some major shortcoming. Larry Sheets couldn’t run or play the outfield. Mike Young couldn’t play the outfield. The young pitchers were all junkballers.

There appears to be a talented class of players on the threshold of the major leagues, but in the years 1985-87, Bill Ripken was the only player without a real weakness. In an interview this spring, Williams said alarm bells had been sounding in his head for a long time but he continued to believe Peters’ staff when they said everything would be OK.

Why did he trust them, especially when his instincts on the law, his real-estate deals and the Redskins had always been so good? “I don’t know,” Williams said. “I shouldn’t have.”

Club sources say organization morale has been awful the last two years as Williams’ and Peters’ people tried to coexist.

That trouble ended last fall after the Orioles went 67-95. Williams fired Peters and farm director Tom Giordano. He brought in the hyperactive Hemond, moved Robinson from coaching staff to front office and named Doug Melvin, whom he hired two years earlier, to be farm director. All this led to dozens of other changes as scouts, minor league instructors and others were replaced.

The lone remaining Peters man was Ripken, who was brought back partly because of his two sons and partly because Williams thought he deserved another chance. But when the Orioles had a dismal spring training and a terrible start, Williams wasted no time giving Robinson the job he’d apparently planned for him much earlier.

So the reorganization is complete, but the on-the-field results may not look much different for a while. The average time a player spends in the minors is four years, and unless the June draft is extraordinary, a fresh supply of talent won’t be ready until about 1991.

“But we do have some young players that are pretty good now,” Hemond said, “and we’re working every day to get better. If we think there’s a weakness, we’re going to try to go out and fill it. We’re not giving up. There’s a lot of baseball still to be played this season.”