Baseball : Giamatti and Ueberroth May Be Different, but Fehr Sees Similarities

Peter Ueberroth’s image is one of hard edges and bottom lines. He has painted baseball in corporate colors.

In his five years as commissioner, the royalties per club have risen from $31,000 to $385,000 a year and 21 of the 26 teams are now said to be making money. It was the opposite when he took over.

The image of A. Bartlett Giamatti, his successor, is softer and rounder. He is the academician, the scholar in Renaissance literature, tough when he has to be, but a romanticist in his love for baseball.

The differences between Ueberroth and Giamatti seem striking. But not to everyone.

Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Players Assn., suspects they are similar.

Fehr is currently confronting Ueberroth on collusion. He will battle Giamatti over a new collective bargaining agreement. Both sides have strike funds. It could be nasty.

Fehr recalled that Giamatti, as president of Yale University, presided over a bitter, 10-week strike in 1984 that involved 2,600 employees and another 1,000 who refused to cross picket lines. Giamatti refused to yield to the workers’ demands.

Fehr said he hoped Giamatti had changed but that nothing in regard to the commissioner’s office does except the name of the occupant.

“It’s not encouraging,” he said of Giamatti’s background and selection. “Obviously, we don’t want what happened at Yale to happen here. Whether it’s Ueberroth or Bowie Kuhn or Giamatti, you don’t get that job unless you strike a deal with the owners. He’ll be exactly the kind of commissioner the owners want.”

Ueberroth would appeal that, of course. He didn’t opt for a second term, he has said, because there have been too many times when he hasn’t been what the owners wanted. Too many people have been alienated, rubbed wrong by the hard edges, he has said, to think he could govern successfully a second time.

Add Ueberroth: He has said that he will usher Giamatti through a six-month transitional period and leave office April 1. A number of baseball officials seem to believe, however, that the December convention in Atlanta will be his last hurrah and that he will vacate the office by New Year’s Day.

Making good on his credentials as Baseball America’s minor league player of the year in both 1986 and ‘87, Gregg Jefferies had 5 homers, 11 extra-base hits and 4 three-hit games (through Friday) since his late August recall by the New York Mets.

Jefferies, who also plays second base, is the latest challenger to third baseman Howard Johnson, who has held off Dave Magadan after initially prompting the Mets to let Ray Knight leave.

Of this latest bid to unseat Johnson, Marty Noble of Newsday wrote: “Only the name has been changed to project the imminent.”

Said Dwight Gooden, of Jefferies: “He makes it look so easy. He doesn’t get fooled. He doesn’t get cheated. I just like to sit and watch him hit.”

Despite an earned-run average of 3.03, Bobby Ojeda was only 9-13 heading into a weekend start in Montreal.

The significant numbers are these: In Ojeda’s first 27 starts, the Mets scored 79 runs, an average of 2.93, but only 56 while Ojeda was in the game. In his last 9, they had scored 13 runs, 7 while he was in the game.

“The only thing you can do is laugh,” teammate David Cone said. “You have to laugh to keep from crying.”

Ojeda may not be laughing, but he hasn’t cried.

“I can’t be a whiner,” he said. “I can’t walk around the clubhouse wearing a black veil.”

He added, however, that there have been times when he has snapped, smashing clubhouse furniture in the process.

“My fiancee is keeping track,” he said. “I have to add a diamond every time I break something. She’s now up to five diamonds.”

That the Mets have a shot at another ring of their own has helped Ojeda maintain his sanity. He is likely to start Game 4 of the National League playoffs.

“If we didn’t have a chance to do something in October I’d really be crashing,” he said.

There has been speculation that the Angels will pursue catcher Lance Parrish of the Philadelphia Phillies--a Yorba Linda resident--if he becomes a free agent as the result of the latest collusion decision. The real Philadelphia story is this:

The Angels covet Phil Bradley as their next left fielder but may not have the pitching that the Phillies are demanding.

With seven per division, American League teams are forced to play more games out of their division than in, and there is always a swing team that plays entirely out of its division down the stretch.

The Milwaukee Brewers, back in the Eastern Division race by virtue of a 17-6 August record and the inconsistency of the leaders, are in the midst of playing their final 23 games against the West as the 1988 swing team.

No swing team has ever won a division title and the Brewers will have to hope that their colleagues in the East can keep knocking each other off.

“We could probably have the best record for August and September of any team in our division and still not win it,” Manager Tom Trebelhorn said.

Particularly because Boston, Detroit and New York still have 14 games against the hapless Baltimore Orioles.

“Let’s put it this way . . . I hope they don’t end the season like they started it,” Trebelhorn said of the Orioles, who started it with 23 straight losses.

Pitcher Dave LaPoint greeted George Bush in the Pittsburgh Pirate clubhouse, saying: “I really love your beer.”

Having set a club record with 205 home runs last year, the San Francisco Giants, minus Jeffrey Leonard and Chili Davis, have hit only 97. The Giants, in fact, had gone 119 innings without a homer until Will Clark connected against the Atlanta Braves Thursday night.

The absence of power was particularly conspicuous as the Giants went 2-7 on their last, and fatal, Eastern swing, scoring 16 runs in the 9 games and hitting .185.

The inconsistent offense has been unable to compensate for the injured pitching staff. Of the opening-day rotation, only Rick Reuschel will pitch again this season. Five pitchers were injured on that one Eastern trip, of which Manager Roger Craig said, “It was one disaster after another.”

Craig could not even get upset when the San Diego Padres’ Keith Moreland hit his first home run in 281 at-bats Monday night and did a cartwheel across the plate. “I’ve got a lot more to worry about than Moreland doing a cartwheel,” Craig said. “If we win a game I might do one on the mound.”

Angel reliever Bryan Harvey, with 17 saves in 21 opportunities, keeps enhancing his bid for rookie-of-the-year honors in the American League, but General Manager Sandy Alderson of the Oakland Athletics still thinks it has to go to his shortstop, Walt Weiss, who has not made an error in the second half.

“His performance has been as critical to our success as anyone’s,” Alderson said. “In my opinion he’s been the key to our season. He made the trade for Bob Welch possible (by providing a replacement for Alfredo Griffin).”

The Athletics have already juggled their rotation so that Welch will not pitch in the playoffs until Game 3 in Oakland. He is 11-3 at home, 4-4 on the road.

Pittsburgh Pirates Manager Jim Leyland isn’t happy about the way a promising season is ending.

“Some of our players are worrying about numbers and how much money they’re going to make next year,” he said. “They’re looking at the scoreboard--not to see what the Mets are doing but at their batting averages.”

Why haven’t great players made great managers?

“People who ask that question are usually thinking about two guys--Frank Robinson and Ted Williams--and if you were to put their rosters (of the teams they have managed) on a wall, I’m surprised they even showed up for games,” Cincinnati Reds Manager Pete Rose said. “The players make the manager.

“The other point is, how many good players want to manage? How many want to go back to the minors or put up with all the bull? I was the type player that my career served as my apprenticeship.

“I was never in the clubhouse. I was always on the bench next to Sparky (Anderson).”

Dan Quisenberry, seldom used in his last two years with Kansas City, is on the road back with the St. Louis Cardinals. He credits pitching coach Mike Roarke.

“He found a delivery in my flaw,” Quisenberry said.