Manning and Marshall Are on Board in L.A. : Dodgers Reach a 3-Year Deal With Last Season’s RBI Leader

Mike Marshall’s career as a Dodger was resurrected Friday afternoon, a mere week after it had apparently been terminated by a Dodger-imposed signing deadline.

The free agent first baseman-outfielder agreed to a 3-year, $3.5-million guaranteed contract, three days after Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, resumed negotiations with Marshall’s agent, Jerry Kapstein.

Claire had told all nine Dodgers eligible for free agency that they had until 9 p.m. last Friday to agree to a new contract. But when the Dodgers failed to sign Marshall and second baseman Steve Sax, Claire apparently had a change of heart and decided early this week “to go the extra mile.”

Marshall signed for $1 million in 1989, $1 million in 1990 and $1.2 million in 1991, and he received a $300,000 signing bonus.

Claire said that he was continuing talks with Sax, who also is represented by Kapstein, but that Marshall’s signing made him “no more hopeful, no less hopeful” of retaining Sax as well. Sax has been offered a 3-year deal by the Pittsburgh Pirates, reportedly for $3 million.

Marshall, who was in Palm Desert with his wife, Mary, and their ailing infant son, Michael Jr., said he hoped that Sax would come to terms, too. He said he hasn’t talked to Sax since the team went to the White House the week after it won the World Series against the Oakland Athletics.

“He’s like a brother to me,” Marshall said. “We’ve been together since 1978 in Lethbridge (in Canada). We both signed out of high school. I’d love to have him playing beside me or in front of me. It would be an empty feeling if he’s not on the club.”

The Dodgers had originally offered Sax and Marshall identical 2-year, $2.3-million contracts, with an option for a third year that made the packages worth $3.2 million. But the third year was not guaranteed, and Marshall--who had asked for $3.8 million for 3 years--had resigned himself to being something other than a Dodger when the deadline passed.

“It was really something,” Marshall said. “It was only a couple of weeks after we’d won a world championship, and now I had to convince myself that it was all over. I’d been a Dodger for 11 years, and now I had to think about moving on to another club, moving my family.

“Then all of a sudden, to get the call from Jerry that Fred had called and wanted to resume talks . . . We’d already started contacting other clubs, but we decided to take this shot at staying a Dodger.

“Up to last Friday, I had every intention of staying. All along I wanted to be a Dodger, but if it wasn’t going to work, I was willing to move on. But I’m very happy.”

Marshall, asked whether the Dodgers could have spared both players--as well as themselves--the trouble by not setting an artificial time limit, said it wasn’t his decision to make.

“But with the world championship and all the hoopla, when we got right down to it, there wasn’t a long time to negotiate,” he said.

Marshall hit .277 last season in a career-high 144 games. He led the team in runs batted in with 82, and his 20 home runs ranked second to Kirk Gibson’s 25 on the team. He had 1 home run and 9 RBIs in 11 postseason games.

Claire acknowledged that Marshall’s history of injuries--the most chronic of which has been back trouble--was one reason he had been reluctant to guarantee a third year. “That troubled me very much,” Claire said.

Marshall said he plans to come to spring training open to playing first base or the outfield. He started the ’88 season at first base but said his back couldn’t handle the strain of playing the position, and he shifted back to the outfield.

“Of course, it hinges on my health,” Marshall said, “but the Dodgers showed confidence in me by giving me a 3-year guaranteed contract, and I’ll play where they want me to play.”

Marshall’s contract includes the kind of lockout language contained in Gibson’s contract in the event of a possible players’ strike in 1990, when baseball’s collective bargaining agreement ends. Marshall, like Gibson, will be paid in the event of an owners’ lockout but will not be paid if there is a players’ strike.

If the players were to end a strike and the owners locked them out--as happened in the National Football League last season--Marshall would not be paid.

Marshall’s son is in a Palm Springs hospital recuperating from a hernia operation. Mary Marshall said that the condition was hereditary and that her husband had the same operation when he was a baby. Michael Jr. developed an infection afterward, but he is expected to be released from the hospital Tuesday, his mother said.