The Orioles Shouldn’t Be Chirping in 1989, Either

Some misleading things are going to be said about baseball in the next month and a half. They always are at this time of the year.

From Florida and Arizona will come forecasts as worthless as the predictions from the Iowa caucuses a year ago.

That’s just the way it is in spring training.

The weather is beautiful. Every club is undefeated. Injured players have had six months to heal.

Managers who were suffering from burnout in September decide in February that the new breed of players is not really all that bad.

A million columns and radio and TV interviews of questionable worth will be produced by interviewers who simply walk up to a manager and go through this charade:

“Skip, I was just looking through your press guide. You’ve got to be a lot more optimistic going into this season.”

“Oh, yeah,” the manager will say. “We’re healthier now. Last year we had to use 155 different lineups because of injuries.

“Our weakness last year was we didn’t have anybody coming out of the bullpen who could get anybody out. Now we’ve got the hard thrower who’s come over from the other league. That’s going to make us a much better ballclub.”

Of course the manager talks that way. He has no choice. The club is still selling tickets back home.

Frank Robinson, starting his first full season as Oriole manager, has no choice either, in spite of the harsh realities of 1988--the worst season in Oriole history.

Robinson is not going to promise anybody a contender. He knows the public is too smart for that.

The club that is now in Sarasota, Fla., to start training is the youngest the Birds have taken south since 1965. The youth movement is geared to 1990 and 1991, and to 1992, the year the new ballpark in Camden Yards is scheduled to open. But Robinson needs to make people believe there will be improvement from last year’s 107 losses--which included the 0-21 start.

It was amusing when Robinson appeared on a Baltimore talk show two weeks ago and tried to temper the public’s optimism.

“What the fans have to realize,” said Robinson, “is that we don’t have the Boog Powells and the Brooks Robinsons and the Mike Cuellars anymore. We have a lot of young kids and the fans have to be patient.”

“Hey, Frank,” said the next caller, “you people are charging major-league prices. When I go out to the stadium and buy a ticket I want to see a major-league performance.”

“I can’t blame you for that,” said Robinson, more aware each day that his job requires a lot of tightrope walking.

The truth is that the ’89 Orioles are not one bit better than the woeful ’88 Orioles were.

They’re not likely to lose 107 games, because losing the first 21 again will be all but impossible. But they’ll lose 90 or so, enough to finish in last place again.

Remember, the club that finished immediately ahead of them last year in the American League East, Cleveland, lost only 84. The Orioles have to make up a tremendous amount of ground just to get out of the cellar.

Pitching, said to be 90% of the game, is one huge question mark. Dave Schmidt, an eight-game winner, is the ace. Bob Milacki and Pete Harnisch, who between them have appeared in five major-league games, are the top prospects.

Only two everyday players are assured jobs. One is shortstop or third baseman Cal Ripken Jr., whose new contract makes him baseball’s second highest-paid player this season behind the Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser. Ripken will earn $2,466,667, but when you consider the load he is being asked to carry you can see why.

The other is new Oriole outfielder Phil Bradley. But Bradley, with the Phillies last year, hit only .264 (the same as Ripken) with 11 homers and 56 RBI in 154 games.

You have to wonder, too, why Bradley changes clubs so often. The Phils say he was “caught in a numbers game” there. On a last-place club? Come on!

The quotes from the Oriole manager, coaches and players in Sarasota and Miami will be full of hope and optimism. Don’t take them literally.

More likely to be accurate are the quotes issued this week on preseason odds on each club to win the pennant.

In the American League, Oakland is 1-2 to repeat. In the National League, the Mets are 1-2 to finish the task Hershiser denied them in the playoffs last October.

The Orioles are a 50,000-1 shot. To win the World Series, they’re 100,000-1.

Put me down for a buck anyway. They have no shot, but the odds are better than the lottery.