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Samuel Lets It Be Known He Prefers Second Base

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

In an otherwise pleasant morning conversation from his home in the Dominican Republic Thursday, the Dodgers’ new center fielder admitted something that may throw a tiny kink into the team’s plans.

Juan Samuel said he doesn’t want to be a center fielder.

“I will do what the Dodgers want, I will help them any way I can, but . . . the main thing for me has been to play second base,” Samuel said.

“I’ve been a second baseman all my life, I would love to go back and finish my career there. That’s why I might become a free agent at the end of next season, because I want to go somewhere that I can play second base.”

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Samuel, acquired from the New York Mets Wednesday for outfielder Mike Marshall and relief pitcher Alejandro Pena, said he was disappointed when he spoke with Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda Thursday morning.

“I asked where I would be playing, and Tommy told me it would be center field, and I said, ‘Well, I will keep trying to make the adjustment,” Samuel said. “I know Willie Randolph had a good year last year (at second), and I guess they are not going to make a move there.

“I am not the kind of player who complains. I do what I am told. I can play the position, and I will play it well . . . but I am a second baseman.”

Dodger Vice President Fred Claire took this news with an uneasy smile.

“I really believe, and I know Tommy believes, that he can be an outstanding center fielder,” Claire said. “I think we can get him to believe that, too.”

Claire noted that the two-time All-Star second baseman has played center field for only one turbulent year, during which he was traded from Philadelphia to New York, a city that Samuel hated. Claire said the Dodgers believe that center field will look and feel better to a player who is more comfortable with himself and his surroundings.

“He said he will be happy here, and that will help,” said Claire, who hopes that Samuel will be thrilled enough not to put the Dodgers through the free-agency wringer when his two-year contract expires at the end of the 1990 season.

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Claire said his feelings about Samuel as a center fielder were strengthened by a conversation last fall with Dodger instructor Claude Osteen, a former pitching coach for the Phillies.

“I remember Claude talking about how, when Samuel was a second baseman, he spent all of his pregame time in the outfield,” Claire said. “Claude said Samuel loved it out there, he loved to chase fly balls. I can’t believe that much has already changed.”

And if it has changed?

“If it doesn’t work out, we will certainly readdress it,” Claire said.

The only possibility would be to turn Randolph, last year’s All-Star second baseman, 35 and in the final year of his contract, into a utility player. But that could cause dissension and, if there is one thing Samuel has avoided in his six-year career, it’s dissension. In fact, he says that is what landed him in this current predicament.

“I’ve been known as a nice guy who will do anything for my team, and that is why the Phillies moved me to the outfield,” Samuel said. “They needed a center fielder and they knew I would accept it, and they were right. It was easy for them to come to me, so they did.

“I told them, ‘Give me a multiyear contract and I will do whatever you need.’ So they did, and I was in center field. I don’t cause problems, and I don’t want to cause problems with the Dodgers.”

Not that Samuel believes he can’t play center field.

“Sure, I can play it,” he said. “I don’t feel that uncomfortable out there. I am learning and can only get better, I know that.”

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He agreed, too, that a move to Los Angeles will help. Three days after his wife Mery joined him in New York last summer, after the trade from Philadelphia, her car was looted while she was in a supermarket with their new infant. Before the end of the season, their car was vandalized again.

“Last year I thought too much,” he said. “Too many things made me think too much, and my game was hurt.”

Said his agent, Jim Turner: “Last year wasn’t a matter of him not liking center field. He just didn’t like New York. It wasn’t a team or a position or anything but the city. He and his wife and family were very unhappy there.

“Now that he is in Los Angeles, which he loves, things will be different. He will play center field and take it very seriously. And he will hit again. The distractions will be gone.”

The Dodgers can only hope. No telling how long it would take them to come up with another center fielder. Especially a real center fielder.

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