Dodgers Wary of Lockout : Baseball: Union memo warns players against making deposits on housing for spring training.

Tim Belcher, the Dodgers’ interim player representative, said Wednesday that, in view of the owners’ threat of a spring training lockout, the Major League Players Assn. has sent its members a memo warning against putting deposits down on spring housing and making plane reservations to spring sites.

Belcher considered the memo so important, he said, that he couldn’t wait for it to be mailed.

So while the players’ association was processing the memo last Wednesday, the pitcher was on the phone with many of the other Dodger players, informing them of its contents.

“If anybody was getting ready to spend money on spring training plans, I wanted to hold them off,” he said. “I wanted to make sure we didn’t have anybody plunking down big bucks on some apartment before this memo reached them in the mail.

“Good thing I did, too. I got a hold of Jay Howell just as he was trying to make a decision on what to do.”

Howell, a Dodger reliever whose wife, Alison, is expecting their first child in five weeks, said there would be no room reserved in his name at Vero Beach, Fla.

“With all that’s going on, I’m just going to wing it,” Howell said from his home near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “If I have to get a hotel room at the last minute, that’s what I’ll do.”

Because Howell lives only two hours south of the Dodgers’ Vero Beach spring training site, he can make his plans later than most. Mickey Hatcher, a Dodger utility player who lives outside Phoenix, is a bit more nervous.

“From what I read and what I’ve been told, I’m holding off on everything,” Hatcher said. “The outlook doesn’t look good, and that’s not very fun. I just wish everybody would get their acts together and get this thing done.”

Belcher said that because of the player’s memo, the scheduled Feb. 15 start of spring training would probably be delayed, even if there is an earlier settlement.

“This memo, combined with the directive to the owners that stops them from making spring training plans, will make it pretty tough for everyone to get everything together,” Belcher said. “Even if the owners decide at their Feb. 9 meeting to proceed with spring training like usual, it’s unrealistic to think everyone could get things together in such a short time.

“So the chances of a spring training delay are pretty good.”

Mike Witt, the Angels’ player representative, was unavailable for comment on how Angel players are approaching a possible lockout.

Belcher, who has attended four negotiating sessions in New York as the replacement for ex-Dodger player representative Dave Anderson, now with San Francisco, said the memo is mostly explanatory.

“The memo explained what took place in the owners’ directive,” Belcher said, referring to a letter from the Player Relations Committee to all clubs last week, asking them not to proceed with plans for spring training. “And then it talked about how that directive would impact us. And it told of the problems of making advance plans for spring training, of how that could cost you money.

“We aren’t telling anybody to do anything. We are just giving them all the facts.”

Dodger management confirmed Wednesday that they are also following their directive and halting spring training proceedings.

Bill DeLury, Dodger traveling secretary, said he has not mailed the players their annual spring training fact sheet, even though it was scheduled to go out last week. The equipment is scheduled to leave for Florida Feb. 2, but the trucking company has been notified that it may not be needed.

Dodger Notes

The Dodgers received good news from a prominent outfielder after their first winter workout at Dodger Stadium Wednesday. The results of a pre-workout strength test showed Kirk Gibson’s injured left leg to be 20% stronger than last season, and 92% as strong as his injury-free right leg. “It’s great news,” said Gibson, who did little more than jog slowly across the outfield. He repeated that his goal is to be ready to play consistently in the regular season and will take whatever time is necessary to reach that goal.