Success, Wealth Don’t Impress Finley

Success has not spoiled Chuck Finley. Chances are, it won’t.

Not a man who says in his Louisiana drawl that his new $725,000 contract hasn’t changed him, because: “I’m basically a tightwad. All I need is a place to lay my head. Fancy cars I don’t need. All I need’s something decent that’ll stay running at red lights.”

Not a man who says he doesn’t mind being the third starter on the Angels’ staff instead of the No. 1 pitcher elsewhere, because, “I’d rather be surrounded by race horses than mules.”

Finley, 27, ran with the American League’s top thoroughbreds last season. The left-hander was 16-9, and his 2.57 earned-run average was second in the league to the 2.16 of Kansas City’s Bret Saberhagen.

Finley ranked eighth in strikeouts and third in complete games, but he has never been preoccupied with statistics.

“The thing I enjoyed most last year was contributing. Just going out there and finishing games was the biggest pleasure, because I’d been touted for so long as a four- or five-inning pitcher,” Finley said. “People said, ‘Give him trouble, and he isn’t going to get out.’ I wanted to prove them wrong and I wanted to contribute to the team.

“It was one of those years when it finally all came together. It was a sense of knowing what to do. I added a third pitch (a changeup) that I could throw for strikes, which helped. And the makeup of the team was so much better. There were a lot of friends on the team. There was nothing negative about our team.”

Nor was anything negative about Finley’s first exhibition outing Thursday. Working smoothly and effectively, he allowed the Padres one walk and one hit in three innings and was the only Angel starter who didn’t yield an earned run in his first appearance. He faced nine batters, helped by strong throws by Lance Parrish that cut down Bip Roberts stealing in the first inning and Garry Templeton in the second.

“I thought he was very impressive,” pitching coach Marcel Lachemann said.

Finley was less impressed.

“I take this the same way as I’d take a bad outing; I remember what I did good and what I did bad,” he said. “I can remember a couple of good pitches I made and a couple of times that the ball didn’t do what I wanted. It takes more work. Repetition cuts down on the element of mistake.”

Finley isn’t making the mistake of reading too much into whether he starts the first, second, third, fourth or fifth game of the season. The strategy of mixing the Angels’ two right-handers with their three left-handers might place him last, but he doesn’t consider that his ranking on the pitching staff.

“It would be nice to be the opening-day pitcher,” he said, “but I’m not gonna make no big hill of beans over it. I know they can’t run three left-handers in a row, and it’s not degrading. They can’t run Mark (Langston), Jim (Abbott) and myself in a row: they’ve got to break it up with Bert (Blyleven) and Kirk (McCaskill). It just so happens, I’m on a good staff. A lot of guys in the major leagues would like to be the fourth or fifth starter on this staff. When (Manager Doug Rader) tells me it’s my day to pitch, I look forward to going out there to pitch.”

His anticipation was always great, even when his salary wasn’t. Finley, who earned $180,000 last season, filed for arbitration but settled for $725,000 before his hearing.

“The challenge is always there, no matter what type of money they type into your contract,” he said. “When I was making $60,000, that was a hell of a lot of money to me, and it still is. Ballplayers don’t think about money when they’re out there. I know a lot of people look at the papers and think we do.

“I don’t feel pressure. I’m not going to try and change things because of a few extra dollars here or there. It’s not going to change the way I approach the game.”

Successful though he has been, he still enjoys relative obscurity.

“Do people recognize me? Not on this staff, they don’t. This is still the Langston, Joyner and Abbott show,” he said, smiling. “That doesn’t bother me. There are so many great players on this team. You might be well-known one day, and the next day you wake up and people don’t remember your name.”

Angel Notes

The Angels balanced their exhibition record at 2-2 with a 13-8 victory over the San Diego Padres on Thursday. Replacement catcher John Orton led off the seventh inning with a home run to break an 8-8 tie, and first baseman Lee Stevens contributed a grand slam later in the inning off losing pitcher Ricky Bones. Orton also had a single and a triple. . . . It was a situation where I was looking for a fastball,” Stevens said. “He throws hard enough. I just happened to look, and he happened to throw it right where I was looking.”

The Angels have always looked for solid defense from Orton, and Manager Doug Rader was pleased with Orton’s offensive showing. “He’s an athlete,” Rader said. “He’s going to be a very good player. He didn’t know what he was doing (offensively). He’s beginning to understand.” . . . Orton, who hit .233 at double-A Midland, Tex., last season and .179 in 16 games with the Angels, didn’t understand the source of Thursday’s power. “I just hope it stays with me,” he said. “My hitting has been coming real slow. I’m just trying to work at it a lot and watch the good hitters on our team.”

An examination of shortstop Dick Schofield’s strained right hamstring confirmed he sustained what trainer Ned Bergert called a “one-plus” injury that will idle Schofield for four weeks. A “one-plus” degree of severity puts it between mild and moderate. Bergert also said the injury is not related to the groin and hip flexor problems that put Schofield on the disabled list twice last season.