BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Braves Hoping This Falcon Stays in Center

The Atlanta Braves don’t see their signing of Atlanta Falcon cornerback Deion Sanders as a publicity gimmick.

They think he will turn to baseball on a full-time basis when his Falcon contract expires after the 1992 season and say he has the potential to become their center fielder.

Henry Aaron, the Braves’ senior vice president, said from Atlanta that Sanders can become another Lou Brock. “It would have been a drastic mistake if we had not gotten him,” Aaron said.

The Chicago White Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays were also interested in Sanders’ part-time services, but failed to match the Braves’ offer of $650,000 and the added opportunity of playing two sports in what is now his hometown, enhancing his local endorsement opportunities.

Sanders will open the season with Atlanta’s triple-A farm club in Richmond, Va. His contract extends only through July 31, at which point he will rejoin the Falcons.

Attorney Barry Axelrod said the goal was to shape a developmental package that would put his client in position to choose between football and baseball when the Falcon contract expires in two years.

The irrepressible Sanders, however, said he doesn’t need that much development and doesn’t expect to spend the entire time in Richmond. “I’m not settling for Richmond,” he said. “No one comes to see the Richmond Braves. I want to be on TBS.”

Last July, Neon Deion thought he was headed for Broadway.

His contract with the New York Yankees expired July 31, but the Yankees, impressed with his potential, offered a $2-million deal that would have put Sanders on a Bo Jackson-type schedule by which he would have played a full season of baseball before rejoining the Falcons after the start of their NFL campaign.

On the day that the deal was to be signed, the same day that Yankee owner George Steinbrenner reached his agreement with Commissioner Fay Vincent and was basically suspended from baseball, the Yankees withdrew the offer to Sanders, unwilling to make the financial commitment with the structure of the club in doubt.

An angry Axelrod accused the Yankees of breaching good-faith negotiations in a letter to then-General Manager George Bradley and demanded Sanders’ release. The Yankees complied, and Sanders joined the Falcons as originally scheduled.

Now he has become the sixth free agent signed by the Braves at an expenditure of $33 million this winter, joining Terry Pendleton, Sid Bream, Juan Berenguer, Charlie Leibrandt and Rafael Belliard. In addition to the money, Atlanta gave up a second-round draft choice as compensation for Pendleton.

“I think it’s outstanding,” club President Stan Kasten said of the signing spree by new General Manager John Schuerholz. “We’ve gained six players without having to give up anyone.

“All we’ve lost is a second-round draft choice, and I don’t think there’s too many second-round draft choices who have the potential of Deion Sanders.”

The Sanders signing may produce fireworks in both Atlanta and Richmond.

--In Atlanta, outfielder Dave Justice made $102,500 as the National League’s rookie of the year. He can be expected to triple that this season, but may wonder why he will earn only half of what the basically untested Sanders will receive.

--In Richmond, Sanders is remembered for fighting with taunting fans while he was a Yankee farmhand in August of 1988. Charges were filed but later dismissed.

“I hope they boo me again,” he said after signing his new contract. “It makes me play better, then they have to cheer me and look like fools.”

Montreal Expos Manager Buck Rodgers, helping out at his daughter’s flower shop in Yorba Linda, scoffed at an ESPN report that the Expos want to sign Jim Palmer, who is attempting a comeback at 45.

Rodgers and the Expos have produced major reclamation projects with Dennis Martinez, Pascual Perez and Oil Can Boyd, but Rodgers said the Palmer report is without validity.

“We’re in a youth movement,” Rodgers said. “We had 14 rookies on our roster at the end of the year. We’re not going to be interested in a guy who hasn’t pitched in six years.”

Many say the Palmer comeback is financially motivated, citing baseball’s escalating salaries and an attempt by ABC, with its reduced baseball schedule, to cut commentators’ salaries.

“You can’t blame Jim,” Rodgers said. “He sees what’s happening and knows that if he wins eight games he can make a million (dollars), 12 wins and the scale is $2 million.”

The Angels won’t say it, but they were privately concerned that Chili Davis’ lower-back problem, which restricted him to 113 games last season, would eventually become disk-related. They were also disturbed that they hadn’t seen him all winter so that they could check on the weight and exercise program designed to control the back problem.

All of that affected their reluctance to renegotiate his contract, along with a conviction that they have designated hitter options, including Luis Polonia or Dave Winfield if Dante Bichette or even Jack Howell moves into a full-time outfield role.

The Angels could also re-sign Brian Downing, although General Manager Mike Port said, “Right now we’re looking at the players already on the roster.”

Commissioner Vincent, having worked out of his Connecticut home during a siege of winter illness leading to surgery for the removal of his spleen, will take a vacation in the Caribbean next week, then return to his Manhattan office for the first time since November.

He is likely to face a siege of another kind. The problems that have hounded his tenure continue, and Vincent may be forced to mediate two more disputes--one involving his umpires, the other the two leagues.

The situations:

--Richie Phillips, legal counsel to the umpires union, and Robert Kheel, attorney for the National League, have been conducting collective bargaining talks for a month, with both remaining reluctant to discuss details.

It is known that the leagues want to regain a measure of control and authority, believing the umpires have too much autonomy and security, resulting in a deterioration of their skills, attitudes and work habits.

The umpires have three objectives: (1) continued financial improvements; (2) a fifth umpire on every crew to provide a rotating day off every fourth day, and (3) geographically split crews during the playoffs and World Series, so there would be a crew in the East and another in the West, reducing travel and enabling more umpires to share in the postseason revenue.

Said an American League source close to the situation: “Richie is in no hurry to get it settled. He believes time is on his side and his only real leverage is a spring training work stoppage that would threaten the season. His plan is to get Vincent involved.

“The umpires see the commissioner as an ally, since he mediated the problem between (National League umpire) Joe West and (league President) Bill White last year and got every minor league umpire a $500 raise despite opposition from the minor leagues themselves.”

--The American League and the National League face a divisive battle over the AL’s request to share the NL’s $190-million expansion revenue in return for also supplying players to the 1993 pool. The NL has said it doesn’t want the AL players and doesn’t want to share the revenue.

By keeping the $190 million within the league, it would translate to $15.8 million for each of the NL’s existing 12 teams, some of which, the Dodgers included, may have had that windfall in mind when they went on their free-agent spending sprees this winter.

The NL, however, may have no option but to agree to a Vincent-orchestrated compromise, since its selection of two expansion sites requires majority approval by American League owners who might withhold that approval as long as the NL withholds the money.

Although a member of the Hall of Fame’s board of directors, Vincent will be on vacation Monday when the 16-member board meets to vote on the recommendation by a special committee that a person on baseball’s ineligible list be ineligible for the Hall of Fame ballot.

The recommendation is aimed at Pete Rose, who is eligible for the ballot in 1992 but is currently on baseball’s ineligible list for betting on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

The board, which includes four members of the committee that passed the recommendation, is expected to approve it overwhelmingly. There are no writers on the Hall board, though the Baseball Writers Assn. of America has supervised screening of ballot candidates and the election itself for 55 years.

Vincent’s absence seems disturbingly appropriate. He has continually attempted to distance himself from the issue, though the impetus for a Rose ban is believed to have come directly from the commissioner’s office in the same way that collusion was suspected to be the brainchild of former commissioner Peter Ueberroth.