BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Mr. October a Good Pick for This Job

This is the spring in which Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson have redefined their MVP titles. They are now the National and American leagues’ most voluble pouters.

The game changes, but many of the prerequisites remain the same.

As the Oakland Athletics prepare to pursue their fourth consecutive pennant, Manager Tony La Russa has brought in two new technicians, or as he characterized their personalities as players:

“Gamers, grinders, guys who knew what they needed to do to get from Game 1 to 162.”

Former Angel Rick Burleson is the batting instructor, replacing Merv Rettenmund, who took a similar position with the Padres in his hometown of San Diego.

Former Angel Reggie Jackson doesn’t have a title, but La Russa has given him one: A frame of mind coach.

“Things change,” acknowledged Jackson. “The money is so big that it’s tough to get people to listen, and that’s understandable. A guy making $2 million a year feels he must be doing it right, why does he have to listen?”

Jackson has recently been through it, has performed under the toughest of pressures, knows what is needed to prepare and win, and may have an edge in making a player listen.

Particularly, perhaps, Jose Canseco, of whom General Manager Sandy Alderson recently said, “Jose continues to grow . . . with each year and each arrest.”

Said Jackson: “I think there are things I can tell a Rickey Henderson, a Dave Stewart, a Todd Van Poppel. I’m here to try and help all the A’s, but there’s a natural gravitation to Jose because I was a similar type, a big ego who marched to his own drummer. I also played hard, respected the name on the front of the uniform and was there when it counted.

“I’m here to help Jose avoid some of the obstructions, help him through the maze, help him understand what the A’s expect of him and what he has to do to lead the A’s. He needs to understand the importance of his conduct to the team, the perception of the image he projects.

“When he projects good work habits, it makes the manager’s job easier, makes the team more cohesive and rubs off on the other players.

“When guys like Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson take the field with great demeanor and pride, it makes everyone around them better. That’s the job of the great player. Accept the pressure. Play hurt. Be the bull in the ring. Act like a $4-million-a-year player.

“I mean, I’m not a wizard. All I’m here to do is remind them what they already know. As for Jose, he has a ways to go, but he’s on the right track.”

Jackson may be, too, considering that he eventually hopes to have a significant position in baseball--on the field or in the front office.

Last year he was the analyst on Angel telecasts and said he remains grateful for that opportunity. But when he got to November and hadn’t heard if he was going to be rehired, he elected to be closer to his Berkeley home and accepted a job as the A’s analyst. At the same time, he renewed a series of discussions with La Russa, leading to an assignment that has put him back in uniform this spring and will again before most regular-season games.

Jackson called it his own learning experience, a plus for the resume to have served under La Russa and Alderson “whether I have the opportunity to manage, coach or work in a front office. I think it shows people that I’m willing to run errands, pitch batting practice, pick up balls and do anything to help the group. There was a time that the group always evolved around me--at least I thought it did.”

While Jackson attracted the spotlight like a magnet, Burleson had to scrap to find it. He came out of Warren High in Downey, proving critics of his size and skill wrong.

He was a four time All-Star with the Boston Red Sox, a Gold Glove winner who tore a rotator cuff in 1982, his first season with the Angels, played only 51 games through ‘85, won a comeback-of-the-year award in ’86 and retired after a final season with the Baltimore Orioles in ’87. He worked for the A’s as a scout and roving instructor the last two years, then applied for the varsity post when Rettenmund left.

“I think the reason they picked me over a couple of the big-name people they talked to is that they recognized I worked hard to make myself a better player and worked hard to rehabilitate myself after I got hurt,” Burleson said. “They know that mentally I’ll be in it every day.”

The A’s project a Bash Brothers image, but Burleson, a singles and doubles hitter who studied films of the Oakland batters all winter, said there are areas in which he can help hitters of any type.

“I believe certain techniques are important, but I’m not going to clone people,” he said. “I have to be different things to different guys. I was concerned about a couple egos, but the guys have been great. They’ve been open, receptive. Their attitude seems to be, ‘Let’s hear what you have to say. Let’s see how you can help.’ ”

In a changing game, Burleson and Jackson know it’s a victory if they listen at all.

SAY WHAT?

There is no question, as La Russa contends, that Canseco is now a target for media and fans, who have heated up the Cactus League with negative passion aimed at Canseco and Henderson. Some of it, of course, Canseco has earned, some of it he has not. Is Jackson having an impact?

Difficult to tell by the rambling soliloquy Canseco delivered the other day. He said his back is fine, that he’s feeling better than he has in five years, that he is into his own program--mentally and physically.

He said he would have to be a robot to live up to people’s expectations and that they are just waiting for him to fail. He said he was not here to be an example for the team, to “rah-rah” the players or be a scapegoat for the fans.

“I’m here to prepare and do what’s best for me,” he said. “If I do that, it’ll rub off on the organization.”

He also said that in trying to do things for others he had buried himself, spread himself too thin, and that he was forced to adopt this self-centered approach or self destruct.

“If I try to please the fans I get . . . ,” he said. “If I try to please the media I get . . . . If I try to please the organization I get . . . . Why not please myself and get . . . .

“Does that make any sense?”

No, but then it’s not easy, being a $4.7-million-a-year star.

THE BLUE BREW

Injuries restricted Ted Higuera to 22 starts in 1989 and 27 last year. Now, after signing a four-year, $13-million contract with the Milwaukee Brewers, the ace left-hander is down again and possibly out with a torn rotator cuff.

“We’re conditioned mentally to Teddy getting hurt,” Manager Tom Trebelhorn said. “But it’s still impossible to minimize the impact of losing your No. 1--both on your own rotation and how your opponents gear up to play you.”

In a disappointing season marred by injuries, the Brewers were sixth in the American League East last year. They were fourth in the league in runs but 10th in earned-run average and last in team fielding with 149 errors.

Now? There are no spring-colored predictions from Trebelhorn, a former mathematics teacher who can add up his team’s deficits.

‘I think we fit right in the middle of the division, third or fourth, with the people we have,” he said. “It’ll be up to us (him and his coaches) to try and make it better, but we have to score the same number of runs without Dave Parker, get better pitching without Ted Higuera and definitely execute better on defense.”

LEFT-HANDED LAMENT

Higuera’s injury is one of many that have compounded a shortage of quality left-handers in the big leagues.

Joe Magrane will have elbow surgery in April and is out for the year. Sid Fernandez will miss three months’ action with a broken arm. Frank Viola continues to pitch but may need surgery at any time for bone chips in his elbow. Rick Honeycutt has a shoulder tear and will be out for six weeks after surgery.

The Elias Sports Bureau determined that left-handers worked 37% of all the innings pitched last year, the highest percentage of the century, but they posted a 688-738 record, only the second time in 39 years that lefties have had a losing record in consecutive years.

And in the area of meager numbers, only 21 left-handers pitched 170 innings or more and won nine games or more--the now injured Higuera, Magrane, Fernandez and Viola being four of the 21.

WILLIE ON BO

At 35, signed as a free agent by the A’s to be their backup at all three outfield positions, Willie Wilson says he feels reborn.

“I’m treated with the respect of a 13 year veteran,” he said. “The last four years in Kansas City, I was made to feel like I was in the way, that I was a pain to them, and when it would get so bad that I’d finally have to go in and ask about my situation, they’d say, ‘See, he is a pain.’ ”

Wilson’s antipathy is directed at Royal Manager John Wathan, whom he also said was partially responsible for any envy and resentment that developed in the clubhouse toward Bo Jackson and his preferential treatment.

“Bo was on his own schedule because no one was man enough to deal with it,” Wilson said. “There was some jealousy, resentment and intimidation among the players, but no one was man enough to say anything, to approach Bo about it.

“The manager was scared to death, and Bo tends to run over people he doesn’t respect. I mean, Wathan made Frank White the honorary captain and then made Frank tell Bo that he couldn’t wear an earring. Bo told Frank that the manager would have to tell him to take it out, that it was the manager’s job.

“There was just no one who stood up to Bo, no one man enough to say, ‘This is the way it has to be and is going to be.’ ”

GREAT SCOTT?

If he isn’t quite that, the Chicago Cubs may decide that Gary Scott is at least ready to open the season as their third baseman, filling the only vacancy in an impressive lineup.

Scott, 22, from Villanova, was the Cubs’ second-round draft choice in 1989. He is the hottest thing in the inclement Cactus League. He was 15 for 27 with no errors through Thursday. And what the Cubs will try to decide in the next two weeks is if he has the fortitude and temperament to start for a pennant contender after only one full season in the minors.

Said Ron Santo, a former standout at third base for the Cubs: “I personally feel that if Gary is the third baseman, the Cubs will have the best defensive infield in the league because he can definitely pick it. Watch his actions and quick feet. He must be a very good dancer.”

The Cubs have been here before. Center fielder Jerome Walton skipped triple-A in ’89 and was the National League’s rookie of the year. First baseman Mark Grace and catcher Joe Girardi were promoted after only token appearances at triple-A. Scott has been in 185 pro games, none above double-A.

“Don Zimmer and I think alike,” said General Manager Jim Frey, referring to the Cubs’ manager. “You can only baby them so long.”