Are Giant Assets Just Dodger Rejects? : Baseball: Free agents Black, McGee and Righetti all talked with Los Angeles, but they signed with San Francisco.

The San Francisco Giants never have bothered to conceal their deep-rooted contempt for the Dodgers. They despise Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda. They accuse Dodger fans of being phonies. They recoil at the mere mention of Dodger Blue.

“We’re tired of all that rah-rah bull . . . “ one Giant player said.

And this time, they say, the Dodgers flat out insulted them. This time, they’re going to be sorry.

The Giants, you remember, spent $33 million this winter on three free agents--center fielder Willie McGee, left-handed reliever Dave Righetti and starter Bud Black.

The Giants already knew these players had talent. But when they arrived in camp, they got some insight into the three, discovering that:

Black is the most gregarious of the three, an avid golfer who considers a round of 75 a bad day.

Righetti is a notorious prankster, who is just beginning to set his sights on victims.

McGee is so unassuming you would never know he was in the major leagues, let alone the recipient of two batting titles and a most-valuable-player award.

Then comes the part that incensed the Giants. Each of the free agents, it turns out, had conversations with the Dodgers during the winter.

OK, so they were shopping their services.

And frankly, they acknowledged, each was quite willing to be wearing Dodger Blue for their rest of his career.

Give them a break, maybe they didn’t know any better.

But they never had a choice. All of them were rejected by the Dodgers. You know, ‘Don’t call us; we’ll call you.’ The Giant players seethed.

The Dodgers say you weren’t good enough for them? They say you couldn’t help them? Maybe you can help some inferior team?

“We talked to each of them,” said Fred Claire, Dodger vice president, “but there was no serious pursuit at all. In fact, there was not anything that was serious in any of the discussions.”

If you assumed McGee, Righetti and Black harbored no feelings one way or the other toward the Dodgers, that has changed. They too have been infused with hostility toward their rival in the Southland.

“I would have thought they would have at least shown some interest,” said McGee, who won the National League batting title with a .335 average. “I mean, I don’t think for one minute they were planning on Darryl (Strawberry) to play center field. They weren’t fooling anyone with that talk.

“I can’t speak for anyone else, but they sure didn’t want me.”

Said Black: “We talked to them early on, but they told us to wait. They wanted to go after (Bob) Welch, (Tom) Browning and (Ted) Higuera first. And if they couldn’t get them, then maybe, maybe, they’d be interested in signing me.

“When the Giants’ thing came up, I didn’t even bother to call.”

Said Righetti: “I thought the Dodgers might be interested, but after talking to them, there was just nothing there. I knew they wanted Ken Dayley real bad, but even after they couldn’t get him, they didn’t call.”

Shunned by the Dodgers, and scorned by baseball executives because of the high price of their contracts, the three Giants find themselves intertwined, fending off a daily barrage of criticism.

Black, 33, a career 83-82 pitcher, ridiculed all winter and mocked as the ultimate example of outrageous salaries, is trying to prove that he is as good as anyone else in this business who is making $10 million.

Righetti, 32, who saved 36 games last season for the Yankees but still is considered by many to be past his prime, is trying to show everyone that he is as good as any left-handed bullpen stopper in the game.

McGee, 32, a career .297 hitter and three-time Gold Glove winner, is trying to contend with the ghost of Brett Butler, hoping to show that the Giants knew what they were doing when they cast aside their leadoff hitter.

Then there is Al Rosen, the Giants’ general manager, the man who spent the $33 million to try to bring a championship to the city, only to listen to critics say he did nothing more than shuffle names and throw off everyone’s payrolls.

“I know I’ve got my critics,” Rosen said. “I know I’ve got my enemies. But I’m always concerned about the guy with no enemies. That means that person never has an opinion. It’s like you’re in a sea of mediocrity. I’ll take my chances.

“There’s always going to be critics out there, but what are you going to do? What do they expect me to say, ‘I’ve got Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Matt Williams and that’s good enough? We’re not going to do any more?’

“Do you want to tell the fans, ‘Hey, we’re not going to try to win.’

“Our lineup is second to none. But unless you have the pitching, you’re not going to be successful. And it was no secret to me that to shore up our pitching, we had to go through the free-agent market.

“I know it’s easy for people to criticize, but we did what we had to do.”

The criticism reached a peak Nov. 9, when the Giants announced they signed Black. The terms: four years, $10 million. Agents rejoiced; general managers cursed.

“Every year he does this to us,” one baseball executive said. “He signs a free agent before anyone else and establishes a market price that’s so high, the rest of us get hurt. If I was an agent, Al Rosen would be the first guy I’d call every year.”

Indeed, it appeared preposterous to pay Black an average salary of $2.5 million. His lone standout season was in 1984 when he went 17-12 with the Kansas City Royals. And he has never made the All-Star team, let alone been a candidate for the Cy Young Award.

“I said it then, and I’ll say it now,” Rosen said. “If we didn’t sign Bud Black, someone else would have. And I know the money would have been comparable.

“To a man, our staff thought he was the best free agent available, and to this day, I think he’ll be more successful than any of the free agents that were out there.”

Instead of rejoicing over his newfound riches during the winter, Black sat home in his San Diego area home, listening to the ridicule. It was bad enough that he kept waiting for Johnny Carson to make him the brunt of jokes.

“In no way did I expect all the attention,” Black said. “My name was splattered all over the place. I couldn’t understand it.

“I look back now, and realize it was all timing. If I had waited a few weeks, everyone was getting that amount, and I would have blended right in. But I was like the Lone Ranger.

“No one brings up the money in here, but I know a lot is expected of me. The Giants got me to amass a high number of innings, go out there and start on a regular basis, and pitch consistently.

“I’m not going to put any pressure on myself, but I know for us to do well, I’ve got to do well.”

It was nearly a month later when Rosen again managed to rile everyone up. This time, it was his own fans. Rosen acquired McGee to be his center fielder on Dec. 4, in essence, booting Butler out the door.

Butler was a popular fixture in San Francisco. Among the best leadoff hitters in the National League, Butler batted .309 last season, getting 192 hits, stealing 51 bases and scoring 108 runs. Besides, he loved beating the Dodgers as much as anyone, hitting .411 against them last season.

But when Butler was ruled a second-look free agent, and after his first conversation with Butler’s agent, Dick Moss, Rosen became worried. For a man who allegedly has little regard for paying exorbitant salaries, Rosen refused to cave in to Butler’s whim.

“Regardless of what came out,” Rosen said, “his agent told me on more than one occasion that Butler should be paid on par with Mitchell and Clark. And that’s four years, $15 million. I know Dick Moss, and he doesn’t fool around.

“Don’t get me wrong. Butler gave us great years of service. I had a terrific, warm relationship with him. But if you’re going to run a business, you can’t be America’s sweetheart.

“I was just not going to come out of the winter meetings without a center fielder, or be at the mercy of another center fielder.”

Said Giant Manger Roger Craig: “I loved Brett Butler, and I still do. But Al came to me during the winter meetings and said, ‘Roger, we have a chance to lose Butler. He’s asking for a lot of money. But we have a chance to sign McGee. We have to do it fast, because if we wait another day or two, he could be gone.’

“I said, ‘Let’s go get him.’ ”

McGee signed a four-year contract for $13 million. Butler signed with the Dodgers for a guaranteed $10 million over three years.

“We really didn’t have any interest in McGee,” Claire said, “but when we saw Butler was available, we knew he’d be the perfect fit.”

The comparisons have already begun. Even though McGee and Butler are different types of players, and McGee will not lead off for the Giants, a Bay Area newspaper already is running a daily statistical chart of the two players.

“That’s all I ever hear about,” McGee said, “me and Brett Butler. Brett Butler and me. I’m really getting tired of it. Hey, I’m Willie McGee. He’s Brett Butler. We’re two totally different type players.

“He’s a great player, and he can do things that I just can’t do. But I do some things that I think he can’t do.”

McGee, according to scouts, has more range and a better arm than Butler. He also has more power. Butler, scouts say, is a much better leadoff hitter and a better baserunner. The intangibles are that Butler is considered a clubhouse leader, and is rather durable, averaging 157 games the past three seasons. McGee, who rarely talks unless spoken to, has averaged only 116 games since 1988.

It was rather peculiar, however, that when McGee filed for free agency, there were few teams that expressed any interest. Despite Rosen’s urgency to sign McGee, there were no other offers waiting.

“It wasn’t like I expected at all,” McGee said. “Doors were opening, and then closing. I really didn’t have much of a choice. I’m just glad somebody wanted me.

“No one really knows this, but if the Giants hadn’t come along, I probably would have ended up with the Mets. I had a meeting scheduled with them the following week. They wanted to have Vince (Coleman) and I together.

“But I think this is for the best.”

Certainly, of all the free-agent signings that occurred during the winter, none had the oddity of Righetti’s. It was at the start of the winter meetings when Righetti was interviewed by his hometown paper, the San Jose Mercury News, and said that he would like to pitch for the Giants.

That was the first Rosen knew about it. He picked up the phone that morning, telephoned Bill Goodstein, Righetti’s agent, and three days later Righetti was a Giant, signing for $10 million over four years.

The Giants, Rosen said, were a bit worried about the contract of Steve Bedrosian, their previous bullpen stopper. He was eligible to become a free agent after the 1991 season, and the Giants really didn’t want to keep him. Besides, with the way Jeff Brantley pitched in 1990, saving 19 games in 24 opportunities, the Giants figured there was no need to have two right-handed stoppers when you can get yourself a left-hander.

“It’s funny,” Righetti said, “when I was a free agent, the first thing other clubs wanted to know about was whether I was serious about leaving the Yankees. They thought I was going to stay. I was trying to pitch like hell to get out.

“I get emotional when I think of the Yankees, and loyalty, and all that, but I really felt it was time to move on.

“It’s so nice to be on a team again that you know has a chance to win.”

It’s that same kind of feeling, Rosen says, that he hopes endears fans to Candlestick. He dreams of a glorious day in October, when the Giants win the World Series, and generate such public sentiment that the city of San Francisco finally breaks down and feels compelled to vote in favor of a new stadium.

“We’ve got to win, there’s no two ways about it,” Rosen said. “Anyone who goes to Candlestick Park, they’ll tell you it’s a lousy place to watch a ballgame. I mean, a lousy place.

“There are a few hearty souls who’ll always be there, but unless we’re in the race, they’ll stay away in droves. No one wants to show up in July with a ski jacket and gloves and watch a loser.

“Hopefully, these three guys can help push us over. All of them have been on winners. All of them have been in the World Series. All of them have been in pressure-cookers.

“People can criticize all they want, but let’s see who’s still talking when the year’s out, shall we?”