Escape FROM New York : Life Begins at 39 for Dave Winfield With George Steinbrenner and Yankees Behind Him

When they parted, ending a decade of loud and public differences, Dave Winfield and George Steinbrenner had the same words for each other.

“On the way out, I told him, ‘You’ve occupied a lot of my time,’ ” Winfield said. “He said, ‘You’ve occupied a lot of my time.’ I said, ‘Well, good.’ ”

Steinbrenner, the former managing general partner of the New York Yankees, no longer has a claim on Winfield’s time, body or soul.

As he nears completion of his first spring with the Angels, Winfield has left behind a rancorous relationship with Steinbrenner and the bitter end of his Yankee career. Without Steinbrenner’s invectives or lawsuits with the man he indirectly helped bring down, Winfield swings a quicker bat, takes a lighter stride, smiles a wider smile than he did in New York.

His 40th birthday is six months away, but Winfield this spring has resembled the All-Star right fielder he was in his 20s and not the washed-up, played-out, post-surgical patient the Yankees judged him to be before trading him last May 11 to the Angels. Winfield got a contract extension from the Angels worth $3.2 million this year, with options for 1992 at $3 million and 1993 at $2.8 million.

In fine shape after a rigorous off-season conditioning program, Winfield has broken his career-long pattern of slow starts. He leads the Angels with a .409 exhibition batting average, 10 doubles and 46 total bases. With Dave Parker hitting behind him, he should continue to see good pitches when the season begins.

“You’re going to hear pitchers crying, ‘Nobody told me there would be Daves like this,’ ” Winfield said.

That he would have days like he has had this spring seemed impossible when he joined the Angels, still struggling to regain his rhythm after losing a year because of back surgery.

He was hitting .231 through July and no longer catching up to fly balls he once would have devoured. His belief in his ability never flagged, but he admitted to harboring “a little trepidation until you’re able to play and able to show it.”

Angel Manager Doug Rader thought Winfield had the physical and emotional strength to recapture his old form.

“He overcame his shortcomings with his natural ability,” said Rader, who was Winfield’s teammate in San Diego for a year and a half. “You could see his natural ability was there, and all he needed was to improve his physical condition. Playing defense is similar to hitting: It requires a lot of timing and repetitive work, and he hadn’t had any in about a year.”

Certainly, playing every day honed Winfield’s skills. But it’s no coincidence that his second-half surge to being named the American League’s comeback player of the year began the day Steinbrenner was ordered to relinquish his role with the Yankees because of a $40,000 payment to known gambler Howard Spira to uncover damaging information about Winfield.

From that day, Winfield hit .320 with eight home runs and 51 runs batted in. He finished at .267 with 21 homers and a team-leading 78 RBIs, numbers he expects to better this year by building on serenity and sound physical condition.

“All the New York stuff seems pretty far behind me now after two-thirds of a season with California and this first spring training,” said Winfield, baseball’s active RBI leader with 1,516. “I’m used to the ways of the organization. I like it and can appreciate it.

“There’s a level of comfortability--is there such a word?--and respect that was lacking. We didn’t have it in New York. That’s partially contributed to my performance here. I also wanted to put on a good show in my first spring with the Angels and demonstrate my focus. And you can talk with other guys and they don’t think they’re going to get hit with a hail of bullets.”

He dodged Steinbrenner’s barbs almost from the day he left San Diego as a free agent to sign a 10-year contract that eventually paid him $18,316,602.

Winfield crossed the continent after eight years with the Padres, “because it was a challenge. I wanted to be with people who win,” he said, citing Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles and Goose Gossage as competitors who rekindled his own zest. “I would have become stagnant as an individual, and a change of venue was good. If I could play well for a bad team, I could still dig down and get better. Those years were good for me. They raised my performance.”

Steinbrenner raised his hackles, leading Winfield to claim Steinbrenner failed to make obligated contributions to the charitable David M. Winfield Foundation. Steinbrenner won a round of suits and countersuits, getting Winfield to admit he was delinquent in contributing to his own foundation. That first court encounter set the ugly tone that characterized Winfield’s Yankee years.

“We had a bad relationship from the first year,” Winfield said, “and then came the things he said after the World Series. But I endured.”

He actually flourished, despite getting from Steinbrenner the nickname, “Mr. May,” for his one-for-22 performance in the 1981 World Series.

Winfield was an All-Star each of the eight seasons he played in New York, and drove in 100 or more runs six times. He could have taken Steinbrenner up on an offer to stay in New York instead of accepting the trade to the Angels, but the time was right for him to leave.

“The truth is, I wanted to get out of there. They meant me no good,” Winfield said. “But the public has to know that I always enjoyed being a part of that organization and that city.

“Everybody in the world was saying (over the years), ‘You’re a fool. You’re crazy. I’d be gone, man.’ But there is a way--legally and professionally--a lot of things I had to consider, how it had to be done, how I was going to get out of there. You have to play all your cards. You have to go through the process. No one else in baseball would have done it that way, but that’s me.”

He’s a complex man, one who spends much of his time aiding children and steering them away from drugs through programs fostered by his foundation, yet he rarely sees his own child. Lauren Shanel, 8, lives with her mother, Sandra Renfro, in Austin, Tex. Renfro won legal recognition of her claim she was Winfield’s common-law wife, a decision he hopes someday to overturn. Winfield married Tonya Turner three years ago.

“I have a daughter I love very much now, but I never planned on her,” Winfield said. “Things happen in life. There are a lot of things you wish you could change. (In my) one World Series, I got one hit. You wish you could change some of that. How you do it is by going forward and getting there again.

“I know why we were in a World Series the year we got there. I had a whole lot to do with it. And we should have won without a major contribution by me. But I’m not eaten up by it.”

Nor would he let Steinbrenner’s hatred consume him, although the owner’s vendetta ate up much of his time.

“He had something personal going with me,” Winfield said. “I can imagine (the reason), but I don’t want to say. That would just be my opinion. He never said (the cause). I would just go by his actions and things he said he would do.

“Boy, it’s good to just focus on baseball. You know how much free time I have? There was a time in New York when I’m trying to play baseball and Steinbrenner would occupy 60%, 70% of my waking hours.

“Someday I’ll show you or people how I had to plan . . . exactly what he may do to me during the course of the year, how he could affect me and my life adversely. It was computerized. ‘This may happen and this may happen, this may happen,’ and this is how you would avoid and defend and just be aware. (My friends and family) were on a state of alert.”

He remains on the alert for potential trouble. On the beach in the Virgin Islands with Tonya last winter, he angered two fans by declining to pose for a photograph with the bathing suit-clad woman. He’s wary of autograph hunters, too. After all, Spira used as proof he worked for Winfield a letter Winfield sent him and 100 others as thanks for volunteer work Spira did for the Winfield Foundation.

“People use a whole lot of innocent things against you,” Winfield said.

Potentially harmful were contentions in a Sports Illustrated story last August by former associates of his and his late agent, Al Frohman, that Winfield had bet on football and basketball games and lent Spira $15,000 10 years ago to pay off gambling debts. John Dowd, baseball’s special investigator, said the charges were untrue.

Winfield wonders what Steinbrenner’s next jab will be in an upcoming Playboy interview.

“I only started hearing (gambling accusations) after they started going after Pete (Rose) and I was at the height of my battles with (Steinbrenner),” Winfield said. “Then you start hearing those kinds of things. To me it was, ‘If you can’t get him one way, you get him another.’ ”

” . . . I think people see how consistent I am in my actions, in my playing, in my contributions and what has happened to him. People don’t really believe that. I don’t think they do. Most people do not, and I found the further away I got from New York, it wasn’t even important.”

Being recognized as a leader is important to him--and the source of bitterness he still carries.

“It’s funny, but now that I left, they make Don Mattingly the captain of the team. They weren’t going to touch that with a 10-foot pole when I was there,” Winfield said. “People knew who was making the major contributions, but (management said), ‘We got to wait till he gets out of here so we can give somebody the title.’ ”

With the Angels, Winfield has led more by actions than words. He became an unofficial assistant hitting instructor for his teammates last season, an opportunity he enjoyed, but he also tried to spark enthusiasm in the dugout by riding opposing pitchers.

“Somebody will say, ‘What’s this guy got,’ and I’ll say, ‘ Nothing ,’ ” he said. “You’ve got to get these guys to disrespect the opposition. You’ve got to get them going. That’s just one little thing we have fun with.”

If he doesn’t wave pompons, that’s fine with Rader.

“Rah-rah leaders aren’t worth a hoot anyway,” Rader said. “The best leaders are the ones that lead by example. There’s much more to be said for competency than for guys who raise banners. The reasons those guys are doing it is because they don’t have the physical tools to do it.”

Winfield had the physical tools to be drafted in three sports. The NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, the American Basketball Assn.’s Utah Stars and the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks all claimed him, but he signed with the Padres in 1973. That was the same year Parker made his professional debut; the two sluggers’ careers would run parallel until they converged in March, when Parker was acquired by the Angels in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers.

“He, to me, is one of the better players I’ve seen in my career,” Parker said of Winfield. “I’ve never seen a big man so coordinated and agile. He plays the outfield like a little man. He may have lost some foot speed, but he plays the game like it should be played. He runs out every ground ball, and that’s something young players can learn from.”

Winfield returned the compliment.

“Dave Parker is a big, rough ballplayer. His style is rugged, rough and rugged, bang ‘em up, whatever it takes to beat you,” Winfield said. “This organization has been very gentlemanly. He has a style they haven’t seen except as an opponent.

“We’re both strong personalities and presences that complement one another.”

His foundation, established in 1977, remains. It has bought computers for New York high schools, provided scholarships, fed impoverished families and funded athletic centers in New Jersey--where Winfield lived while he played for the Yankees--and his home state of Minnesota.

Since 1985, the foundation’s primary focus has been educating elementary school-age children about drugs. Winfield hopes to increase the foundation’s activities in California.

“We want to instill in children a very positive way of life and minimize the chances they’ll turn to drugs,” said Winfield, who maintains a residence in New Jersey and will rent an apartment near Anaheim Stadium this season.

At home now in California and with the Angels, Winfield is at peace. Anything he stirs up will be on the field.

“I’ll be one of the guys who’ll have a very positive influence on the guys and the results we’ll have,” he said. “That’s about as much as I’ll say. . . . They asked the players to write down what their personal goals were for the year and how they intended to get there. I’ll keep it general. Mine was to play a lot of games, about 150 games. There were some serious numbers (among his predictions for himself), but they were couched or phrased only within our winning, making a major contribution toward us winning.”

CAREER STATISTICS

Year Team G Avg. AB R H HR RBI 1973 San Diego 56 .277 141 9 39 3 12 1974 San Diego 145 .265 498 57 132 20 75 1975 San Diego 143 .267 509 74 136 15 76 1976 San Diego 137 .283 492 81 139 13 69 1977 San Diego 157 .275 615 104 169 25 92 1978 San Diego 158 .308 587 88 181 24 97 1979 San Diego 159 .308 597 97 184 34 118* 1980 San Diego 162 .276 558 89 154 20 87 1981 NY Yankees 105 .294 388 52 114 13 68 1982 NY Yankees 140 .280 539 84 151 37 106 1983 NY Yankees 152 .283 598 99 169 32 116 1984 NY Yankees 141 .340 567 106 193 19 100 1985 NY Yankees 155 .275 633 105 174 26 114 1986 NY Yankees 154 .262 565 90 148 24 104 1987 NY Yankees 156 .275 575 83 158 27 97 1988 NY Yankees 149 .322 559 96 180 25 107 1989 NY Yankees ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 1990 NY Yankees 20 .213 61 7 13 2 6 1990 Angels 112 .275 414 63 114 19 72

* Led league

** Injured, Did Not Play