Port’s Firing Is Just Another Goodby

The Angels said goodby to General Manager Mike Port on Tuesday, firing the man whose job had been to preside over so many farewells. Like his own, they were sometimes swift and seldom fond.

Port became the team’s general manager in 1984. Soon, a tradition took hold, and it seemed that every year a veteran player went by the wayside, without ceremonial thanks or tribute.

Justly or not, Port became the symbol of the business-first Angels, a team that didn’t have time for goodbys.

This time the announcement was about him, and it came on the heels of a series against the Oakland Athletics, who now employ Reggie Jackson, one of the players whose Angel careers ended unceremoniously under Port.

“They made a lot of changes, they spent a lot of money, they got rid of some young players, and then we beat them six of seven with half a club,” said Jackson, now a broadcaster who also works in an advisory capacity with the A’s. “Somebody had to take a fall. You can’t fire the players, so Mike takes the blame.”

Jackson wasn’t the first aging veteran to be let go under Port.

In October 1985, after the season in which Rod Carew notched his 3,000th hit, Port announced that Carew, 40, would not be offered a contract for 1986.

In November 1986, Port announced that Jackson, 40, would not be invited back.

In September 1987, Doug DeCinces, 37, was released 11 days before the end of the season because the team could save $141,667 by waiving him before it was over.

Bob Boone left when the Angels didn’t try to keep him after the 1988 season, signing a free-agent contract with Kansas City for $1 more than the Angels had paid him, never offering Port a chance to match it.

After last season, there was one more goodby with no farewell, this one to Brian Downing.

Downing signed with Texas this spring, and was leading the American League in hitting before a recent slump.

“I don’t care what goes on there anymore,” Downing told the Dallas Morning News when asked about Port’s dismissal before the Rangers’ game against Toronto Tuesday night. Years earlier, when asked for a comment after DeCinces’ release, Downing had said, “Ask me that when they do it to me.”

Chili Davis, who signed with Minnesota as a free agent last winter after the Angels only halfheartedly pursued him, had more to say.

“I thought a guy of Brian Downing’s caliber, who had done so much for the team, should have been treated better,” Davis told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune before a game against Boston Tuesday. “The same with Rod Carew. Those guys aren’t peons.

“(Port) didn’t have great rapport with the players. It’s not that he did anything bad, he just didn’t take the time to get to know players. When he walked through the clubhouse, he never spoke to you unless you made him speak. That doesn’t make him a bad person, but the guy doing the hiring and firing ought to get to know the players.”

It was that perceived lack of communication that irked other players, and was alluded to by the Angels on Tuesday.

When Port told DeCinces he was being released, DeCinces said words were exchanged: “The first words Mike Port and I have had all year.”

Later, DeCinces said, “There isn’t a player on this ballclub that respects him.”

As Jackson put it, “Mike was a terrible (B.S.er), and a general manager has to be able to (B.S). Mike couldn’t communicate.”

But while some see Port as an awkward standoff, others see him as a man with a sophisticated wit.

Michael Watkins, one of two agents who has represented Wally Joyner in strained contract negotiations, is one of the latter, though he said Tuesday that he and Port ended up in a shouting match during negotiations in 1988.

“Some of the lighter side of his personality doesn’t come across,” Watkins said. “He’s a bright and funny guy. He doesn’t let his hair down the way some people do, or at least not to the press and public. The perception is that he’s very much a stuffed shirt. He’s not that way.”

Boone, perceived to have signed with the Royals in anger after the 1988 season, said Tuesday that his “hard feelings went under the bridge.”

“That’s baseball,” said Boone.

Times staff writer Ross Newhan contributed to this story.

Angels Fire Port: Mike Port, who had worked for the Angels since 1977, is fired as team’s general manager. A1

ANGELS UNDER MIKE PORT

How the Angels have done in the six-plus seasons Mike Port has been the team’s general manager:

Year Div. Finish Won Loss GB/GA Manager 1985 Second 90 72 1 Gene Mauch 1986 First 92 70 5 Gene Mauch 1987 Tie/Sixth 75 87 10 Gene Mauch 1988 Fourth 75 87 29 Cookie Rojas/Moose Stubing 1989 Third 91 71 8 Doug Rader 1990 Fourth 80 82 23 Doug Rader 1991 Tie/Third 9 10 3 1/2 Doug Rader