Twins’ MacPhail Rings Up a Winner

Chili Davis had his hands full. With the left, he clutched a half-swigged bottle of champagne. With the right, he clutched the hand of Minnesota Twins General Manager Andy MacPhail, squeezing the fingers that dialed a pennant.

“Thank you for that phone call, Andy,” Davis told him. “Thank you, thank you. That was the best phone call I ever had.”

“Same for us,” MacPhail replied, grinning back at the 93 RBIs he reached out and touched last January.

MacPhail might not have the best team in baseball this year, but he has the best Rolodex. His original blueprint for 1991 was torn and crumpled, with holes too huge for Scotch tape. His starting rotation had a 1990 ERA of 4.38. His infield had no second baseman and would soon be out a third baseman as well. His designated hitters--16 of them--had combined for eight home runs. His team finished last in the American League West, 29 games behind Oakland.

His course of action?

Let me make a few phone calls.

And he didn’t ring Darryl Strawberry, Brett Butler or George Bell. That would have been too obvious--and, for the shallow pockets in the Twins offices, too expensive. MacPhail went obscure in his search for a cure.

He called Davis, the sore-backed Angel designated hitter coming off his worst season since 1985.

He called Jack Morris, who was 35 going on 36 after going 6-14 and 15-18 since 1988.

He called Mike Pagliarulo, who’d been thrown into the San Diego Padres’ chasm at third base and was quickly thrown back.

He called a minor-league journeyman pitcher named Carl Willis after Willis had suffered a baseball fate worse than death--being told he wasn’t good enough by the Cleveland Indians.

Brother, can you spare a spare part?

Sunday, the sum of those parts was sprayed around the Minnesota clubhouse. On a beer budget, the Twins were sampling champagne once more, having made the unprecedented carom from first in ’87 to worst in ’90 to first again. They had beaten the Toronto Blue Jays, four games to one, and were going to the World Series for the second time in five years.

Look at MacPhail’s phone bill. Davis brought him 29 home runs in the regular season and a .294 batting average in the playoffs. Morris won 18 games en route to the AL West championship and two more to secure the pennant. Pagliarulo hit .333 in the playoffs, including the game-winning home run in the 10th inning of Game 3. And Willis, who could author the Pacific Coast League travel guide after his previous four stops (Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado Springs, Portland), made three appearances against Toronto, pitched 5 1/3 innings and yielded all of two singles.

“I don’t think any of us expected to win the best division in baseball by eight games,” MacPhail said, “but we saw we had enough to be competitive. We liked what we saw and thought we only had to add a few things here and there.”

Morris, for instance, was recruited to run interference for starting pitchers Scott Erickson, Kevin Tapani and David West, all 27 years or younger.

“We’d devoted 1990 to letting our young pitchers pitch up here, to separate the prospects from the rest,” MacPhail said. “Adding a veteran like Morris moved all the young pitchers down a notch in the rotation and eased a lot of the pressure on them. He also threw a lot of innings (246 2/3), which gave our bullpen a rest.”

Davis moved into the Twins’ field of vision, MacPhail said, “when it became apparent we weren’t going to re-sign Gary Gaetti. We were looking for someone to fill the void in the fifth spot in the lineup and when we looked at Chili, we regarded 1990 as more or less an aberration. We were satisfied that his back problems weren’t serious and we thought he’d be the ideal solution at DH.”

Davis, granted new-look free agency by the collusion verdict of 1987, said he was flattered just to have his phone ring.

“No one wanted me,” Davis said. “The Twins took a chance on me. The only team that showed any interest was the Mariners, and they were very iffy--’If we do this and do that, then. . . ‘

“But the Twins jumped right in there and that made an impression on me. I remember talking to Andy MacPhail and Tom Kelly on the phone and Tom is telling me, ‘My lineup’s set. Against right-handers, it’s going to be Gladden, Knoblauch, Puckett, Hrbek and you. Against left-handers, you’re batting fourth. What do you think?’

“I asked him, ‘What kind of pitching do you have? Are we going to score nine runs a game and lose?’ He said no and started naming the guys and mentioned Jack Morris. That did it for me. I’ve played against Jack Morris. To me, he’s one of the biggest competitors in the world. I also knew Kevin Tapani and I liked what I saw from Scott Erickson in spring training.

“With Hrbek, Puckett, Harper and Shane Mack, I knew we’d hit. I thought this team had a good chance to win, and I’d just add to it.

“It turned out to be the best decision I made in my life.”

MacPhail had a good feeling, too, because he felt the new recruits were enlisting for the right reasons.

“Morris passed up big money in Detroit because he wanted to come home,” MacPhail said. “Pagliarulo waited around until he found a place where he could play regularly. Chili wanted to play where a team had confidence in him.”

And all could be had for relative bargains, no small consideration in the Twin Cities. Finances forced MacPhail into his most maligned trade--Frank Viola to the Mets in 1989--and even that turned to gold this season. Three of the pitchers Viola brought MacPhail contributed to Sunday’s clincher--Tapani started, West earned the win in middle relief and Rick Aguilera got the save, his third of the series.

“I said it last year, when it wasn’t as popular, that everybody got what they wanted from that trade,” MacPhail said. “The Mets got a 20-game winner and they’re in a big market that could afford to pay Frank what he wanted. We needed numbers and some relief on our payroll.

“I think it was a fair deal for both. Because of our market size, it is the kind of trade we have to make from time to time.”

This is the team that will represent the American League in the 1991 World Series.

The back-from-the-basement Twins.

The bargain-basement Twins.