Morgan Says He Doesn’t Miss Lasorda

Mike Morgan, wearing the blue of the Chicago Cubs, said he was never accepted as one of the Dodgers or Manager Tom Lasorda’s “boys” and he questioned the sincerity of the bleeding-blue routine.

“He’s obviously a great motivator, but there’s got to be a reason people want to leave there, even though it’s a great place to play baseball,” Morgan said of Lasorda and Los Angeles.

“There’s got to be a reason young players demand to be traded and guys who signed long-term deals there, thinking it would be the greatest place to play, demand to be traded just a year later. Something’s missing.”

Morgan seemed to put it in terms of sincerity. “I like guys who come from the heart, who support you all the time, who aren’t just at your side when you’re going good,” he said. “I have no respect for back-stabbers, but that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Having signed a four-year, $12.5-million contract with the Cubs as a free agent, Morgan, 32, said that despite his 14-10 record last year, his 447 1/3 innings pitched the last two years and his 2.53 and 2.78 earned-run averages of 1989 and 1991, he was never accepted as one of Lasorda’s guys.

Sitting next to a Los Angeles writer in the Cubs’ clubhouse, he was needled by teammate Greg Maddux. “Tell him what you think of Lasorda, what you really think,” Maddux said. “Tell him what you’ve told us.”

Morgan smiled and said: “I didn’t have any real problems with Tommy because I took the ball and did my job, but if I had been one of his boys, one of the Dodger boys, they’d have given me a five-year deal.

“If he had wanted me there, I’d still be there, but I don’t have to play that Dodger-blue game to get people out, and that’s what I did . . . get people out.”

Morgan would not identify which players he said demanded trades. And he acknowledged that, despite his own criticisms, he didn’t want to leave but was “forced out.”

He said he didn’t appreciate the “lack of respect” by top management, insisting it was three weeks after the season had ended before he finally heard from Fred Claire, the executive vice president, and another three weeks before he got an offer from Claire.

He also said he proposed signing a four-year, $10.5-million contract with the Dodgers--$2 million less than he ultimately received from the Cubs--on the Monday before he could start getting offers from other clubs but was rejected.

At no time, he said, did the Dodgers offer a four-year contract, and he eventually signed with Chicago on the day the Dodgers gave a four-year, $15-million deal to Tom Candiotti.

“It was all pretty puzzling and pretty strange to have done my job as well as anyone on the team and not be welcomed back,” Morgan said. “I wore out my welcome, I guess, and I don’t know why except I wasn’t one of their boys. I mean, they had a chance to sign me for almost $5 million less than they gave Candiotti, who also got the four-year contract they wouldn’t give me.”

One of only three pitchers assured of spots in the Chicago rotation, Morgan said there would be no more pressure than he faced in Los Angeles. The Cubs, he said, have shown him a respect that had been missing throughout a nomadic career spanning 14 years and seven major league organizations.

He said General Manager Larry Himes has told him to relax and not try to do anything more than he did with the Dodgers.

“If I had finally gone back to the Dodgers, I think it would have been with some bitterness, so I’m happier to be sitting here, and I like our chances to win the East a lot better than the Dodgers to win the West,” he said.

“If I had to pick the West I would pick Cincinnati, Atlanta and San Diego in that order, with the other three teams hammering it out for fourth, fifth and sixth.

“The Dodgers will still have good pitching, but they may have to scrape in terms of offense and defense.

“I mean, they probably should have won last year, but it’s like I said . . . Tommy is mainly a motivator.”

After the departures of Eddie Murray and Tim Belcher, Morgan suggested at the time of his signing that Claire’s off-season moves seemed to create critical problems in the infield and made little sense.

“I was suggesting to Peter O’Malley that he re-evaluate the people handing out his money,” Morgan said. “Otherwise, I have nothing bad to say about the organization or the people in it. My peers respected me if others didn’t, and I’ll especially miss (pitching coach) Ron Perranoski and associating with guys like Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Phil Regan, Ben Hines, Joe Amalfitano, Manny Mota and Mark Cresse.

“It’s a class organization. They took care of my family. They gave me a chance to make a 90-degree turn in my career. I mean, I always believed in myself, always felt I gave my teams a chance to win, but four years ago, who’d have thought I’d ever have the security of a four-year contract?

“In the last three years, I finally learned how to let go of a bad game and not carry it into the next start. A lot of what I learned with L.A. I’ll bring to the Cubs, but that seems to be the way it is with the Dodgers--fix ‘em and let ‘em go.”