BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : To Orioles, Sutcliffe Is a Friend in Deed

Rick Sutcliffe’s philanthropy, first as a member of the Chicago Cubs and now the Baltimore Orioles, is legendary.

He contributes $100,000 a year, plus revenue from glove and shoe endorsements, through the charity foundation that carries his name. He buys 50 season tickets for use by needy children. He underwrites as many as 20 college scholarships a year.

He even made a quick loan of $500,000 to good friend Bruce Springsteen when “the Boss” had a cash-flow problem while trying to buy the Beverly Hills home of actor Mark Harmon, another of Sutcliffe’s friends.

Now, Sutcliffe’s philanthropy has taken another form.

The 35-year-old right-hander is rewarding the Orioles’ faith in him with a 9-4 record, an average of seven innings per start and an acknowledged influence on young pitchers Mike Mussina and Ben McDonald as Baltimore continues to challenge the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East.

A surprise? A miracle, Sutcliffe called it, referring to his comeback from several seasons of shoulder problems and an operation in May of 1990 that put him in a sling for four weeks, cost him another five trying to raise his arm above his shoulder and left him wondering if he wasn’t ready to retire.

“There were times when it was impossible to even think I’d be pitching again,” Sutcliffe said.

Despite the frustration of a minor league rehabilitation assignment last summer and doubts by Larry Himes, the Cubs’ new general manager, about the wisdom of a contract offer, Sutcliffe went 4-1 down the stretch last year. Himes wasn’t convinced, though, and let him go.

Sutcliffe doesn’t have the velocity of his rookie-of-the-year season with the Dodgers in 1979, or of the ’82 season, when he won the American League’s earned-run average title with the Cleveland Indians, or of his Cy Young-award season with the Cubs in ‘84, but he is free of pain, able to show Mussina and McDonald the value of hard work and can get outs with the finesse he learned while battling the sore shoulder.

“Rick has been everything we anticipated,” said John Oates, Sutcliffe’s teammate with the Dodgers in ‘79, a coach with the Cubs in ‘84, and the Baltimore manager who spearheaded the pursuit of free-agent Sutcliffe last winter.

“I wondered if there would be anything out there,” Sutcliffe said.

What there was, he learned, was Oates’ conviction that the Orioles had the potential to win. Then, too, there was a new ballpark that he saw for the first time in December. It gave him chills beyond the weather, he said, prompting him to sign immediately in a basement storage room.

“People ask me if I’m out for revenge, if I’m out to show Larry Himes and the Cubs they were wrong,” Sutcliffe said. “To me, you can’t perform when you’re trying to spite someone. I’m trying to prove that I’m healthy again, and I can only do that by pitching 230 or 240 innings. I want to win, I want to get to the World Series, that’s my only goal.

“If we stay healthy, we can be in it until the end. The important thing for me, personally, is that I’m having fun again. It’s a treat to play before 45,000 every night. I loved Wrigley Field, but this is baseball at its best. This is wonderful.”

L.A. EXPRESS

In the year before he began to wear the No. 30 that the Angels retired Tuesday, Nolan Ryan almost became a Dodger.

Al Campanis, the Dodgers’ former general manager and an Anaheim Stadium visitor during the Ryan festivities, said he received a call in 1971 from the late Bob Scheffing, then the New York Mets’ general manager, asking if he would be interested in Ryan, who was eventually traded to the Angels in a five-player deal that sent Jim Fregosi to New York.

“I had seen Ryan pitch in a B game during the previous spring and thought he had outstanding potential,” Campanis said. “I never dreamt he was available. When Scheff called and asked if we had interest, I said, ‘Yes, definitely. What would you want?’

“Scheff said that they liked Bill Sudakis, who was primarily a back-up catcher with us. I said, ‘No problem. Do we have a deal?’ He said, ‘Ryan is scheduled to pitch tonight. I’ll call you after the game.’

“I don’t remember who Ryan pitched against that night, but I remember sitting in my box at Dodger Stadium and seeing the news on the message board that he had struck out 12 or 13 in pitching a three-hit shutout and thinking to myself that our deal was in trouble.

“Scheff called and said that Gil Hodges (then the Mets’ manager) now wanted to wait a while before deciding if they should trade Ryan.

“I said, ‘Fine, call when you decide,’ but I never heard from him again about Ryan. I just wish their game of that night had been rained out or something. Ryan has had a remarkable career. How big would he have been in L.A.?”

21 AND COUNTING

Ryan’s winless streak is one indication of the Texas Rangers’ pitching woes. Another is that they have used 21 pitchers. They have even had to reach as far as Italy and the Mexican summer league, the places middle reliever Danilo Leon pitched the last two years after having been released by the Montreal Expos.

Leon has a 92-m.p.h. fastball and an equally explosive temper. He had several flare-ups with the Expos, the last his admitted threat to physically harm Carlos Ponce, one of their instructors.

“Danny has great physical equipment, but he exhibited erratic behavior with us,” Montreal General Manager Dan Duquette said.

Leon has been used in middle relief, a problem area for the Rangers, since his recent promotion from double A.

“The Expos gave me a hard time,” he said in Anaheim. “Everything is different with the Rangers. They treat me much better. I love it here.”

Why not? The Rangers’ clubhouse is like a Caribbean colony.

There are Leon, from Venezuela; Julio Franco, from the Dominican Republic; Rafael Palmeiro, from Cuba, and six Puerto Ricans: Ruben Sierra, Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Dickie Thon, Jose Guzman and Edwin Nunez.

BROKEN BATS

Manager Butch Hobson of the Boston Red Sox is beginning to doubt whether his team can survive its personality transplant, and some in the organization are recommending that the club trade any pitcher except Roger Clemens for a slugger.

The Red Sox continue to lead the American League in earned-run average, but are last in batting, runs and home runs. “I don’t think we can win with what we have,” Hobson said. “I think we have to make changes.”

Typifying the power outage--the Red Sox are likely to hit fewer than 100 home runs for the first time since World War II--is Jack Clark, who had only three homers through Thursday, none at Fenway Park.

“I’m a line-drive hitter,” Clark said during a recent visit to Anaheim. “But it’s almost impossible for me to get a double in Fenway. I’ve probably hit a dozen balls off the (left-field) wall so hard that I could only get a single. I’ve hit peas down the right-field line and been held at first when the ball ricocheted off the corner there.

“I don’t want to start uppercutting, because that’s when I get all messed up. I mean, I know a lot of guys here who look forward to going on the road and hitting in another park.”

Now 36 and batting .222, Clark’s views have changed in a year. Could it be that age, rather than Fenway’s dimensions, have caught up with him? In 1991, his first season with the Red Sox, he batted .281 at Fenway, compared to .215 on the road, and hit 18 of his 28 homers at home.

FAULT LINE

The disintegration of the Dodgers has camouflaged the collapse of the San Francisco Giants, who were 26-18 with a 1 1/2-game lead in the National League West on May 27. Through Thursday, they were 5-15 since, with a six-game losing streak.

“Hard to believe it could happen this fast,” Giant reliever Rod Beck said.

Hard to believe, too, that there is criticism of Manager Roger Craig for too often trying to do too much with offensive gimmicks, for mishandling the bullpen and for suggesting the players are to blame.

The Giants have been without Bill Swift, who was 6-0 when he was put on the disabled list because of a shoulder injury May 23, and have received inconsistent production from third baseman Matt Williams in the middle of a lineup that seems to miss the traded Kevin Mitchell.

Swift, obtained in the Mitchell trade, will rejoin the rotation today, but Williams is batting only .217 and had gone to bat with 104 runners in scoring position and driven in only 18 through Thursday. The Giants, Craig has said more than once, will be fine when Williams, who also had 11 home runs and 36 RBIs as of Friday, “begins hitting like he can.”