BASEBALL : It’s Tough All Over for Dodger Employees

Item: Dodgers lay off eight minor league coaches and trainers, drop their rookie team in Florida, cancel annual organizational meetings in Arizona and reduce the travel budget for scouts.

It’s happening everywhere:

--The Angels are releasing or relocating more than half a dozen full- and part-time scouts. They have curtailed travel for all scouts except those at the major league level and have canceled the annual organizational meetings. And there is a directive from President Richard Brown that any expenditure of more than $250 must have his approval.

--The New York Yankees, despite that $45-million cable TV contract, have dropped their Gulf Coast, Florida State and instructional league teams, and have notified all scouts that they are free to seek other employment because several will have to be fired.

In the upside-down world of baseball, foundations are being undermined to support those $40-million payrolls at the top.

Dodger President Peter O’Malley called it a result of the industry’s troubled economics, adding: “We’re not immune to the disorder and uncertainty. Whether it’s Seattle or New York, all clubs are affected.”

In the case of the Dodgers, O’Malley said, he can no longer think blue.

With a $42-million player payroll and attendance down about 500,000, the club will finish in the red, he said, adding that it is too soon to know how much the Dodgers will lose or if the player payroll will have to be reduced. But he is conducting an expense review in all departments.

He cited the complicating uncertainty of the TV and union contracts that have to be negotiated soon and said: “I’m proud of the fact that our ticket prices are still among the industry’s lowest. Ticket prices cannot and should not continue to go up, and I’m trying to prevent that with this ongoing exercise (in budget restraint).”

The Dodgers have gone so far as to reduce lighting and escalator service at Dodger Stadium before games.

“It’s a little scary,” said longtime Dodger Von Joshua, one of the fired instructors. “I mean, if the Dodgers are cutting costs, how do I find a job with another organization?”

If, in fact, blue has turned to red, it happens just as the Dodgers are trying to revive their long dormant farm system. Charlie Blaney, their farm director, said, however, that there is fat to be trimmed and the revitalization will not be hampered.

“We’re looking more and more to developing from within and we wouldn’t do anything to harm that production,” he said. “It wasn’t a good year for the club--on the field or financially--and we’re looking for ways to be more cost efficient.”

The elimination of their rookie team at Port St. Lucie, Fla., will save about $500,000 in salary and expenses, he estimated, but it will not harm development because the Dodgers still have two rookie teams, the industry norm.

“We were signing some players who were non-prospects just to fill in, and that didn’t make sense,” Blaney said.

Likewise, he said, the 1992 addition of Mickey Hatcher as a full-time coach at triple-A Albuquerque compensates for the loss of Joshua, and the continued employment of roving hitting instructors Reggie Smith and Leo Posada will augment the use of player-coaches at lower levels.

Still, Blaney said, notifying Joshua, Darrell Evans and the other released instructors and trainers represented his toughest day ever.

Each will receive a letter of recommendation and be paid through Dec. 31. The calendars are still accurate at Dodger Stadium, though some of the clocks aren’t, having been turned off as part of the saving on electricity.

DODGER POWER

The question of power goes beyond the use of electricity or the middle of the lineup. It goes to a question of who holds it or will hold it in the future.

Will Fred Claire move upstairs, eventually to be replaced by Larry Doughty or Tom Lasorda? Will Lasorda move north in the chain of command or east to Florida, if the Giants go to St. Petersburg and longtime friend Vince Piazza remains part of the new ownership group? Will Phil Regan or Bill Russell be the next manager?

The answers are not clear, but some in the organization suggest the organization is on the verge of what one longtime scout, insisting on anonymity, described as an “internal explosion.”

He cited concern over the power vested suddenly in former Dodgertown director Blaney and instructor Reggie Smith, the absence of significant improvement in the farm system and an uncertain overall direction complicated by budget woes.

“I don’t see any way out,” he said of the 1992 morass. “I don’t think they’re going to spend money (on free agents), and there’s not much in the system. All you have to do is look on the field to see what has happened (to the organization).”

The released Joshua corroborated that to an extent but didn’t burn bridges. He said the system’s talent level is still “not what it used to be” and that the best of what Albuquerque had to offer is already spending September with the Dodgers.

Joshua said there is no question about Reggie Smith’s growing influence in the organization but seemed to question Smith’s role in his firing.

“Reggie told me it wouldn’t happen, that he would fight for me, but I also know he had downgraded me by telling people I was too critical,” Joshua said. “I mean, if a player comes back to the dugout after making an out and I say to him, ‘You weren’t getting your legs into it,’ isn’t that my job, what I’m supposed to do? I know for a fact I had good rapport with the players.”

In an uncertain job market, it is difficult leaving, particularly, Joshua said, because he has always felt the Dodgers were his team--as a youngster, player and coach.

“I’m baffled, disappointed and a little frustrated, and I just hope this is what they say it is, a cutback, and that there’s not a hidden agenda, that when I go looking for another job I’m not going to be told that the Dodgers are saying this or that about me,” he said.

“I know at times they felt I wasn’t assertive enough or that I was too close to the players, but I worked on those areas and I rated highly in the annual evaluations. I thought I was doing a good job.”

He might have been, but the more important bottom line in many cases is the one in the accountant’s ledger.

REOPENER

Outgoing Houston Astro owner John McMullen has been replaced on the board of the owners’ Player Relations Committee by the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Douglas Danforth, who frequently told former commissioner Fay Vincent that he shouldn’t even talk to union leader Don Fehr.

The board appointment of another hard-liner increases speculation that the owners are determined to reopen the collective bargaining negotiations in December and, if necessary, use a spring lockout of the players to gain changes in the compensation system.

Maybe not, however. PRC president Richard Ravitch wants to know that he has the support of three-fourths, or 21, of the clubs if he reopens, and he may have trouble getting it.

Some clubs cite the financial rewards from the last year of the current TV contract and the first year of expansion in Denver and Miami as reason for delaying negotiations until the union agreement expires after the 1993 season.

They also say they can bring salary escalation under a measure of control for a year by: 1) following the Cleveland Indians’ example and signing selected young players to multiyear contracts before their annual negotiating power is strongest, and 2) not tendering arbitration to fringe veterans.

The Dodgers, for example, could have saved about $3 million over the last two years by allowing Juan Samuel to leave as a non-tendered free agent.

Given Samuel’s performance, would it have mattered who played second?

MEDICAL CHECK

The discovery that Pete Janicki, the Angels’ No. 1 draft pick from UCLA, had a stress fracture in his arm, and the subsequent delay and problems it caused in negotiating a conditional contract, adds weight to a lobbying effort by the Philadelphia Phillies’ general manager, Lee Thomas, to have baseball conduct mandatory regional medical exams for draft-eligible players, as the NFL does.

Tyler Green, the Phillies’ No. 1 pick in the 1991 draft, has been sidelined three times since and will have shoulder surgery in October.

“How many sore-armed pitchers have the Dodgers ended up drafting?” Thomas asked. “Every organization has had problems, and sometimes it just doesn’t show up in the scouting.

“I mean, the way it is right now, we’re shortchanging ourselves. I want to know about their knees, elbows and shoulders. I’d like to get into their heads, too, but I’d be satisfied knowing the rest of their body is OK.”

HOME ON THE RANGE

Calling it “a new beginning for me,” Jose Canseco has already bought a home in Arlington, Tex., where his new team, the Rangers, play, and seems more than comfortable in the environment. He hit .317 with four home runs and 12 runs batted in during his first 12 games with the Rangers after having hit only four home runs and batting .190 in 34 second-half games with the Oakland A’s.

Canseco’s arrival also seemed to stimulate his former Miami neighbor and Little League teammate, Rafael Palmeiro, who shook off a season-long slump and hit .385, driving in 11 runs, in the first 15 games after the trade.

“Having Jose here was like a new life for me,” said Palmeiro, whose 11th-hour awakening may keep him in Texas after seeming to be the Ranger most likely to be traded for pitching help.

TWINS’ LAMENT

The last-to-first memories of 1991 have faded quickly for the Minnesota Twins during a disappointing second half and the off-season acquisition of a left-handed power hitter has become a priority rivaling the re-signing of Kirby Puckett.

The Twins were 60-38 and three games ahead of the A’s in the American League West at the All-Star break. But when they opened a four-game series in Anaheim Thursday, they were 20-28 since and had fallen nine games behind the A’s, who were 32-16 over the same span.

Scott Erickson, at 6-4, was the only Minnesota pitcher with a winning record in the second half. But to suggest that the Twins paid the price for letting the pressure-immune Jack Morris get away would be oversimplification, Manager Tom Kelly said.

Kelly cited other factors:

--Bill Krueger, 8-2 as part of the replacement package for Morris, went bad in a hurry, winning only two of his next 12 starts before he was traded to Montreal in late August.

--The loss of left-handed balance and productivity immobilized the Twins to the point that Kelly started seven right-handed hitters against right-handers Dave Stewart, Ron Darling and Bobby Witt as the A’s buried Minnesota’s final hopes in a three-game sweep last week.

Minnesota’s left-handers?

--Kent Hrbek, with only five second-half homers, has battled a sore shoulder since spring and recently returned to the Twin Cities to face the possibility of surgery.

--Chili Davis, who had 29 home runs and 93 RBIs last year, has nine and 56 this year, having hit four homers in the second half.

--Mike Pagliarulo, who hit .279 as a platoon third baseman last year, is hitting .198, having failed to recover from early injuries.

The probable plan? Allow Davis and Pagliarulo to leave as free agents, apply that savings to Puckett and free agent John Smiley and either trade for a left-handed hitter or scour the free-agent market for a possible bargain.

In Anaheim, Kelly shrugged and said: “Did I get dumber from the first half to the second half? We hung in as best we could, but I have no problem saying the A’s were better than we were this year.”

Better to the extent that the A’s won when they had to, taking their last six meetings with the Twins, and better yet, Kelly said, because of the trade in which the A’s replaced Canseco with Ruben Sierra and significantly improved their pitching with Witt and Jeff Russell.

“Witt is the type pitcher who can throw six straight balls, then eight of the nastiest pitches you’ve ever seen, and name a manager who wouldn’t want Jeff Russell in his bullpen,” said Kelly, who wants what he didn’t have in the second half: consistent left-handed power.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--The Thursday wrestling match between Rob Dibble and Cincinnati Manager Lou Piniella means Dibble is almost certain to get his wish and be traded, but Piniella might not be there to enjoy it.

Neither he nor General Manager Bob Quinn have heard anything from owner Marge Schott regarding new contracts, and Piniella is expected to have the opportunity to rejoin the New York Yankees in an executive capacity, or his hometown Tampa Giants, if they move from San Francisco.

--Add Schott: She’s hard to figure. First she tells scouting director Julian Mock that budget concerns will prevent him from flying to see their Billings, Mont., team in the playoffs and that he will have to drive at his own expense if he wants to go. Then, on Thursday, she gives Mock a new two-year contract.

--Opinion: The whining of Wade Boggs over an official scorer’s decision in September of a season in which he is hitting about 80 points below his career average further depreciates his value as an imminent free agent.

The whining of Roger Clemens about Boggs’ whining and the impact of the scoring change on his bid for an ERA title and $150,000 bonus demonstrates what the modern game is all about.

--The decision by Dodger scout Phil Regan to pull out of the Florida Marlins’ managerial sweepstakes and wait out developments with the Dodgers didn’t change the view of Florida insiders that Bill Virdon, Chris Chambliss, Rene Lachemann and Jim Riggleman remain the top candidates.

--Scouts may be taking a drubbing in baseball’s job market, but they will finally get a deserved spot in Cooperstown. The lobbying efforts of Angel scouting director Bob Fontaine Jr. has prompted the Hall of Fame to appoint a selection committee of five former general managers: Buzzie Bavasi, Chub Feeney, Joe Brown, Lee MacPhail and Jim Campbell. The committee’s annual nominee will be honored in the induction ceremonies.