Port Is Beginning Again With a New Winter League : Baseball: Six-team venture will allow former Angel general manager to emphasize scouting and development, his favorite aspects of game.

Not quite two years ago, when he was general manager of the Angels, Mike Port was appointed to a committee assigned to evaluate winter baseball leagues.

Now, he’s the president of one.

“I’m sure there’s some people who say, ‘Mike Port couldn’t run one club. How can he run six?’ ” Port said. “But here we are. We started with not even a box of paper clips and within a space of four, five months, we have a league opening.”

Port, fired by the Angels in April, 1991, is the head of the six-team Arizona Fall League, which will debut Oct. 6 and run through Dec. 6. Backed by the financial support and marketing expertise of Major League Baseball, it’s envisioned as a way for teams to keep their top prospects sharp or try them at new positions without subjecting them to the uncertain conditions of playing in winter leagues such as those in Mexico or the Dominican Republic.

“Over the past few years, there had been an increase in jobs at the minor league level but no increase in winter league opportunities other than in the Caribbean and Mexico,” Port said. “This developed as a supplement to or alternative to existing winter leagues. Of course, there’s the Instructional League, but this is the first domestic endeavor where it will be good, hard-nosed baseball.”

Five teams will play in stadiums currently or formerly used by major league clubs during spring training. Each team will play a 54-game schedule, and a best-of-three playoff series will determine the league champion.

The league is composed of the Chandler Diamondbacks, who will play at Compadre Stadium; the Phoenix Saguaros, who will play at Municipal Stadium; the Tucson Javelinas, based at Hi Corbett Field; the Grand Canyon Rafters, at Grand Canyon College Stadium; the Scottsdale Scorpions, who will play at Scottsdale Stadium, and the Sun Cities Solar Sox, based at Sun Cities Stadium.

Although a television contract fell through because there was not enough advertising sold to underwrite production costs, Port said a TV deal is a realistic hope next season. He’s basing that on increased familiarity with the league after one full season and the availability of more time to assemble a package that will televise games in major league cities. Two radio stations will air 83 games this winter.

“This set of circumstances and this concept is brand new. The potential is virtually unlimited,” Port said last week from his office in Phoenix.

“By the time we get to the point where postseason play is concluded, we’ll still be playing baseball here in November and December. We’ll be the only ones playing baseball professionally on the continent. This thing has every potential to be very successful.”

Each franchise has been linked with four major league clubs and will get the top three double-A and triple-A players from each club. To balance the math for a 26-man roster, the Twins and Astros will contribute two players to three teams instead of six to one team. Several coaches and minor league managers will get a chance to manage in the Fall League, including the Giants’ Dusty Baker at Scottsdale and the Dodgers’ Jerry Royster at Sun Cities.

Catcher Mike Piazza and outfielder Billy Ashley, who finished the season with the Dodgers, will play for the Sun Cities Solar Sox. They’ll be joined there by pitchers Greg Hansell, Jamie McAndrew and Todd Williams and infielder Mike Busch.

The Angels will send Damion Easley--their third baseman the last two months of the season--to Scottsdale to learn how to play second base. Pitchers Bret Merriman, Troy Percival and Paul Swingle will also play for Scottsdale, with outfielder Garret Anderson. Players reported to their teams Tuesday for workouts; players with major league teams will join their Fall League teams next week.

“We’re talking about 160 of the major league clubs’ best players and future managers,” Port said.

Teams that train in Arizona will stock the Arizona Fall League team in their spring city. The Diamondbacks will have players from the Brewers, Phillies, Reds, Mariners and Astros; the Scorpions will be stocked by the Giants, Angels, Red Sox, Orioles and Twins; the Rafters will get players from the Expos, Braves, Twins, White Sox and Cubs; the Javelinas will get players from the Indians, Padres, Cardinals, Blue Jays and Astros; the Solar Sox will be stocked by the Dodgers, Royals, Tigers, Mets and Astros, and the Saguaros will have players from the A’s, Rangers, Yankees, Pirates and Twins.

Affiliations will change from year to year, and Port said the league is expected to grow to 10 in 1993, when the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins have players to contribute.

Running a league devoted to developing young players suits Port perfectly. His legacy to the Angels is evident now in such players as Easley, Tim Salmon and Chad Curtis, who are the nucleus of the team’s future. They were the last players scouted and developed during Port’s 6 1/2-year tenure.

“My philosophy was to emphasize the scouting and development. That’s the part of the business I always enjoyed,” said Port, who was a scout and ran a consulting business after he was fired by the Angels.

“Among the cast of players here is the player who’s going to be the AL or NL rookie of the year. And who’s the next Wally Joyner? Tim Salmon? Damion Easley? The special attraction the process always held for me is where (Angel scouting director) Bob Fontaine might bring in a report from the field saying, ‘There’s a young man at Grand Canyon College we’d like to sign,’ and then we put him into the system. To see fellows stand by a guy, and then at the other end of the tube you have a Tim Salmon, who other clubs would give their eyeteeth to have, there’s the reward.”

He has been so intent on completing preparations for his new league, Port said he was “oblivious to the fact there’s been a season” for the Angels. But he acknowledges having kept track of the team, especially of the players produced by the organization.

“If anything, in hindsight, I’m proud of the fact I was smart enough to allow (senior vice president) Dan O’Brien, Bill Bavasi (director of minor league operations) and Bob Fontaine enough room to do their jobs with the draft and developmentally,” Port said. “I didn’t get in their way to the extent that I interfered with their hard work.

“Do I look back? Operating a club, you do your best every year with the developmental flow. To get into that line of thinking is unproductive. I’m happy to see these young men doing well. Bob Fontaine, Bill Bavasi and his instructors, and Dan, that’s all the expertise of those people. If you fall into that mode of thinking, I could go back to my team in San Diego and say, ‘I could have done this or that’ every day.”

If he second-guessed the deal that sent two of his top minor leaguers, Kyle Abbott and Ruben Amaro Jr., to Philadelphia for Von Hayes last winter, it was “no more than a Yankee-Kansas City trade or a Seattle Mariners-Texas Rangers trade. You analyze the deal and play the game along with them.” But he believes the Angels, building on young players, can be competitive in the near future.

“I can see in the industry now where things can turn around in a hurry,” he said. “I see a club like the Montreal Expos going head-to-head with the Pittsburgh Pirates . . . thanks to very much the same track as the Angels seem to be taking with Bill Bavasi and Bob Fontaine. There’s a certain volatility to the industry right now.”

Port has found some unwanted volatility in his new league: injuries have forced some roster changes and he’s still awaiting word on whether a shoulder injury will prevent the Cardinals from sending Ozzie Canseco--twin brother of Jose Canseco--to Tucson to play first base. And then there was the approval of the lease at Scottsdale Stadium, which was withheld when residents near the ballpark objected to the noise and lights in their neighborhood.

“For the first time, it occurred to me I didn’t have a Plan B or a Plan C,” said Port, who played intermediary between the homeowners and city and secured approval of the lease Sept. 22. “That was the toughest thing we’ve had to overcome. It’s been busy, with a lot of details, but probably no different than those one overcomes in spring training getting everyone to camp.”

Those details have been solved with the help of major league baseball and its marketing arm, Major League Baseball Properties. With that backing, and the financial support of the Safeway supermarket chain, the Arizona Fall League seems a promising venture.

“As an operating division of Major League Baseball, our stockholders are the 28 clubs, which gives us a two-fold advantage,” Port said. “Sometimes you start out, and people say, ‘Are your bills going to be paid?’ There’s no question our bills will be paid. Baseball as an industry has a vested interest in our success.”

A successful launch of this league would provide Port with a satisfaction he never received with the Angels.

“The detail is still there, but with the involvement with 25 or 26 major league organizations,” he said. “With a club, you’re working on something involved with your particular club. This is something good for the industry, for Arizona and for the players . . . “I just try to move along on things. Change is the nature of the industry. Managers and GMs are hired to be fired. This has been a good thing. It’s an interesting, exciting environment, and I view this as something very important for the furtherance of the game.”