Abbott Says Goodby, Good Luck

It’s great to be young and an ex-Angel.

Wally Joyner knows.

Kirk McCaskill knows.

Now, Jim Abbott knows.

“To play for the New York Yankees,” Abbott says, relishing each and every syllable. “There’s almost something . . . magical about that.

“The pinstripes.

“The tradition.

“Yankee Stadium.

“Getting the chance to play with a guy like Don Mattingly.

“I’m excited about all those things, I really am.”

And well he should be. Compare and contrast--the Yankees’ self-improvement program of the last 12 months versus, ahem, the Jackie Autry checkbook-improvement program.

“The Yankees look like they’ve made some pretty good moves,” says Abbott, who could have begun with that big Dec. 6 deal with the Angels. “They have Don Mattingly. They just signed Wade Boggs, didn’t they? Spike Owen. Paul O’Neill. Danny Tartabull.

“Those are the kind of guys you like to play with. Sounds like a pretty good team to me.”

And the Angels?

Abbott clears his throat.

“I think we’re all concerned about the direction of the team,” he says. “I have concern over a team that was in first place in 1991 at the All-Star break and has been completely torn down since.

“You see friends go and it hurts. Losing Bryan Harvey was a very big thing for me. It really was. I can’t tell you how much that affected me. To lose somebody with that kind of ability--and that kind of person--who came up through the organization, that was tough.

“At this point in my career, I’m saying to myself, ‘Do I want to stay here another four years the way things are going, or do I want to see if things get better?’ Hopefully, the Angels will get better. But they didn’t give me the chance to stick around and find out.”

Abbott Bids Adieu should have been the red-letter arrangement on the marquee of the Anaheim Doubletree Wednesday morning. At an informal gathering of print and plugged-in media types, Abbott gave his side of The Trade That Rocked The Angels’ Marketing Department--Abbott, a.k.a. The Franchise, for three minor leaguers named Snow, Sleet and Rain, or something like that.

Most prominent among the points made by Abbott:

--Scott Boras didn’t make this trade; Whitey Herzog and Gene Michael did.

“To say this was an ‘agent’s trade’ sounds to me like people starting to lay the blame,” Abbott said. “I don’t want to point fingers at whose ego got in the way and whose didn’t. At the very least, maybe, the fault was on both sides.”

--The Angels’ contention that Boras and Abbott refused to budge from their four-year, $19-million demand is wrong.

“We would have signed this contract for $17.5 million, period,” Abbott said. “And this thing about incentives? (The Angels claim Boras held out for an incentives package that, in effect, would have pushed the four-year payout back to $19 million). Those were standard incentives. I asked for the same incentives Chuck Finley has and Bryan Harvey has.”

--Abbott’s incentive to sign a long-term contract was all but crushed the moment the Angels lost Harvey to the Florida Marlins.

“Losing Bryan Harvey was a big part of it,” Abbott said. “After that, we made some decisions to do something else, look into maybe a one-year contract. When Bryan Harvey left, we said to ourselves, ‘Let’s stand back and see where things are going.’ ”

Never very good at the chess game of player-personnel decision-making, the Angels positively flunked dominoes.

If the Angels sign Joyner last winter, Lee Stevens never gets the chance to fail, first base never becomes a gaping chasm and the Angels have no need to trade their best pitcher for a first-base prospect.

If the Angels protect Harvey in the expansion draft, Abbott receives some assurance that the Angels still care about victories and losses, and Abbott has no need to start scouting out greener pastures.

“At some point,” Abbott said, “you look around and say, ‘What happened to all our friends? . . . What happened to Wally Joyner and Dave Winfield and Kirk McCaskill and Bryan Harvey and Mark Eichhorn?’

“To a man, the people who had been the nucleus of the club are now gone. Those were friendships. As much as they were the nucleus of the team, they were also friendships. Their wives were friends. That takes a lot of the heart out of the team.

“Harvey was the last one. When Bryan Harvey was gone, the only players left from my first year (1989) were Chuck Finley and myself. That’s pretty amazing.”

The 1989 Angels won 91 games. Before last week’s face-saving scramble--working subtitle: “Welcome Back, Chili”--Finley was the only member left from that group.

The 1992 Angels lost 90 games. Lots of players from that group are still left.

Abbott said he received a post-trade phone call from Gene Autry--”A tough phone call, having to talk to him. He was very gracious. He said, ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you, I would be very happy to do it. I didn’t want this deal to happen . . .’ ”

Abbott paused to launch into an impression of Autry’s weather-beaten Texas drawl.

“ ‘but . . . that’s the way things gooooo.’ ”

And was there a phone call from Mrs. Autry as well?

“I won’t answer that question,” Abbott replied, grinning at the foregone conclusion.

So, now, Abbott passes from Buck to Buck. From Rodgers to Showalter. The Yankee manager also spoke to Abbott last week and told him, “We’re moving toward getting people in here who want to win and we feel you’re a big part of that. We’re moving in the right direction here.”

“That made me feel good,” Abbott said.

If only he had heard as much in Anaheim.

“At some point,” Abbott said, “you just like to be told, ‘You’re a big part of this team and you’re worth (the money).’ ”

The Angels never did. But give them a few years. Give Abbott a few 20-win seasons and maybe a World Series ring or two.

Then the Angels will hold Jim Abbott Night and hand him the keys to a new Ford Bronco. “You were a big part of this team,” they will say to him, glad to have Anaheim Stadium half-filled again for one evening. “You’re worth it.”