The Summer Game Now Springs to Life

As baseball emerges from one of the most turbulent offseasons in its history, a few things seem clear to most people in the game about 1993: There is one potential super team (the Atlanta Braves), and the defending World Series champions (the Toronto Blue Jays) are fully capable of repeating.

There are a couple of wide-open, almost-anyone-can-win divisional outlooks (in the National League East and American League West), and there are a pair of expansion franchises (the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies).

Pitchers and catchers are reporting to training camps throughout Florida and Arizona. For the next week, the rest of the players will filter in. And perhaps the most eagerly awaited spring training ever--one that until recently was in danger of being wiped out by another confrontation between owners and players on the labor-relations front--at last will be under way. For the first time in months, the focus will shift from the Marge Schott controversy and the brewing labor war and the workings of the Executive Council in the wake of Fay Vincent’s forced resignation as commissioner last fall. Rarely has the arrival of spring training been so soothing to baseball.

Now the focus shifts to Sarasota, Fla., and Bo Jackson’s attempt to come back from hip-replacement surgery and resume his career with the Chicago White Sox; to Port Charlotte, Fla., and the beginning of Nolan Ryan’s 27th--and final--go-around in the big leagues, as the Texas Rangers attempt to give him a proper sendoff; to Scottsdale, Ariz., where $43.75 million man Barry Bonds won’t be wearing Willie Mays’ number but needs to be a Mays play-a-like to justify his per-game income of just over $45,000; and to Cocoa, Fla., and Tucson, where the Marlins and Rockies, respectively, will be preparing for their Opening Day unveilings.

But the center of attention for baseball this spring likely will be West Palm Beach, Fla. There, the Braves will put what’s being hailed as one of the best starting-pitching corps in history on display for the first time. Atlanta already was set to have the most imposing set of starters in the game this year, even with the loss of promising youngster David Nied to Colorado as the first selection in November’s expansion draft.

A rotation of Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Steve Avery, Charlie Leibrandt and Pete Smith would have been enough to make the Braves the favorites to pull off an NL West threepeat--and probably to finally capture a World Series crown following back-to-back failures.

But then Atlanta signed NL Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux as a free agent in December, and suddenly the outcome of this season began to look like a forgone conclusion.

“I’m excited. I think everyone in our organization is excited, and can’t wait to get the season started,” Braves general manager John Schuerholz said recently. “Obviously we’d like to take the next step, and for us that means winning the World Series. (But) the season’s so long and so many things can happen, you can’t let yourself be overly confident on the first day of spring training.”

THE NL WEST promises to be baseball’s best division. The Braves are solid, with their continued lack of a bullpen stopper being their lone noticeable flaw as the spring begins.

The Cincinnati Reds were busy in the offseason. They lost, among others, pitchers Greg Swindell and Norm Charlton and outfielders Paul O’Neill and Glenn Braggs. But they added pitcher John Smiley and outfielders Kevin Mitchell and Roberto Kelly. If Mitchell once again is the power-hitting terror he was in San Francisco--and not simply the clubhouse terror he apparently was, minus the home runs, in Seattle--the Reds could challenge the Braves.

The Houston Astros have been widely acknowledged as being baseball’s most-improved team. They added free-agent pitchers Doug Drabek and Swindell (both native Texans) to go with a lineup full of young and talented players. The San Diego Padres spent the offseason trimming their payroll, but the Los Angeles Dodgers seem likely to be better--if only because it would be tough to be worse than they were in their 99-loss nightmare of a year ago.

Even with Bonds--not to mention Will Clark and Matt Williams in the lineup around him--the Giants go to spring training looking like nothing better than a third- or fourth-place team.

The Blue Jays have some regrouping to do as they gather in Dunedin, Fla. Gone from their championship team are pitchers David Cone, Dave Stieb, Tom Henke and Jimmy Key, outfielder Candy Maldonado, third baseman Kelly Gruber, shortstop Manuel Lee and World Series hero Dave Winfield.

Still, Toronto did its best to compensate, bringing in veteran Paul Molitor to offset the loss of Winfield, and Dave Stewart to take Cone’s place in the rotation. Some scouts maintain the Blue Jays aren’t as talent-laden as they were a year ago, but they’re still more talented than anyone else in the AL--and could produce more than the 96 regular-season victories they notched last season if they perform closer to their capabilities.

The rest of the AL East clearly still is chasing Toronto--led perhaps by the Baltimore Orioles, with the hopeful-for-a-change Cleveland Indians maybe still a year (and another starting pitcher or two) away from contender’s status. “We stayed with (the Blue Jays) for most of the season last year,” Orioles general manager Roland Hemond said. “We feel like we’ll be a better team this year. Hopefully they won’t be quite as good.”

Springtime arrives with jumbles--and no clear favorites--in the AL West and NL East. The two defending champions, the Oakland Athletics and Pittsburgh Pirates, have been partially and almost completely disassembled, respectively.

The A’s let go of Stewart and fellow starter Mike Moore, traded designated hitter-outfielder Harold Baines to the Orioles and watched third baseman Carney Lansford retire. But they re-signed first baseman Mark McGwire, outfielder Ruben Sierra and catcher Terry Steinbach. The Kansas City Royals, who now have Cone and Kevin Appier to anchor their rotation, have been mentioned by many as the team to beat in the AL West, but strong arguments also can be made for the White Sox, Minnesota Twins and even the Rangers--who have Jose Canseco for a full season and will be trying to get Ryan into a World Series for the first time since 1969.

With the Pirates having crumbled over the winter following their third consecutive NL East title (and third-straight playoff disappointment), even the New York Mets--they of the 72-90 record last season--can talk this spring about being contenders. It may not take a record better than a few games above the .500 mark to win this division, and the Montreal Expos and St. Louis Cardinals managed to do at least that well last season.