Baseball / Spring Training : In Astro Blue : Collins, a Former Member of Dodger Family, Is on Own

He is perceived as animated and aggressive, the antithesis of Art Howe, his laid-back predecessor as manager of the Houston Astros.

“There’s a new life,” pitcher Pete Harnisch said of the environment under Manager Terry Collins.

“It took only four or five days to see that the atmosphere is entirely different. I think that, personnel-wise, we were ready to get over the hump, and the manager has put a new energy behind it.

“The change is refreshing. We expect to win now. I’m not saying we’ll win the division, but we know we’ll win a lot of games. Before, it was, ‘Can we win? Will we win? Are we good enough to reach .500?’ ”

Five hundred? Terry Lee Collins will say that the Astros, out from under the domination by the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants in the National League West, can win the title in the realigned Central Division.

At 44, he is managing for the first time in the majors and said he welcomes the pressure of those expectations.

He comes to the job after two years on Jim Leyland’s staff with the Pittsburgh Pirates, three managing the Pirates’ triple-A Buffalo farm team, eight managing in the Dodger system, including 5 1/2 at triple-A Albuquerque, and 10 as a minor-league infielder.

His energy, General Manager Bob Watson said, was evident from the start of his first Houston interview, and he ultimately beat out 75 or so candidates, among them Bob Boone and Davey Lopes, in a down-to-the-wire final.

Among the first to receive calls from Collins were his former mentors from the Dodger organization: Bill Schweppe and Ben Wade, the former farm and scouting directors; Guy Wellman, a longtime scout and minor-league instructor, and Monte Basgall, a former coach and infield instructor.

Tom Lasorda?

Wrong number.

Collins didn’t call Lasorda.

Lasorda didn’t call Collins.

Theirs has been a strained relationship since Collins, in print, questioned Lasorda’s use of the system’s minor-league players while managing Albuquerque in 1987 and Lasorda reacted angrily.

Collins promptly called Lasorda to apologize, but they have not talked since.

“Well, I’m not sure Tommy ever liked me that much anyway,” Collins said.

Said Lasorda: “I wish him well. He’s a nice young man. It’s in the past.”

Really?

“Well, he has a right to his opinion, but he hurt me,” Lasorda said.

“I didn’t feel it was warranted or the truth. I have six rookies of the year under my belt.

“I’ve obviously given some young players the chance. There’s not many managers who can say they’ve had six rookies of the year.”

The Dodgers had recently gone outside the system to sign Phil Garner and Enos Cabell. Lasorda was asked about it by USA Today and said there was no one in their minor-league system to help.

Collins responded with two quotes deep in an article written for The Times by Marty Esquivel of the Albuquerque Journal.

“That’s his opinion,” he said of Lasorda. “Unless they give their players a chance, no one knows if they can help out.”

And: “Sometimes I think what Tom Lasorda is doing is wrong. But that’s his decision, and he’s going to have to live with it. He’s going to have to pay the consequences, good or bad.”

Said Collins the other day: “I was trying to protect my players and thought we had some who could help him. I should have said, ‘Tommy’s the major league manager, and that’s his opinion.’

“I made him look bad, and that wasn’t my intent. I was shocked when I saw how the quotes were used and called him to apologize, but he was rightfully upset. It was my fault. I recognize that.”

Collins recognized one other thing. The hopes he had of moving up with the Dodgers, of joining the varsity coaching staff one day or being recognized as one of Lasorda’s guys in the way that Bill Russell or Joe Ferguson is, or even being considered a possible successor to Lasorda, “were pretty much nil after that.”

Pittsburgh called at the end of the 1988 season to offer the Buffalo job, a chance to coordinate the organization’s baserunning drills in spring training and the opportunity to join the varsity in September and study under Leyland.

“I had been at Albuquerque for 5 1/2 years at that point and had to ask myself how long could I stay, where was the opportunity to advance?” he said.

“I took the Pittsburgh offer because it was the best thing for Terry Collins, not because I was forced to take it by the Dodgers. It turned out to be the best move I’ve ever made.”

Collins cited the chance to manage in Buffalo, where the atmosphere and attendance approximate those of the major leagues, the ensuing coaching job under Leyland and the recognition that led to the Houston opportunity.

He added, however, that none of it would have happened without the initial opportunities and support he got from the Dodgers. He hopes to instill the Astros with the same pride of organization he experienced with the Dodgers and, despite differences with Lasorda, he comes to the Astros as part Lasorda and part Leyland in that he recognizes the need for a positive approach and communicative skills.

Former Pirate executive Syd Thrift nominated Collins for the Astro job, but he was also recommended by Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president and one of many with whom Watson talked in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Albuquerque and Buffalo.

“Fred said he felt Terry’s time had come, that he was a winner, highly organized and very positive,” Watson said.

“He said the one negative was that he and Tommy didn’t get along, but that he didn’t view that as Terry’s fault. He said Terry made a statement any triple-A manager would make protecting his players and he considered Terry an organization man who understood the big picture.”

New Astro owner Drayton McLane’s motto is “Keep charging!”

“The pressure is always there,” Collins said. “I was hired to win. People expect a lot from us, and it’s my job to get it done. That’s one of the things that drives me.”

It’s unclear whether McLane or Watson made the final call on Collins, but it was the owner who cleaned house after the 85-77 finish of last season, firing Howe and General Manager Bill Wood.

Both paid for the collapse of McLane’s $36-million investment in hometown free agents Doug Drabek and Greg Swindell, who were a combined 21-31.

If both rebound as part of a rotation that includes Harnisch and Darryl Kile, if Mitch Williams recovers his 43-save form of the regular season rather than his incendiary style of the playoffs, if the Astros can find a right fielder to join a talented lineup of Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Andujar Cedeno, Ken Caminiti, Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley, well . . . “The core of the club is composed of guys who have been up for three or four years now,” Collins said. “It’s time for them to take the next step, and it’s my job to instill some aggressiveness.

“I’m a lot different than Art Howe, no question about it, but it starts with the players, and we have some very good players.

“The new division will be very competitive, but we have a legitimate chance to win it. Getting away from the two teams with the best records in baseball (the Braves and Giants) changes the outlook on what you think you can do.

“It would be foolish for me to say otherwise.”

The players have to do it, but the players seem to sense the energy that Watson did when he first interviewed Collins and which, Watson thinks, will stimulate the Astros “to be the intimidators and not the intimidated. That’s how we want to go about our business.”

Added Swindell: “We needed a complete turnaround. We needed a fire lit under us. That’s why (Collins) is here.”

And Collins was going to be managing somewhere.

“I was going to stay in baseball until somebody told me I couldn’t,” he said. “I wasn’t a big name. I knew I had to pay my dues.

“I spent 20 years in the minors, but it wasn’t like I beat around (Class) A leagues all that time. I spent nine years (as a player and manager) in Albuquerque and three in Buffalo. I was in some pretty good spots.”

Collins has been known to pierce clubhouse walls when he raises his voice in anger, and his wife, Linda, recently told Houston reporters that the best thing about all those years in the minors was “watching him fight with umpires, because he gets so animated.”

The Astros are hoping to see some of the same. They think it has been a missing ingredient. Will Collins save it for one team or another?

“My job is to make the Astros as successful as possible,” he said. “I want to beat Jim Leyland and the Pirates as much as I want to beat Tom Lasorda and the Dodgers.”

The difference being that he and Leyland are apt to sit and chat about it later.