BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Traveling Jack Morris Sees Indians as Latest Winner

At 38, the leader among active pitchers in victories, Jack Morris finished the 1993 season with his career and future in doubt.

He was relegated to a cheer-leading role as the Toronto Blue Jays again won the American League pennant and World Series, his 7-12 season ending Sept. 9 because of a strained elbow ligament.

Informed by the Blue Jays the day after their triumphant parade in Toronto that his services would not be needed in ‘94, Morris might have retired to his 10,000-acre grain farm in Montana, but his tenacity is a hallmark.

“In my heart and mind I wasn’t content walking away under those conditions,” he said.

“I don’t think I have anything more to prove to baseball, but I want to prove to myself I can still win. This has been a way of life for me, and the older I get the more I appreciate the game and the uniform.

“Call it pride, but I’ve put in too much work over too many years to even think of walking away after a season of that kind. I just wasn’t ready.”

In his 19th professional spring, the uniform is now that of the promising Cleveland Indians. The one-time union bellwether in the face of collusion, Morris was forced to shop his services at a bargain rate.

“There was a lot of interest, but all at the major league minimum,” he said. “No one really wanted to pay any money, though a lot of (clubs) said they were honored I called, whatever that means.”

Morris was paid $4.5 million by the Blue Jays last year. He then got a $1-million buyout instead of a $5.5-million Toronto salary for ’94 and also got $576,284.51 in the winter collusion settlement. He will receive a $350,000 salary if he opens the season on the Indians’ roster. Incentives based on innings pitched can lift him to a $2.2-million ceiling for 240 innings.

Morris, who has pitched a workhorse 240 innings or more in 11 seasons, including three of the last four, is on his way to solidifying a rotation berth, having allowed only three earned runs in 10 exhibition innings.

“Jack doesn’t have to be a No. 1 for us; he can be a No. 3 or No. 4, but if he keeps throwing the way he is, I’m sure a lot of clubs are going to feel they missed the boat,” said Indian General Manager John Hart, who is also counting on 38-year-old Dennis Martinez.

Morris pitched well enough to be the Blue Jays’ No. 1 in 1992, going 21-6. He pitched well enough to be the hometown Minnesota Twins’ No. 1 in 1991, going 18-12 before dominating the Atlanta Braves as the World Series most valuable player.

Including his 14th and last season with the Detroit Tigers in 1990, he has been with four clubs in the five years of the ‘90s.

“I would have preferred not to have done that, but I can’t complain,” Morris said, alluding to his having pitched for three consecutive World Series winners, making it four rings in all.

And despite the tepid market, Morris said he would not have joined the Indians if he didn’t believe they, too, had a chance.

“I’ve been lucky in the past, so maybe I can bring some smiles to the faces of people in a different town,” Morris said.

People? Cleveland will pack them in for a change. The Indians are moving into a new stadium and expect to draw 3 million or more, a stimulant in a season in which they are also moving into the American League’s new Central Division.

Hart, however, said that realignment wasn’t the reason he combed the free-agent market, signing Martinez, Eddie Murray and the comparatively low-priced Morris among others.

“We developed the core of the club and felt it was ready to take the next step, ready for a breakthrough,” he said. “We would have taken these steps at this stage no matter what division we were in.”

Murray joins an offense that includes Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga and Kenny Lofton. Morris calls it a reassuring prospect and said he is reassured, as well, by the stability of his elbow, having built up the involved muscles to take the load off the ligament.

“I’d be lying if I said it was perfect or what it was 10 years ago,” he said. “I’ve delivered a lot of pitches with it. Some days I can feel it more than others, but I think I can still win with it if I stay within myself and hit spots. I’ve learned to live with what I’ve got. I feel fine, really.”

In addition to the September ligament strain--”It might have happened the day before or a year before or maybe even 10 years before”--Morris got off to a 1-3 start and went on the disabled list in May with shoulder tendinitis.

Nevertheless, he said, the most troubling aspect of that 7-12 season was his inability to summon the emotional involvement, the fire that has distinguished his career.

“I don’t know the hows or whys,” he said. “Maybe I just never recovered from the (‘92) World Series, maybe never gave myself a chance to sit back and unwind, but I went into last season mentally fatigued and never really rebounded.

“I knew that if I was going to come back and contribute this year, I’d have to find the drive and desire again.

“I’m not saying I have to be a kid again, but I’m going to have to show emotion because I know I can control it and it’s the way I pitch best.”

With 244 victories--he is second among active pitchers in strikeouts, third in innings and fourth in shutouts--Morris said he would like to win 300.

“But I don’t know if it’s possible,” he added.

“I feel fortunate for every one of the 244, and I’m at a point where I have to take them one at a time. I’ve pitched well over the years, but I’ve also had a lot of help over the years and I don’t know if I’ve said that often enough.”

Humility springs from many wells. Toronto was still cleaning up from the celebration when Morris was told by club President Paul Beeston that the team appreciated his contributions but wouldn’t employ him in ’94.

“I can handle honesty like that,” Morris said. “It’s the other games clubs play that can tend to leave you bitter.”

Morris will eventually retire to the farm, although he isn’t sure he wants to spend the rest of his life raising grain.

“It ends for all of us at some point,” he said. “Sometimes it’s sad, sometimes it’s pure. As long as I got the opportunity to pitch, I wasn’t ready to face it.”

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Tuesday is the first anniversary of the boat accident in which Tim Crews and Steve Olin of the Indians were killed and then-teammate Bob Ojeda was seriously injured.

Flags at the Indians’ training base will fly at half staff, but the team has removed the commemorative patch from its uniform and there will be no moment of silence or other acknowledgment of the anniversary.

“It’s a human story beyond a baseball story, and everybody remembers in their own way,” Hart said. “We have a lot of new people in camp and the mood is upbeat.

“Last year there was no script and it was very painful. We’re proud of the widows, they’ll always be part of our family, but there comes a time as an organization and as individuals when you have to move on.”

Ojeda, who had difficulty coping with his anguish last year and pitched only nine innings, has moved on to the New York Yankees and seems likely to win a job. He said his world is different than it was before the accident and will always be different, but he has returned to baseball because it’s important “having somewhere to go and something to do that I enjoy doing and I believe in doing.”

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The Kansas City Royals have started 1-16 and 5-10 the last two seasons. A similar start in the new American League Central would probably cost Manager Hal McRae his job in favor of coach Steve Boros.

McRae, asked if he has changed the Royals’ format as a precaution against another slow start, said, “Guys are playing longer and getting more (at-bats)--or as Vince (Coleman) calls it, going a hard nine.”

Through 14 exhibitions, for example, McRae’s son, Brian, had already played nine innings five times.

“We weren’t scoring runs,” McRae said of the staggering starts of ’92 and ’93. “I don’t know if we weren’t ready, but the pitchers were more ready than the hitters were, and the only way to catch up is with more ABs.”

*

The Blue Jays insist they aren’t interested in Ron Gant, and the Boston Red Sox say they are, and Gant, obviously thinking of that left field wall at Fenway Park, has twice called former Atlanta Brave teammate Otis Nixon, now with the Red Sox, to say he would love to join him in Boston.

Toronto may be playing it coy with Gant as a bargaining ploy. Left field prospect Rob Butler is having such a poor spring that the Blue Jays have experimented with catcher Carlos Delgado and first baseman Domingo Martinez in left. Nevertheless, the more pressing Toronto need is pitching, a condition complicated by the shoulder tendinitis that could sideline relief ace Duane Ward through April.

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Briefly: Ex-Dodger Mike Scioscia, who missed the 1993 season because of a torn rotator cuff, was invited to the Texas Rangers’ camp as a backup and mentor for Ivan Rodriguez, but Scioscia continues to have problems throwing, and the Rangers are looking at Boston’s expendable Bob Melvin.

--The Baltimore Orioles gave Sid Fernandez a three-year, $9-million contract as part of their free-agent spending spree, ignoring the fact that an oft-injured Fernandez made only 58 starts in his last three years with the New York Mets. Fernandez, like Ward, is now sidelined indefinitely because of tendinitis. Manager John Oates, despite the addition of Rafael Palmeiro and Chris Sabo, said:

“My biggest concern is a lack of pitching depth. Our horses have to take the ball on a regular turn. We can’t lose Sid or any of our other starters (Mike Mussina, Ben McDonald and Jamie Moyer) for an extended period.”

--On the trade that sent erratic Mitch Williams to the Houston Astros for finesse and control specialist Doug Jones, Philadelphia Phillie Manager Jim Fregosi says: “We’ve gone from the wild thing to the mild thing. The one guy throws all balls and this guy throws all strikes. Whatever happens, it’s going to happen a lot quicker, and that in itself is a plus.”