Did Angels Blow It Initially?

Whitey Herzog was looking for a new first baseman, someone young, someone left-handed, someone with a little pop in his bat, someone with a bit of gold dust in his glove.

J.T. and J.R. fit all the requirements, at least initially.

J.T. was 24, J.R. was 22.

J.T. had just hit 15 home runs with 78 RBIs in AAA, J.R. had just hit 14 home runs with 77 RBIs in AA.

J.T., however, belonged to a different organization than Whitey’s. J.R. did not. Thus, a decision had to be made. To make J.T. his first baseman, Whitey would have to part with something valuable, maybe even his team’s most popular player. To make J.R. his first baseman, all Whitey had to do was wait.

To Whitey, this was no decision at all.

J.R. was no J.T., not to Whitey’s way of thinking, so in the span of 11 days in December of 1992, Whitey traded Jim Abbott to the New York Yankees for J.T. Snow and a couple minor leaguers and dropped J.R. Phillips from the Angels’ 40-man protected roster.

Fifteen months later, Whitey is gone, but the two moves have come home to roost. Today, J.T. Snow is trade bait as the Angels search here, there and everywhere for a starting pitcher who can retire the side--Is Jim Abbott available?--and J.R. Phillips is taking Chuck Finley deep, garnishing his ongoing bid to become the San Francisco Giants’ successor to Will Clark.

The Giants must find one, here, in Arizona, lest they play one man short. It can’t be done, the Bay Area rumbled last winter when Clark defected to the Texas Rangers, but through the first four weeks of spring training, Giant fans are warming up to the idea of running an ex-Angel named J.R. out there every day, and we don’t mean Johnny Ray.

Saturday, J.R. Phillips hit one ball so far that Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ new general manager, observed, “I lost sight of it in the clouds.”

“Estimated at 680 feet,” quipped a writer in the press box.

Actually, it cleared 400 feet by a good margin, as well as the row of houses that borders the right-field fence at Scottsdale Stadium, before bounding into the street.

For a moment, it went into the books as Phillips’ third home run and 10th RBI of the spring, raising his average to .419. An hour later, it was out of the books, wiped out when a persistent shower did the same to the Angels’ exhibition with the Giants.

No matter, though. Phillips has made an impression, with the team that snagged him and the team that let him get away.

“I felt there was nobody in our system with more bat speed,” says Bavasi, who was the Angels’ minor league director in late 1992. “If you watch him play first base every day . . . I know that J.T. has pretty good hands and Wally (Joyner) has pretty good to very good hands, and Wes Parker had great hands and great range. The only guy J.R.’s not better than is Wes Parker.”

So why did the Angels leave Phillips unprotected and fair game to a San Francisco waiver claim?

“We lost him when we signed Chili (Davis),” Bavasi says. “We needed to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. J.R. was deemed the farthest away from being able to play at the major league level.”

Among those protected ahead of Phillips was another first baseman, Ty Van Burkleo, who would not last another eight months in the Angels’ organization.

Looking back, Phillips says he can see why the Angels did what they did. “I wasn’t producing,” he says, “and I had a bunch of strikeouts.”

Looking back, there was a crystal-clear reason for that.

Phillips couldn’t see.

Phillips has night astigmatism, a condition that wasn’t detected until 1990 and wasn’t corrected until 1992. With Phillips, it took the eye doctors three strikes to get it right.

“I’m near-sighted,” Phillips says, “but the first doctor prescribed me a pair of far-sighted glasses.”

This can make hitting a baseball, when thrown at velocities approaching 90 m.p.h., somewhat difficult. “I could see the ball,” Phillips says, which was encouraging, “but not the rotation. I couldn’t tell if it was a curveball or a slider.”

A second doctor diagnosed Phillips as being near-sighted with night astigmatism, and fitted him with soft contact lenses. That winter, Phillips played in Mexico and hit .190.

Finally, Phillips decided to see an eye surgeon. “He can’t mess it up,” Phillips figured. “He cuts on people’s eyes, doesn’t he?”

A consultation was scheduled, during which the eye surgeon “pulled out my contact lenses and started laughing,” Phillips says. “He said, ‘You can’t treat night astigmatism with soft lenses. They have to be hard or glass.’ ”

Properly fit, Phillips started to properly hit. From 1992 to 1993, Phillips’ batting average jumped from .237 to .265, his home runs improved from 14 to 27, his RBIs rose from 77 to 94 and his strikeouts shrank from a staggering 165 to 127. He led the Pacific Coast League in home runs, placed second in RBIs and enabled the Giants to breathe easier when Clark took a big chunk out of their lineup and went south.

“He’s going to be an impact player,” Giants Manager Dusty Baker says. “It’s only a matter of ‘When will it happen--now or in the future?’ ”

Phillips still must beat out veteran Todd Benzinger and Baker is waiting to see how the rookie hits “once they start to weed out the A and double-A pitchers.” He also wants to see Phillips cut back on those strikeouts.

“Especially,” Baker says, tipping his hand, “because it looks like he might be hitting behind Barry.”

Barry, as in Bonds. As in the most valuable hitter in baseball. As in someone the Giants need to protect dearly in their batting order.

Phillips has set his sights on as much and Bavasi, for one among Angel executives, is “rooting for him. This guy looked fabulous last year . . .

“For me, he’s a prospect. I remember being frustrated with him at times because he did things with the bat that you weren’t sure were due to eyesight or bad judgment. Now, I give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was eyesight.”

About an hour after pounding a Chuck Finley offering on the pavement, Phillips nods toward the Angels’ clubhouse.

“Now,” he says with a smile, “they know.”