No Excuses This Time : Rangers Say They Have Their House in Order Despite Controversies

What to mention first about the Texas Rangers?

--The free-agent signing of Will Clark, much to the chagrin of former first baseman Rafael Palmeiro? Palmeiro continues to demean Clark, deride the Rangers for their handling of his contract talks and suggest that, without his leadership, the club could be hurt by ethnic cliques.

--The attempt by Jose Canseco to regain his superstar form after “two years of physical and mental deterioration” left him suicidal?

--The retirement of Nolan Ryan and the imminent opening of the Ballpark at Arlington, the Rangers’ new home and an architectural clone of Camden Yards?

--The impact of realignment, which moves the Chicago White Sox to the American League’s Central Division and leaves the Rangers to face only the Angels, Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics in the West?

Texas management believes those things all play together, and that the bottom line is, as Manager Kevin Kennedy put it, “We no longer have any excuses for not winning the division (title). I say that because I mean it, and because I want to create a mind-set with the players.”

Said General Manager Tom Grieve: “I think we can win and will win. I think every team in the division believes it has a better chance without the White Sox, but I think we’d win even if the division was the same. We have the best team.”

The ’93 Rangers made a sustained run before finishing eight games behind the White Sox despite only five victories by Ryan, the absence of Canseco after June 19, the inability of Julio Franco to play 18 games and the absence of home run king Juan Gonzalez from nine September games, including three in Chicago, because of a strained lower back.

The lingering promise of last season is underscored by a 55-37 record after July 24, when Kennedy, in his first season as a big league manager, stopped trying to coddle his players and reacted to a 2-8 trip by calling a three-hour workout on a day off, then ordering the now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t Canseco and Franco to get back in the lineup or be put on the disabled list. Both were.

Canseco, who blew out his elbow pitching in Boston on May 29, never returned, but a chastised Franco came back from a pulled leg muscle and batted .311 while playing 95 of the final 98 games before joining the White Sox as a free agent.

“I waited too long to assert myself,” Kennedy said. “It won’t happen again.”

Neither, he said, citing the lessons of his rookie season, would he allow a position player to pitch again, no matter how loudly or persistently he asks.

Canseco delivered 33 pitches after talking his way into the eighth inning of a 15-1 loss to the Red Sox only four days after he had headed a fly ball over the fence for a home run in Cleveland.

“I embarrassed myself, the team and the manager,” he said of the incidents. “But what happened in Boston really turned out to be a blessing, I think. It was like losing a battle but winning the war.

“My elbow had been hurting for two years, and so had my shoulder, but without being forced to, I never would have had surgery. The doctors determined that in compensating for the shoulder, I hurt the elbow long before I pitched that day.”

On July 9, a tendon was removed from Canseco’s left wrist and used to replace the torn ligament in his right elbow. Canseco now says his hitting, legs and back are 100%, and his arm is 70%.

“I’m still five months short,” he said. “As soon as my arm is ready, I’ll be out there.”

Canseco will open the season as the designated hitter, replacing Franco. Chris James, Gary Redus and rookie Rusty Greer will share right field.

Although his statistics for 60 games last season projected to a solid 27 homers and 124 runs for a full season, Canseco said, “I know I have to re-establish myself and prove I can be the player I was. I wasn’t into it physically or mentally for the last two years, but my priorities are in order now. The game is No. 1 for me.”

He had to come to grips, he said, with the three-year process of separation, reconciliation and ultimate divorce from his wife, Esther. It was all so overwhelmingly painful, he said, that it took away his identity and left him with suicidal thoughts.

“I still have feelings for her and will always miss her, but I realize now that life goes on, that I have other responsibilities,” he said, acknowledging that he has been in therapy and that he worked with physical “technicians” from Miami University during the winter.

“If this is a crossroads, I’m as prepared as I can be, and I’m getting better,” he said. “More importantly, I’m happy. For a time, I didn’t think that would be possible again.”

Said Grieve: “Jose seems stronger, healthier and more focused on baseball. He seems to have used his time away productively.”

The Rangers led the league in home runs and were third in runs despite the half-year absence of Canseco in ’93.

Palmeiro picked up the slack with his best season, hitting 37 homers with 105 RBIs. Clark, in turn, hit only 14 homers with the San Francisco Giants and drove in 73 runs for a second consecutive season while hampered again by leg injuries.

The injuries and his declining numbers of the last two years prompted the Giants to offer only three years at $15 million. Clark agreed to a five-year, $30-million contract with the Rangers on Nov. 22, only a few hours after the Baltimore Orioles had abruptly ended talks.

Oriole owner Peter Angelos has said he refused to go to $30 million for Clark because of the injury risk and because Clark’s recent statistics don’t compare with those of Palmeiro, who signed a five-year, $30.35-million contract with the Orioles on Dec. 12.

Which team really wanted which first baseman is a bit murky, but Palmeiro continues to say that the Rangers never intended to re-sign him, that they low-bridged an offer in order to upset him and force him elsewhere with the idea they would then sign Clark as a marketing tool to replace the retired Ryan in the Anglo community.

“It hurt because I felt that I had carried the Rangers for four months, had kept them in the race,” the Cuban-born Palmeiro said.

“They treated me with no respect. There was no appreciation for what I did for them.”

Palmeiro has apologized for deriding Clark’s ability on the day his former Mississippi State teammate signed with the Rangers--”If he’s worth $30 million, then I’m worth $40 million” was only part of his tirade--but he rekindled it in an interview with The Times, saying Clark simply can’t fill his leadership void among the clubhouse cliques.

He declined to identify the cliques except to say they were divided along Latino and Anglo lines, that there was a potential for friction and that he was regarded as a leader who could cope with the problem.

“From what I gather, the guys were upset the team didn’t sign me because they know whatever I did and said came from the heart,” Palmeiro said, adding that Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez were sure to miss him because they were like brothers.

“Now they’ll have to deal with their problems themselves,” he said.

Both Gonzalez and Rodriguez said they admired Palmeiro as a player and friend, but they declined to discuss his value as a leader and said they knew nothing about cliques.

A Ranger who is close to Gonzalez and Rodriguez said neither needed Palmeiro to survive.

“Rafy could be a silent leader, but the truth is he needed Juan and Ivan . . . more than they needed him . . .,” he said.

Added Grieve: “Rafael underestimates the maturity of our young Latin players. They don’t need someone’s shoulder to lean on or cry on, and I think they would be offended to know someone may think they can’t be successful without him.

“I have no fear about our team’s ability to function well internally without Rafael, which is not to say he isn’t a good guy or wasn’t important to us on and off the field.

“We think he’s as good a player as Will and we made every effort to sign him. He was the first choice of every person in our organization. I mean, we went after Will only when it looked like we might end up with neither one, and we couldn’t risk that.

“A left-handed power hitter was our No. 1 priority, particularly in the new park.

“As for marketing, no one can replace Ryan, and it’s ludicrous to think that’s why we signed Will. A winning team is the best marketing vehicle there is, and we felt Will could help us win.

“All of this has been dragged through the dirt to the point where it’s a non-issue, but obviously Rafael is having a difficult time adjusting to his new situation.

“It’s too bad. He has a great contract with a great team, and he’ll be better off when he can begin concentrating on his new team rather than his old team.”

Clark, who passed a Ranger physical before he signed, will bat third, with Gonzalez, Canseco and third baseman Dean Palmer behind him.

The former Giant is among the first to reach the clubhouse in the morning and the last to leave.

“No drill is too mundane for him,” Kennedy said of Clark and his potential for leadership.

The manager is hopeful that Gonzalez, at 24, is also ready to show leadership.

The Rangers demonstrated their faith by giving him a seven-year, $45.45-million contract, although there was muttering among the players about the important games Gonzalez sat out last September, when Kennedy was on the verge of suspending him for also skipping a therapy session in Seattle because he overslept.

“All we’re asking Juan to do is what his job and status entails . . . to be the leader in the sense of complying with the team and going about his business in a professional and diligent way,” Kennedy said. “I’ve seen money change people. It’s up to me and the coaches to keep Juan on track.”

With all of the offensive potential, with the likelihood that sellout crowds in the new stadium will provide a shot of inspiration, with the possibility that Ryan provided more of a distraction than a contribution during his final year--with all of that, the team’s chances in the weakened West may hinge on suspect pitching.

Rick Honeycutt and Jay Howell were signed to keep Tom Henke and Matt Whiteside company in the bullpen, but it’s the rotation, after Kevin Brown and Kenny Rogers, that seems shaky.

Roger Pavlik, a 12-game winner last year, is sidelined until mid-April at the earliest because of a rotator-cuff problem.

Jack Armstrong was 22-45 over the last three seasons.

Bruce Hurst, limited to five games last year because of shoulder problems, was headed for a starting berth until the shoulder flared up again, leaving him in limbo.

Rick Helling, the Rangers’ No. 1 draft pick in 1992, might have to be pushed into the rotation.

“Unless you’re talking about the American and National league All-Star teams, everyone has pitching concerns,” Grieve said. “Every time you read a capsule on this team or that team, it’s looking for a fourth or fifth starter.

“We have a strong nucleus. It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst. It’s comparable, and it won’t prevent us from winning.”