Buck Blasts Away : Baseball: Ex-Angel manager says Brown is a ‘cancer’ and believes president is behind firing.

Buck Rodgers, still having difficulty believing he was unemployed Wednesday, accused Angel President Richard Brown of being a “cancer” in the organization.

He believes it was Brown who had him fired and that General Manager Bill Bavasi simply was following orders.

“I don’t really think that Bill Bavasi had too much to do with my firing,” Rodgers said. “I appreciate him being the front man, that’s commendable, but in my mind I don’t think he had anything to do with it.”

Instead, Rodgers says his confrontation with Brown during the Angels’ last home stand might have triggered his dismissal. Rodgers said he was summoned for a meeting to discuss comments attributed to him about Brown.

“He said that I said that he didn’t know anything about baseball,” Rodgers said.

“Even if I believed that,” Rodgers said smiling, “I wouldn’t say that.”

Brown and Bavasi vehemently denied the meeting had anything to do with Rodgers’ firing, and sources close to Bavasi confirmed the firing was Bavasi’s idea. Brown and chairman Jackie Autry approved the firing, and Gene Autry told Rodgers in a phone call Wednesday that he wasn’t aware of the firing until Wednesday.

“You’ve got a guy who’s been through a tough, traumatic experience,” Bavasi said, “and (Rodgers is) entitled to make any comments that he deems appropriate.

“But what I told you (Tuesday) is the absolute truth. I know what happened. Rich knows what happened. The Autrys know what happened.

“I stand by what I said, and it was totally my decision.”

It’s difficult for Rodgers to believe that Bavasi, who was hired Jan. 12, would fire him this quickly. Sources, however, insist that Bavasi was troubled by Rodgers’ stubbornness, and was convinced they could not co-exist. Bavasi wanted to hire his own manager, and his only choice was Marcel Lachemann.

If Lachemann had rejected the job, Bavasi said Wednesday, Rodgers would still be managing today.

Yet, it might take days, if not weeks or months, to convince Rodgers that Brown was not behind the firing. Take a look at the track record since Brown has been president, Rodgers said, and you’ll find his fingerprints on the departures of general managers Mike Port, Dan O’Brien and Whitey Herzog, and manager Doug Rader.

“There’s still some kind of cancer here with the California Angels,” Rodgers said, directing his comments directly toward Brown. “I think that’s very obvious for someone who’s been here for 15 minutes.

“This organization is not all bad. This organization is very salvageable. But there’s a paranoia here. There’s a fear of failure that has to go.”

Rodgers, 55, an original member of the Angels’ expansion team, says Brown is threatened by those who played the game.

“If you’re a paranoid person,” Rodgers said, “you’re threatened by everything and anything about you. There’s something against people who played the game. You’re not as smart as the next person or you can’t do the job as well.

“I wasn’t after anybody’s job. I have trouble enough with my own job, which I don’t have anymore.”

Although this was a press conference called by Rodgers at the Jolly Roger Inn in Anaheim, the Angels sent a club official to monitor Rodgers’ remarks. When Brown was informed of Rodgers’ comments during the 30-minute press conference, he refused to address the accusations.

“I have no comment on this,” Brown said. “I stand by what I said (Tuesday.)”

Rodgers, his eyes watering, his voice choked with emotion, still had trouble believing he was standing behind a podium without a job.

It had been 24 hours since he had been fired and he still had no answers.

“I spent 30 years in the organization,” he said. “I was given no reason. I asked for a reason, and he still gave me no reason. The whole thing took 12 minutes.”