BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Patiently and With Foresight, Indians Stuck to Plan

Switchboard operators at Jacobs Field gave the following greeting this week: “Thank you for calling the first-place Cleveland Indians.”

What a message. What a thing.

Not since July, 1974, have the long-suffering Indians been in first place this late in a season. “It’s always exciting to play well, especially when you consider what we’ve had to do to get to this point,” General Manager John Hart said from Cleveland.

Sticking with a plan, the Indians now boast one of baseball’s most potent and talented young teams, proving, as have other small-market teams, that the current economic system doesn’t have to mean automatic ruin.

Given the impetus of a new stadium in a city experiencing similar renewal, the Indians have sold 2.63 million tickets and are certain to break the club record for total attendance of 2.62 million, set in 1948.

They have won eight consecutive games overall and a club-record 17 in a row at Jacobs Field, where they are 22-7. They have a 3 1/2-game lead over the Minnesota Twins in the American League Central and a five-game lead over the favored Chicago White Sox.

Only a potential work stoppage seemed likely to intrude on their mood and momentum.

“I’d hate to see the season end early, but I don’t worry about things I can’t control,” Hart said.

“The greater good of the game is more important than what we’re doing in 1994, and basically the system doesn’t work, despite what we’ve been able to do in a small market.

“A lot of clubs don’t have the ability to do what they’d like to do.”

Ability? Hart was being kind. Maybe it’s more a matter of foresight and patience.

The Indians’ five-year goal was to be competitive when they moved into their new stadium. The blueprint: (1) focus on young players by clearing the roster of high-salaried veterans through trade or free agency; (2) employ the savings to rebuild the farm system and creatively retain the best of the young players with multiyear contracts designed to avoid arbitration; (3) reach a point where cautious use of free agency could fill in the gaps. Here’s how they executed it:

--Among the departed: Joe Carter, Brett Butler, Tom Candiotti and Greg Swindell.

--Among those acquired in trade: Carlos Baerga, Sandy Alomar Jr., Paul Sorrento, Kenny Lofton (in a steal for Ed Taubensee) and Mark Clark (at 8-1, does anyone remember Mark Whiten?).

--Up from the system: Albert Belle, Jim Thome, Mark Lewis, Chuck Nagy, new closer Paul Shuey and rookie-of-the-year candidate Manny Ramirez.

--Signed as free agents last winter: Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, Jack Morris and Tony Pena.

“We had some blue-chip young players who always believed in their ability and were at the point of saying, ‘Hey, we’re capable of winning now, get us some help and we’ll prove it,’ ” Hart said, referring to his signing of Murray, Martinez, Morris and Pena “who came in and reinforced the feeling, contributed to the fever.”

The Indians lost 105 games in 1991 and 86 in each of the last two seasons. They traveled with decades of bad baggage, and were haunted last year by the deaths of Steve Olin and Tim Crews in a Florida boating accident. Hart told the players they weren’t tied to the past; the ‘90s had nothing to do with the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s.

“We’d been improving steadily, looking for that breakthrough season,” he said. “That’s not to say this is it, the end-all year. We still have holes. You can’t do everything at once. But we have a chance now to be competitive every year for the rest of the ‘90s, and if you’re competitive, you can win, and we have the ability to win.”

In ‘94, it might depend on how Shuey, 23 and two years out of college, holds up in relief; how Martinez and Morris, both 38, hold up in the second half; how Clark and Nagy continue to pitch and how this strike-threatened season plays out. Beyond that, Hart said, a franchise “long perceived as the poorest-run in baseball now has to be taken seriously.” No matter the system.

COMPETITIVE BALANCE

Of all the aspects of the owners’ labor approach, nothing annoys the players’ union more than the ongoing assertions by chief negotiator Richard Ravitch that the current economic system--with the revenue disparity between clubs--has eroded and will continue to erode competitive balance.

Evidence suggests otherwise:

--Since 1981, every National League team except the expansion Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies has won at least one division title. The “have-not” Pittsburgh Pirates, to use Ravitch’s terminology, won three in a row; and the “have-not” Montreal Expos would be leading every other division except the one that includes the Atlanta Braves, whom they are challenging.

--Since 1981, every American League team except the Indians, Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners has won at least one division title, and the Indians and Rangers are leading their divisions.

--Ten teams have won the World Series since 1981, including the “have-not” Twins twice; and 20 of the 28 teams currently have legitimate shots at a division title or wild-card playoff berth.

“This has nothing to do with competitive balance, and Ravitch knows it,” Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, said of the salary-cap proposal. “No one takes that seriously. This has everything to do with money and the clubs wanting more of it.”

It starts, of course, with the proposed 50-50 split, which significantly lowers the players’ compensation share from the current 58%. And it includes the elimination of arbitration under a cap the players consider restrictive to salary growth and destructive to free agency.

Said Jeff Moorad, a respected agent: “The owners have put the cart before the horse. They can’t convince the players to modify the compensation system until the players are convinced the owners themselves have done everything they can do.”

That would be to implement revenue sharing among the clubs without linking it to a salary cap, as they have.

“That’s much too logical,” Fehr said of revenue sharing without a cap. “The only reason they link it to a cap is so that the (big-market) clubs giving the money will get something back. In other words, when the Dodgers give money to the Padres, they want the players to pay them back under a cap that’s well below market level.

“We proposed modifying the compensation system with a variance of revenue sharing among the clubs in 1985, and we were laughed at. I’m sure we’d be laughed at if we proposed it again.”

THE UNCERTAIN RACE

The threat of a work stoppage has left managers in a quandary. Do they push injured players? Do they go to four-man rotations? Do they play it to the hilt on the assumption, as they like to say, that there are no tomorrows?

“I haven’t figured out yet if it’s still early (in the season) or late,” Manager Jim Fregosi of the Philadelphia Phillies said.

The safest course, Manager Terry Collins of the Houston Astros said, is to assume it’s late.

“Right now, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but in a lot of ways, we’ve got to approach the next month like it’s the last month of the season,” he said.

“That’s why I’m not giving guys days off as much as normal. We’ve got to play the next few weeks almost like September. You want to position yourself to be in first place if there’s a work stoppage, because who knows when we’ll pick it back up or what will happen with the standings when they do, if they do.”

THE SANDBERG FILE

The assertion by Angel batting instructor Rod Carew that a struggling Ryne Sandberg had bailed out on his struggling Cub teammates is a view also raised in Chicago as possibly affecting Sandberg’s eventual Hall of Fame candidacy.

Unlikely. Sandberg spent 13 years in the majors. He was productive offensively in eight of those years. He will be measured on the productivity of those eight, combined with his defensive dominance. His statistics compare favorably to the 13 second baseman in the Hall, and it is generally acknowledged he was one of the best at the position.

He received 10 Gold Gloves and about $18.5 million in Chicago Tribune gold over the course of his career. His premature retirement enabled the Cubs to save between $15.7 million and $18.7 million, but General Manager Larry Himes said he isn’t rushing out to spend it.

“I’m not going to spend money just to spend it,” he said. “If we get back in the hunt later in the season, then it might be something to consider, but not now. Money isn’t always the answer to everything. We have players who need to play better. We can win games if they do.”

The Cubs have only two players remaining from 1991--Mark Grace and Shawon Dunston. Grace might leave as a free agent. Dunston wonders if he shouldn’t go as well. Voicing some of the same concerns regarding direction and stability that Sandberg did in the spring, Dunston said: “The guys who had pride in putting on a Cub uniform are almost all gone now. It started when they couldn’t keep Mad Dog (Greg Maddux). Then they let Hawk (Andre Dawson) go, now Ryno. Those three guys are going to the Hall of Fame. We should still have them.

“Mark may be next. Why would he want to stay? That leaves me. What am I doing here? Maybe it’s time for me to go too. I don’t blame Ryno for leaving. I don’t know where this club is going. Are they rebuilding? Who knows? Do they know?”