BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Abbott Will Be Courted This Winter

The Angels, trying to remedy a 2-year-old mistake, are expected to exhaust all efforts this winter to reacquire New York Yankee starter Jim Abbott, who is eligible for free agency in November.

The Angels are prohibited from publicly discussing their intentions because of tampering rules. Yet, after trading Abbott to the Yankees on Dec. 6, 1992, they will try to bring him back.

If not for the Yankees’ last-minute decision to pull out of a three-player trade on the weekend before the season opener, three high-ranking executives said, Abbott would be in an Angel uniform today.

First baseman J.T. Snow would be a Minnesota Twin.

And Rick Aguilera would be the Yankee closer.

The three-team trade that nearly was consummated April 1 stayed alive until May before dying, sources said.

The Angels would have sent Snow to the Twins, two minor league pitchers to the Yankees and acquire Abbott.

The Yankees would have sent Abbott to the Angels, third baseman Russ Davis to the Twins, and acquired Aguilera and two minor league pitchers who are not on the Angels’ 40-man roster.

The Twins would have sent Aguilera to the Yankees and acquired Snow and Davis.

“The whole hang-up was the Yankees’ refusal to part with Russ Davis,” one source said.

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If the Angels are successful in acquiring Abbott, who is interested in returning to the Angels, it’s possible they could field an all-left-handed starting rotation: Mark Langston, Chuck Finley, Brian Anderson, Andrew Lorraine and Abbott.

Phil Leftwich is the only right-hander now in the rotation.

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Center fielder Chad Curtis shaved his goatee, but it was not necessarily because of club policy.

“My wife didn’t like it,” Curtis said. “When she saw I had it in New York on the last trip, she told me, ‘It better be gone before you come home.’

“It was just a joke that got blown out of proportion. It wasn’t fun anymore. I never wanted that kind of attention in the first place.”

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Right fielder Tim Salmon, who has sat out the last four games because of an aggravated right hamstring, will test it today and hopes to be in the lineup as a designated hitter. “I can still feel it,” Salmon said, “but I think the quickest way to get me back is as a DH. . . . But they’re winning without me in the lineup, so maybe they’re thinking, ‘Hey, no hurry.’ ” . . . If Salmon returns to the lineup as a DH, Chili Davis would play left field.

Outfielder Rex Hudler was emotional when Angel hitting coach Rod Carew gave him a present that Hudler says he will cherish for a lifetime. Carew gave Hudler an autographed bat from Henry Aaron. “Rod’s the greatest,” Hudler said. “Can you believe he did this for me?”

Leftwich, who earned his fifth victory Wednesday, underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test on his sore right leg to determine if there’s a stress fracture. Leftwich, however, says he should be ready for his scheduled start Wednesday against Oakland. . . . The Angels have six scheduled days off in the next five weeks, but Manager Marcel Lachemann said he wants to continue pitching Finley and Langston every fifth day, and juggling the other three starters.