Curtis Takes a Few Swings at the Angels : Baseball: Being traded to the Tigers has not changed center fielder’s style or his opinion of the California front office.

Rod Carew was visibly angry. Chuck Finley had just dropped a 1-0 decision to the Oakland Athletics and the Angels’ hitting instructor was fuming about what he called the “selfish” attitude of some Angel players.

“The little guys on this club want to be the big swingers,” Carew said after that game last June. “I just sit there and wonder what they’re thinking. It’s very, very frustrating.”

Asked to name names, Carew named Chad Curtis as one example.

Curtis, now wearing a Detroit Tiger uniform, was the first batter of the 1995 season in Anaheim Stadium on Wednesday night. He swung hard and sent a towering fly ball to the warning track in center. He drove a high fly to deep left in his second at-bat, struck out swinging in his third, flied to right and then hit a dribbler to third and was caught stealing.

But nobody in the visitors’ dugout was wringing his hands or contemplating wringing Curtis’ neck.

“I’m not a changer,” Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson said. “I can understand that (the Angels) would want to change him, but I’ve always believed that you do what you do best and do it the best you can. I like to let an individual go with his strength and I’ll work around it.”

Curtis hasn’t discussed his philosophy of hitting with Anderson since he was traded to Detroit for Tony Phillips on April 13, but when he reads that quote, it will be the best thing he has seen since a fastball somewhere near the plate.

Has he considered changing his style?

“Actually, it’s something I’ve thought quite a bit about,” he said. “And just the other day I decided that if I didn’t have the speed I have, people would be saying, ‘Curtis is a pretty good gap hitter who can hit a few home runs.’ But since I have speed, they don’t want me to do those things. They want me to change my game and suddenly become a different kind of hitter.

“You want me to hit leadoff, fine, but let me be the player I am rather than try to change me to fit a certain spot in the order. Let me come out of my shoes every once in a while and try to juice the ball.

“I got to the major leagues by being an aggressive hitter, so I have a little problem with people saying, ‘This is what got you here, but now let’s change it.’ I’m an aggressive baseball player, aggressive on defense, aggressive on the bases and aggressive at the plate. I’ve got no desire to go up there and take a bunch of strikes.”

Curtis proved that much last year when he walked 37 times in 453 at-bats. But despite Carew’s outburst and the less-public disgust of a few other coaches, Curtis says he never felt under-appreciated as an Angel.

“I have nothing but good feelings and respect for (Manager) Marcel (Lachemann) and the coaching staff,” he said.

He doesn’t harbor such warm regards for the Angel front office, however, especially after an off-season confrontation with General Manager Bill Bavasi over the interpretation of incentive clauses in a contract that will pay Curtis $1.9 million this year and $2 million next season.

“Let’s just say I felt they were a little too willing to sacrifice their integrity to get a desired outcome,” Curtis said.

But that falling out, he says, had little to do with his reaction when he found out he had been traded.

“To be honest, I was very excited,” said Curtis, who grew up and still lives in Middleville, Mich., a two-hour drive from Detroit. “It’s home. It’s the team I’ve followed all my life. Then my second reaction was that I was going to miss the guys I had some special relationships with here, guys I came up through the minors with.

“But the change of scenery is good for me. It’s something that has always driven me. Whenever I went to another level or a new situation, I always felt I had to prove to myself that I could succeed and produce. So now I’m with a new team and I want to prove to myself and these guys that I can raise myself to another level.”