BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Abbott’s ‘Roller-Coaster’ Ride Leaves Him Excited

He went only 4 1/3 innings in his first start with the Chicago White Sox on Thursday.

Who knows what to expect from starting pitchers after an abbreviated spring?

Who could predict how Jim Abbott would react after working out for most of the winter with the Sea Kings of Corona del Mar High, unsure from day to day what his status was depending on the drift of labor negotiations.

Free agent? Arbitration eligible? Untendered by the New York Yankees?

“It was like being on a roller coaster,” Abbott said, sitting at his locker in Sarasota, Fla., a few days before heading north with the White Sox and losing his debut to the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-4.

Ultimately signed by Chicago as an untendered free agent on April 8, Abbott is being asked to compensate in part for the absence of Jack McDowell. It was McDowell’s high-priced acquisition by the Yankees that left Abbott, coming off a disappointing 9-8 season, vulnerable to New York’s economic ax.

“It was the first time in my career that I felt unwanted, but I also looked on it as a no-lose situation and an opportunity to hear from different teams,” he said. “I didn’t foresee the (market conditions) being as bad as they were. I’m happy and excited to come out of it as well as I did.

“I mean, it’s a chance to pitch for another contending team in another great city only four or five hours’ drive from where my parents live in Michigan. If I’d put down a list of teams I wanted to play for, the White Sox would have been near the top. I didn’t dream it would happen.”

With former Angel teammate Kirk McCaskill, a member of the White Sox pitching staff, lobbying on his behalf, Abbott signed a $2-million contract and can earn the same $2.75 million he made with the Yankees last year through incentives.

Abbott had hoped that the home-state Detroit Tigers might be interested, but they’re headed in another economic direction.

He had hoped, as an off-season resident of Newport Beach, that the Angels might want him back and, according to sources, was encouraged by some in the organization to put together a proposal, which was rejected by owner Jackie Autry.

“It was an exciting possibility, but I’m focused on doing the job here,” Abbott said. “I’m not disappointed that I’m not somewhere else.”

Neither is he looking back financially. He rejected the Angels’ four-year, $16-million contract after the 1992 season.

Fearing Abbott would ultimately leave as a free agent with the Angels getting nothing in return, then general manager Whitey Herzog traded Abbott to the Yankees for J.T. Snow, Russ Springer and Jerry Nielsen.

Compared to the $12 million he would have made during the first three years of the Angels’ contract, Abbott will make $7.85 million at the most.

“My wife and I have talked about that at times, but not with regret,” he said. “ . . . We’ve had memories and experiences that can’t be measured in dollars.

“Playing with Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs. Pitching a no-hitter. Living in one of the great cities. I never felt my pitching was as disastrous as it was made out to be by the media there at times, but I’ll always cherish the experiences and opportunity of playing for the Yankees. There were hard times and good times, and it wasn’t like I was doing too badly every two weeks (when he was paid) either. After a certain point, what do you do with it?”

At 27, starting his seventh season, Abbott said he still has a lot to tap into as a pitcher, a lot on which to improve. Some scouts insist he has lost a measure of velocity, a little of the snap on his slider. Some say that because he is unable to hide the ball as well as pitchers with two hands, first base coaches are able to steal his pitches, relaying them by voice to the batter.

Abbott said he doesn’t accept any of that. Nor does he feel any pressure replacing McDowell.

“Jack had a dominating presence here,” he said. “You can still feel it. People still talk about it. But I don’t consider it the role I’m expected to fill. My job is to take the ball and eat up innings. I’m the fourth starter (behind Alex Fernandez, Wilson Alvarez and Jason Bere). If people are looking at me as the successor to McDowell, I don’t think they’re looking at the whole picture.”

SPARKY’S STANCE

A strange thing happened at Anaheim Stadium on Wednesday night.

The Angels stood and applauded in their dugout when the Detroit manager was introduced before the opener. It was a salute by the returning major leaguers for Sparky Anderson’s refusal to manage replacement players.

Chili Davis, the Angels’ designated hitter, had earlier made a trip across the field to whisper his thanks.

Asked about his decision again, Anderson said he didn’t know if it was right or wrong but that “it was right for me.”

He stressed again that he didn’t do it for the striking players and didn’t have anything against the replacement players except that they didn’t belong, didn’t deserve to have their names in “The Baseball Encyclopedia.”

No other manager joined him, but Anderson said he is neither judge nor jury. What other manager has the security of three World Series rings and 25 years at a major league helm?

“I wouldn’t want to start all over and manage 25 years today,” he said. “I couldn’t do it. We’ve got the best group of young managers that I can remember, but they’re under tremendous pressures now. The money is so big and has changed so much of the game.

“I saw the guy from San Diego (Bruce Bochy) last night when I came in here and I told him that the best advice I can give him is to be himself and not worry about the people upstairs pulling the trigger. They’ll do whatever they want to do. Just be yourself.”

The Tigers reluctantly took Anderson back after he did what he believed he had to do, but his 17th season with the team is expected to be his last.

Detroit officials were stunned by his walkout on the first day of replacement camp, publicly questioned his integrity in the context of a contract commitment and privately suspects he is the wrong leader for an organization now committed to a youth movement.

Anderson, in turn, has described the front office as a mess, rife with phoniness. He has asked club President John McHale Jr. to delay discussions on a new contract until after the season, a request McHale didn’t think twice about.

“If it’s a difficult year, there’ll be only one person to blame, and that’s me,” Anderson said. “I mean, I’ve always been able to respect myself for being professional. If I’m going to be anything else, I’ll walk first, like I did on Feb. 17. I’ve done it my way for 20 years and I’ll continue to do that. I don’t have to be pals with the people I work with. I just have to be professional.”

Unfortunately for Anderson, it figures to be a difficult year no matter how professional he is. The rebuilding Tigers, with seven of the current 28 players in their first major league season, don’t figure to contend in the tough American League East.

PARTING SORROW

Oakland Athletic Manager Tony La Russa called him “the best guy I’ve ever had, the model of a professional.”

Bob Welch’s career may have ended quietly Wednesday when he was released from a minor league contract by the A’s at 38, unable to rebound from a series of injuries. He was 3-6 last season, 9-11 the year before, but won 211 games in his career, including 96 in seven seasons with the A’s after being traded by the Dodgers in a three-way deal for Jay Howell, Alfredo Griffin and Jesse Orosco, one of Fred Claire’s first major transactions.

Welch, whose strikeout of Reggie Jackson in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the 1978 World Series in his rookie year with the Dodgers will always be remembered as an October classic and who was 27-6 and won a Cy Young Award with the A’s in 1990, left camp without comment. San Francisco Manager Dusty Baker, a former Dodger teammate and close friend, said he might solicit Welch’s feelings about trying to sustain his career across the bay.

“He’d have to go to triple A and I’m not sure he’d want to do that,” Baker said.

“Whether he wants to play or not, I’d hate to see baseball let him go. He’s one of the most honest, best-hearted guys I’ve ever met. He’d be an outstanding pitching coach.”

NAMES AND NUMBERS

* In the American League Central, the delayed start to the season benefited the Chicago White Sox and hurt the Cleveland Indians. The White Sox lost 12 scheduled games with the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles, the titans of the East, while the Indians lost 12 games with the Angels and Oakland A’s, who were 0-11 against Cleveland last year. Cleveland General Manager John Hart has expressed some irritation about it, but gets no sympathy from Chicago Manager Gene Lamont, who said: “I don’t give a. . . . I’m sure he had a lot more to do with the way things were going to go (after the strike) than I did.”

* The Indians put catcher Sandy Alomar on the disabled list. He had arthroscopic surgery Wednesday on his left knee, which was operated on in November. Alomar has gone on the DL seven times since May of ’91. He will be replaced by Tony Pena, who said: “I’m ready to rumble. I’m 37 but feel 27.”

* Cincinnati Red General Manager Jim Bowden continues to rhapsodize over long-touted third baseman Willie Greene. The latest: “Only Barry Bonds has quicker hands.” The question is: Are they quick enough? Greene struck out 17 times in 31 at-bats in the spring and three times in six at-bats through the first two games of the season. He also reported to camp 15 pounds overweight and had a shouting match with coach Ray Knight during the final week of spring when Knight had the audacity to ask him to take extra fielding.

* The players’ union is at it again. First it distributed a list of all replacement players to their returning strikers, making it seem as if it’s a hit list. Then it chose opening day of the new season, when owners and players should be trying to build bridges and win back fans, to confirm that players may boycott the All-Star game unless management guarantees to make an annual pension payment from the receipts. It’s understandable that the union is wary. The owners have still not made last year’s $7.8-million payment. Nevertheless, it would seem to be an issue that could have waited beyond opening day.