BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Pirates Are Plundered, Leyland May Just Bail

He established his reputation as one of baseball’s best managers while leading the Pittsburgh Pirates to three consecutive titles in the National League East, beginning in 1990.

He fought off the frustration of bitter playoff defeats in each of those years--the most wrenching delivered by an unheralded Atlanta pinch-hitter named Francisco Cabrera in 1992--and the annual defection of his best players.

Bobby Bonilla. Barry Bonds. Sid Bream. Doug Drabek. John Smiley. Steve Buechele. Jose Lind.

A litany of small-market pathos, but Jim Leyland dealt with it and stayed, a veteran of 20 years on minor league buses, the quintessential blue-collar guy in a blue-collar town, never asking for anything more than a degree of hope.

Now?

Hope may spring eternal, but it could well be down to a trickle in Pittsburgh.

Unless a sale of the franchise pumps up the team’s economy, unless there is a new compensation system that levels the playing field and allows the small markets to be more competitive, Leyland is suggesting that he may have to re-evaluate his commitment.

“The last thing I want to do is leave Pittsburgh,” he said Monday as the Pirates opened a four-game series at Dodger Stadium. “The organization has been great to me, and I love it there. I have another year left on my contract, and I plan to honor it. I’m committed to doing the job. I’m confident we can turn it around the way we did when I first joined the club.

“The point is, I don’t want a push-button team or a fat contract. I only want a chance to be competitive. The last thing I ever want to become is just a stop on everybody’s schedule every year.

“Hopefully, the club will be sold and the new owner will see fit to spend some money on players. I mean, it’s not a matter of signing someone else’s players. It’s a matter of keeping our own. That’s what has bit us in the past.”

The Pirates are owned by a public and private coalition that for several weeks has been close to a sales agreement with cable TV magnate John Rigas. Along the way, groups from northern Virginia and Orlando, Fla., have also shown interest, but it is a complicated situation because of club debts and baseball’s uncertain labor situation.

General Manager Cam Bonifay said new ownership and a new labor agreement providing increased revenue sharing for the small markets are imperative.

In the meantime, he said, the club is committed to building from within and staying patient.

The Pirates are 4-13. After three consecutive seasons of 95 or more victories, the departure of Bonds and others after the ’92 season led to a 73-84 record and fifth-place finish in ’93 and a 53-61 record during the strike-shortened 1994 season.

“I think we have a chance to be good again, but I’m the last person to sit here and paint some phony, rosy picture that we’re just around the corner from being good,” Leyland said. “I would never go into a game thinking we didn’t have a chance, but the fact is, we’re not very good right now and we have a lot of work ahead of us.

“I mean, our mission is different than it was in ‘90, ’91 and ‘92, when we expected to win. Now we’re looking at a lot of young and inexperienced players and trying to sort out the ones who are good enough and the ones who aren’t. We can’t start patching and try to get it done over night. We have to stay the course. We have to recognize there are going to be painful days.”

The Pirates made modest investments in former Dodger Jim Gott and Dan Plesac to beef up the bullpen. There are a few familiar names, such as Jay Bell, Jeff King and Orlando Merced. It is a team that is not so much young--the average age of the opening-day roster was 28--as it is inexperienced in key areas.

Leyland is conducting a pitching experiment, for instance, reverting to basically a four-man rotation in an effort to accelerate development. The starters are Paul Wagner, 27; Denny Neagle, 26; Jon Lieber, 25, and Esteban Loaiza, 23. Wagner, Neagle and Lieber came into the season with a cumulative major league record of 39-45.

“We’re talking about four young arms that can take pitching on a day’s less rest, and this is the first time I’ve had that,” Leyland said. “I’ve thought about this for years, but I always had an older guy who couldn’t do it and would disrupt it for everyone else.

“Each of these guys is still learning to pitch. The more they’re out there, the better they’ll be.”

Leyland has known hurt beyond October and the loss of star players. He and wife Katie’s first child was stillborn. They now have a young son and daughter to give them perspective.

Leyland understands, as he was saying Monday, that baseball has been a “small and out-of-whack part of the universe.” The strike, he said, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Fans’ frustration had been building as players and management showed less and less appreciation to the people footing the bill.

The damage is not irreparable, Leyland said, but a new labor agreement is imperative. He predicted that baseball would eventually return to its previous popularity.

The Pirates? Given new ownership and a new economic system, they’ll be back too, Leyland said. Will he be with them? It depends on how swiftly the new replaces the old.