BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Proud Birds Have Become the Black and Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays opened the 1995 season as the defending World Series champions.

The Series, you may recall, is an event generally played in October, the last time in 1993, when the proud Blue Jays made it two in a row on a dramatic home run by Joe Carter off Mitch Williams.

But Gord Ash, succeeding the retired Pat Gillick as general manager, wasn’t deceived by that “reigning champs” baloney.

“It was nothing more than symbolic,” Ash said from his SkyDome office the other day. “No one in the industry put much stock in it and neither did we after last year.”

The Blue Jays pretty much erased the glorious memories in 1994.

They were 55-60 and 16 games behind the New York Yankees in the American League East when the player strike ended the season and ultimately wiped out the Series.

This season might have represented a chance to re-establish their division dominance and extend their Series streak, but the black and Blue Jays have continued to go the other way.

Through Thursday, they were last in the East Division at 22-34, 11 games behind the Boston Red Sox. Frustrating? Disappointing?

“Use any adjective you want,” Ash said.

How ironic. A team that has always had the resources--both financially and in personnel--to make a pivotal acquisition down the stretch, and has done that consistently, is now in position to dump a load of talent.

Ash revealed it was decided two weeks ago, as the Blue Jays faced a make-or-break series of division games with Boston, New York and the Baltimore Orioles, that today would represent a deadline for determining whether 1995 could be salvaged or if it was now time to build for ’96 and beyond.

An eight-game losing streak that ended Wednesday pretty much determined the direction.

“Each day, as we’ve fallen further behind, it’s become more likely that we’ll move players, rather than hold onto them,” Ash said. “Every player is available if the deal improves our club for the present and future.”

The Blue Jays have nine potential free agents--Roberto Alomar, David Cone, Devon White, Al Leiter, Duane Ward, Danny Cox, Danny Darwin, Lance Parrish and Candy Maldonado. They have an option on Paul Molitor for ‘96, and Joe Carter is signed through ’96.

Ash is clearly looking to get something while he can and is known to have informed almost every contender in every division that the warehouse is open. Nothing is imminent, he said, but the San Diego Padres, looking for that one more hitter, are believed to have expressed interest in reacquiring Carter or Alomar.

How did the Blue Jays plunge so far so fast?

Said Ash and others:

--In trying to adjust a $50-million-plus payroll, several important veterans, among them Jimmy Key, Tony Fernandez, Pat Borders, Todd Stottlemyre and Dave Stewart, were allowed to leave, creating holes that haven’t entirely been filled.

--Closer Ward has been virtually useless because of shoulder problems.

--Cone, one of those late-season acquisitions in ‘92, was reacquired for this season as the rotation anchor, but Juan Guzman and Pat Hentgen have lost their previous consistency and Darwin has been a bust as the No. 5 starter.

--John Olerud, who chased .400 as the 1993 batting champion before slipping to .297 last year, has slipped another 50 points in search of that sweet swing of ’93.

--Molitor, soon to be 39 and plagued by injuries, is no longer the hit machine, batting .227 with three home runs. And Carter, looking like a defensive liability at 35, hasn’t been the RBI machine in a lineup giving him fewer opportunities to crank up.

Alomar and third baseman Ed Sprague are having solid seasons, but Ash said the Blue Jays as a team “haven’t played consistently since Day 1.”

He disputed the contention of some Toronto writers that some Blue Jays are resting on their laurels.

“It may be there subconsciously, but I haven’t seen evidence of any player going around saying, ‘I’ve got my two rings, why should I bust my butt?’ ” Ash said.

“This wasn’t an overly emotional group of players when they won, so the reverse has been true in losing. It hasn’t been the pit of despair, and maybe some people are reading that wrong.”

If anything, Ash said, some of the hitters might have been pressing, trying to compensate for inconsistent pitching.

“We felt that if we could augment the rotation, we could contend,” he said. “Cone has done what we acquired him to do, but Guzman, Hentgen and Darwin haven’t matched Cone’s consistency. Pitching sets the tone, so it’s possible that the hitters have developed a here-we-go-again mind set and tried to hit a six-run homer every time they go up.”

Ash had been Gillick’s assistant since 1989 and a club official since 1978. He has been through the highs of the World Series and the lows of the failed pennant runs and playoff defeats of the mid-’80s. He remembers the expansion struggles as something of a moral victory “if we even showed up.”

It’s not surprising then that he contends, “It’s not all gloom and doom now.” He cited the arrival of rookies Shawn Green, Alex Gonzalez, Domingo Cedeno and Tomas Perez and the promise of a long productive and admired farm system. The difference now, he said, is that instead of benefiting from a patient apprenticeship in which they are slowly mixed into a veteran lineup, the young players may have to shoulder more of the load.

There is also the uncertainty of ownership. A Belgian brewery is buying the team-owning Labatt brewery’s assets and plans to sell the team.

As the Blue Jays prepare to spend the Fourth in Anaheim, they are being shopped in more ways than one.

ALL-STAR VOTE

The American and National League All-Star teams will be revealed on ABC at 2 p.m. today but attendance apathy has carried over to the ballot box, where fans elect the starting position players.

Ken Griffey led last year’s balloting with more than 6 million votes. In the most recent tabulations, Cal Ripken was the leader with just more than 1 million. The total is expected to be far short of last year’s 14,040,122.

This year’s process did not have the benefit, baseball officials say, of Texaco’s distributing ballots at most of its stations. Besides being able to vote at the parks, however, fans could vote through an 800 number, the Internet and America Online.

Those who went to the trouble turned it into the usual popularity contest that had no connection to performance or even availability.

Four players who have been on the disabled list or out of the lineup for extended periods and will not be able to play in the July 11 game at Arlington, Tex., were leading at their positions: third baseman Matt Williams, shortstop Ozzie Smith and outfielder Lenny Dykstra in the National, and outfielder Griffey in the American.

Here are the fans’ leaders in the most recent tabulation, followed by this writer’s view of the way it should be, based on performance:

American: First base--Frank Thomas; should be Mark McGwire. Second base--Carlos Baerga, agree. Shortstop--Ripken; should be Gary DiSarcina. Third base--Wade Boggs; should be Edgar Martinez. Catcher--Ivan Rodriguez, agree. Outfield--Griffey, Albert Belle and Kirby Puckett; should be Manny Ramirez, Kenny Lofton and Tim Salmon, although Belle over Salmon for a Cleveland sweep is not outrageous.

National: First base--Fred McGriff; should be Eric Karros. Second base--Craig Biggio, agree. Shortstop--Smith; should be Barry Larkin (sorry, Jose Offerman’s defense dilutes his All-Star offense). Third base--Williams; should be Vinny Castilla. Catcher--Mike Piazza, agree. Outfield--Dykstra, Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn; should be Dante Bichette, Reggie Sanders and Gwynn, although hard to separate those three from Raul Mondesi, Ron Gant, Larry Walker and Derek Bell.

TV UPDATE

Despite the labor uncertainty and collapse of their partnership with ABC and NBC when those two networks tried to strong-arm a six year renewal of their rights-free package, baseball’s TV committee received enough feedback in the last week to be confident of having a new contract by Nov. 1, with Fox the key new player.

A consultant will be hired in the next few days to help the committee with strategy and to handle negotiations.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--Besides leading the National League in runs batted in, Reggie Sanders of the Cincinnati Reds is among the top 10 in 11 offensive categories but only 15th in the most recent All-Star tabulations, trailing even teammate Deion Sanders.

Said Reggie: “I like being the other Sanders. Making the All-Star team would be great, but I know it’s a popularity contest. There’s no use [whining] because there’s nothing I can do about it. The only thing I’ll say is that my numbers say it all.”

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--With Jimmy Key possibly out for the season because of rotator cuff problems, the New York Yankees have homed in on Detroit Tiger lefty David Wells, but their speculated offer of third baseman Russ Davis and a pitching prospect may not be enough, now that Wells is 4-0 over his last five starts and the Tigers are thinking they have a chance to catch New York in the American League East.

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--Who’s on first? The Minnesota Twins have used eight first basemen in the first year of Kent Hrbek’s retirement. The list includes Jeff Reboulet, Kevin Maas, Scott Stahoviak, Jerald Clark, Dan Masteller, David McCarty, Chip Hale and Matt Merullo.

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--If nothing else, the Chicago Cubs’ swap of struggling catcher Rick Wilkins for Houston Astro outfielder Luis Gonzalez figures to help at Wrigley Field, where Gonzalez checked in with a .390 average and 10 of his 52 home runs.

The Cubs, over the last two years, are 31-56 in Wrigley through Thursday, including 11-17 this year. And don’t ask Steve Trachsel how friendly the confines are. The second-year right-hander is 1-11 in 18 starts there.