Taking One for the Team

Marcel Lachemann took the blame for the last time Tuesday.

He took it on behalf of so many people who had let him down, who failed to deliver as promised, who pushed him toward his decision to pack it in after 330 games as manager of the collapsing house of cards known as the Angels.

Lachemann wouldn’t name names Tuesday, but where would you like to start?

With J.T. Snow, whose career Lachemann resurrected in 1995 by doing everything for Snow that Buck Rodgers wouldn’t--award him the first base position, keep him in the lineup and refrain from lambasting his strikeouts in public? The same J.T. Snow who’s now batting .188 against left-handers and began grousing out loud when Lachemann sat him out in back-to-back games?

With Rex Hudler, whose career received a lifeline from Lachemann in 1995, who owes his talk-radio cult-hero status to every at-bat Lachemann entrusted him with, who recently complained that Lachemann was over-using him?

With Jim Abbott, who made the leap from the Big Ten to the American League in 1989 largely because of the guidance of a pitching coach named Lachemann, who became an 18-game winner under Lachemann in 1991, who pulled the rug out from under Lachemann in 1996 with his 1-14, 7.31 into-the-black-hole cannonball?

With Garret Anderson, who, while waiting for the Angels to throw $6 million at him, is hitting .200 with runners in scoring position?

With Tim Wallach, management’s carefully selected stopgap at third base, who played his way off Lachemann’s roster in less than four months?

“I’m not trying to be a martyr,” Lachemann said at his farewell press conference, but if not, why were so many of his postgame post-mortems sounding like sack-cloth confessionals?

My responsibility, Lachemann would profess, loss after loss after loss. My blame. My fault.

If you took Lachemann at his word, he was either the penultimate “players’ manager”--covering up for each and every transgression--or flatly unqualified for the position. The Angels lost 170 games with Lachemann drawing up the lineup card. If all 170 were indeed Lachemann’s doing, far too much on-the-job-training was going on in Anaheim.

Truth is, Lachemann was a better manager than that. For five months in 1995, his team led the American League West. This time last year, Lachemann was the league’s prohibitive favorite for the manager of the year award.

Truth II: Lachemann was a better pitching coach than he was a manager. Pitchers used to sign with the Angels just for the opportunity to work with Lachemann. He was patient and protective, introspective and cerebral, a man who spoke softly and preferred to toil in the background. Lachemann was so egoless that he provided the perfect rain gutter when the cups of Don Sutton, Bert Blyleven and Mike Witt runneth over.

Those same qualities worked against Lachemann as a field manager. Gene Mauch was the best manager the Angels ever had largely because he truly believed he was the smartest man in baseball. In Mauch’s mind, he never once was out-managed; on occasion, he just ran out of innings.

Lachemann lacked that swagger, that brash self-confidence that many players, especially non-pitchers, tap into. Mauch never admitted to any mistake, never laid himself open to the second-guess brigade the way Lachemann did. Mauch’s players might have sneered about “The Little General” and his unassailable pearls of wisdom, but they also admired that unshakable ego. Many of them became better players by borrowing from that part of Mauch’s game.

Lachemann didn’t pretend to know it all, as he often reminded his team and reporters. He was human, so he figured mistakes were natural. He was inexperienced, but he was sharp, so he figured he would learn from those mistakes, grow into the job as he went along.

But his too-frequent mea culpas became too-easy escape routes for .190 hitters and underachieving pitchers. Give most ballplayers an excuse and, to borrow a phrase, they will latch right onto it.

A sobering Lachemann statistic: After last Aug. 15, when the Angels led the AL West by 10 1/2 games, his won-lost record is 66-88--a full 22 games under .500.

Of course, last August, Lachemann declared that if the Angels don’t hold on and win the West, “they should fire the manager.” Looking at it in that light, Lachemann was living on borrowed time for these last 111 games.

But about these last 111 games: Would Lachemann have been seated on that podium Tuesday, handing off to the second coming of John McNamara, if the log-jammed Disney-Autry negotiations hadn’t cut off Bill Bavasi’s winter at the knees.

Because neither Disney nor the Autrys were willing to commit the money Bavasi needed to plug the many holes on the roster, Lachemann was forced to open this season without a real catcher, without a real leadoff hitter, without an everyday third baseman, without a left-handed relief pitcher and without a fourth and fifth starter.

Joe Oliver would have signed to be the Angels’ catcher for $900,000, but Bavasi could offer only $500,000.

Tony Phillips would have re-signed for $2 million. Bavasi told him, “See you in Chicago.”

Bob Patterson wanted two years and $500,000. Bavasi shook his head and gave Bryan Harvey one year--for $500,000.

Third base? A Wallach-Jack Howell platoon was the best Jackie Autry’s pennies could buy.

Fourth starter? Anyone seen Steve Ontiveros lately?

Fifth starter? We’ve all seen Jason Grimsley lately.

“For my part, I’d rather stay away from that,” Bavasi said, “because it’s just an excuse. Why we don’t [have the right players] is not something I’m comfortable going into.

“But we worked through the ownership change pretty well. Both owners got together as best they possibly could to help us through that. The fact that we don’t have the right guys in the right spots, I don’t point to that.

“We have a lot of guys who are underachieving and we have a guy or two or three or four that we just over-evaluated, we overrated . . . When you pile those two things together--some players having sub-par years and some players you overrated--it’s a pretty good mix for disaster.”

Lachemann considers himself fortunate to be able to walk away with all his limbs and faculties intact.

No excuses.

No alibis.

As of Tuesday, he’s leaving that to someone else.