The Soap Opera in Camden Yards

Let me see if I have this straight:

1. The owner of the Baltimore Orioles fired the pitching coach in what appears to be a shot across the bow of the manager. The scuttlebutt is that the owner doesn’t like the manager and would not mind seeing him quit.

2. The manager, who led the Orioles to their first postseason play in 13 years, and might reasonably have expected to be carried around on a chair, refused to say for certain that he would not quit.

3. The general manager, who was then approached to comment on the security of the manager, said, “He did a pretty good job.” his is not like calling him Walter Alston, is it? It makes you think that the general manager would not mind seeing the manager quit either.

4. The general manager then refused to say for certain that he would be back either. When he was asked what circumstance might persuade him to leave, he said, “If I get a better offer somewhere else.” As if he was placing a “Situation Wanted” ad in the paper “Will relocate in a heartbeat.”

So it looks like all these folks plaaaaaiiin don’t like each other, right Keith?

I could understand all this if the Orioles had finished 25 games out. So correct me if I’m wrong-but didn’t they beat the defending American League champions, and reach the AL Championship Series? What would the owner do if the Birds had made the World Series, sell Cal?

There is a soap opera in progress in Camden Yards, and it’s starring Peter G. Angelos, The Asbestos Avenger. Like George Steinbrenner in New York and Jerry Jones in Dallas, Peter G. is Large And In Charge Here.

It was Steinbrenner who first established the custom of Owner Empowerment, basically by sticking his big yap wherever he wanted. He went through managers and general managers like a thresher, and when there was no more management personnel to chew up, he started making his star players’ lives miserable; Steinbrenner and Dave Winfield were in court more often than Greta Von Sustren. But usually Steinbrenner was satiated by winning.

And then, and then, eh-eh, and then along came Jones to one-up Steinbrenner by cashiering his coach after he won the Super Bowl! Jones booted Jimmy Johnson off the ranch because he couldn’t stand sharing the spotlight with him. Somehow-probably after listening to his own interviews- Jones got it into his overblown head that he was George Halas, and he could pluck any bozo off the street to coach his team and win. ( Unfortunately, it appears he did. )

Peter G. appears eager to make similiar footprints. He’s now on his third manager in three seasons Gates, Regan, Johnson. And if he successfully gets Johnson to push the self-destruct button, he’ll be on his fourth. Since Peter G. blew into Birdland scores of employees have gone flying out of the warehouse windows. He has dumped managers, and ousted GMs; other suits have quit rather than work for him. Wherever he can Peter G. replaces them with friends and family; he’s like MCI.

Often his judgment has been right. A couple of years ago he overruled Roland Hemond, Doug Melvin and Frank Robinson, all of whom wanted him to sign Will Clark. Peter G. looked at the medical report on Clark, which suggested he was as creaky as a Halloween staircase, and nixed him. He signed Rafael Palmeiro instead. No wonder he’s feeling smart.

But what has convinced Peter G. that he’s Branch Rickey is what happened this summer, when he vetoed the trading of David Wells or Bobby Bonilla, and afterwards the Orioles took off. Peter G. has taken so much credit for this that his hands are probably chapped from slapping himself on the back. (Praise can be addictive. I wouldn’t, be surprised if at private parties he begins taking credit for keeping Juwan with the Bullets. )

Look at it from Peter G.’s point of view He went out and hired the man who everybody said was the best GM in the business, Pat Gillick. He went out and hired the manager with the best winning percentage of any active manager, Davey Johnson. And they wanted to make these trades and, in effect, give up on the season. And Peter G. said, No! And then the O’s won, they went all the way to the ALCS. So who needs Johnson and Gillick? (Why do I get the feeling this is how Napoleon felt just before Waterloo? )

Peter G. wants to get rid of Johnson. They get along like Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth. But he doesn’t want to fire him, because he would then be obligated to pay Johnson $1.5 million over the next two years. So Peter G. angling to push Johnson to walk the plank.

Pat Dobson, whom Johnson hired as pitching coach, became a pawn in Peter G.’s game. The owner may be hoping that his heavy-handed intervention with Dobson will so incense Johnson that he will quit on principle. But Johnson is reputed to be too self-absorbed for that to happen. He probably has forgotten Dobson’s first name.

Gillick is no great fan of Johnson either. (It’s curious that as good a manager as Johnson is-and he wins everywhere he goes-there hasn’t been a rush to hire him. Johnson sat out a while, unwanted after the Mets fired him. He ended up managing Cincinnati for Marge Schott, hardly a plum position. When he signed on with the Orioles he didn’t leave a fleet of suitors contemplating suicide.) Gillick might prefer another manager to work with. And he might prefer another owner too. This is a guy who built a world champion in Toronto.

Why would he want to defer baseball decisions to an asbestos lawyer? How do you think Peter G. would feel if Gillick told him, “From now on you ought to consult with me before you do any cross-examinations of medical witnesses and I say that because I’ve spent the last 30 years of my life watching second basemen go out and get the cut-off throw”?

Less than a year ago the Orioles put their Dream Team, with Johnson and Gillick, in place. The first shot out of the box they came close enough to the World Series that they could see it through the webbing of Jeff Maier’s glove. It might seem like the owner, the manager and the GM won. But apparently they aren’t birds of a feather after all.