Will a Quick Trigger by Umps Diminish Fire and Intensity?

Terry Collins was hired with a mandate to bring more fire and intensity to the Angels.

Has one potential avenue been closed?

How does a manager back up his players in confrontations with umpires if the umpires are saying that they’ll be quicker to eject, rigidly enforcing all rules and tolerating no confrontations?

“The way I read it is that they wanted to make a statement in the spring and hope it has an impact,” Collins said.

“I’m dealing with a new league, new umpires and a new situation, so I don’t know what to expect, but I have to believe there’s too much scrutiny from TV and the media to be tossing players indiscriminately during the season.

“I mean, each game is so important and emotions run so high that I’d hate to think that a player is going to be ejected for even turning and saying a pitch may have been too outside to be called a strike.

“If that’s the case, [the umpires] are going to affect the outcome of a lot of games, and that would be too bad.”

No one knows where this is headed, but there’s concern in the Cactus League. Seattle Mariner Manager Lou Piniella was ejected Tuesday simply for asking umpire Ted Hendry to stop chatting with and distracting one of his young infielders.

Said San Francisco Giant Manager Dusty Baker: “I don’t have any trouble with the umpires, but how much power do people need? They’re already quick on the trigger. Now it’s as if we face a firing squad.”

The umpires remain justifiably angry over the non-suspension of Roberto Alomar during the playoffs for spitting at umpire John Hirschbeck, over the absence of stronger support from league presidents on suspensions and fines, over the inconsequential movement in the promised off-season study and revision of the behavioral issues.

But does total anarchy exist, as claimed by umpires Jerry Crawford and Don Denkinger in announcing the new policy?

Do quicker thumbs produce an end to confrontation or create more, disrupting games?

On Friday, acting Commissioner Bud Selig named a committee that will review issues of conduct and penalties and possibly recommend changes. It includes the league presidents and representatives of the umpires’ and players’ unions.

He and the players’ union make for strange bedfellows in their shared response to the umpires’ new policy, basically branding it counterproductive.

“To make threats right now is destructive, sad and mean-spirited,” Selig said. “We won’t allow the game to become a travesty.”

Said Collins, who early and easily could eclipse his modest total of three ejections as manager of the Houston Astros last year, if umpires adhere to their policy:

“The biggest concern I have is the need to have my players on the field and not in the clubhouse, having been ejected. I want them to understand that if something needs to be said, the coaches or manager will say it.

“I’ve always treated the umpires with professional respect. I don’t go out unless I absolutely need to. I’m well aware they’re in charge, but at the same time we have a right to say something, to present our case.”

No arguments? What next? Tea and crumpets instead of beer and peanuts?

HANSEN’S HOPES

Has he lost confidence or given up on the concept?

No way, says Dave Hansen.

“I still believe I’ll get the opportunity to play every day,” Hansen said. “Maybe not, probably not, but that’s what keeps me going.”

He was seldom given the opportunity during six years with the Dodgers, who kept bringing in new third basemen--Tim Wallach, Mike Blowers and Todd Zeile among them.

Hansen was left to deliver in the pinch, which he frequently did.

He had a club-record 18 pinch-hits in 1993 and a total of 63, putting him second on the club’s all-time list to Manny Mota’s 106.

Last year, after Hansen batted an overall .221 with only one extra-base hit, the Dodgers went in another direction.

They brought in Chip Hale as a left-handed pinch hitter, which sent the non-tendered Hansen in search of a situation where he might play more.

Is that what he found? Probably not.

Hansen is in the Chicago Cubs’ camp with a nonroster invitation. He has a minor league contract for $250,000, with another $250,000 in incentives.

It’s obvious he will not play ahead of rookie third baseman Kevin Orie or first baseman Mark Grace.

It’s not even certain he will make the club, although he probably will. He is batting .583 this spring and has a career pinch-hitting average of .283. Chicago pinch-hitters batted only .207 last year.

At 28, however, Hansen’s best chances to play regularly would seem to be behind him.

“I have no regrets,” Hansen said. “The Dodgers provided me with the chance to spend six years in the major leagues and play with a lot of terrific guys. I learned a lot about baseball and myself.

“It was a dream come true. How many kids get to play with their boyhood team? I take pride in what we accomplished as a team, but it was time to move on, and I can accept that.

“I mean, from what I’ve seen and the way I’ve been treated here, I’ve gone from one great organization to another.”

CACTUS FLOWER

The Cactus League seemed on the ropes in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Florida cities were waving big bucks and new facilities at the Arizona teams. Now the situation here has more than stabilized and the Cactus League is thriving. The opening last week of a new Ho Ho Kam Park, capable of seating about 12,500 of the Cubs’ snowbirds, is illustrative of the comeback.

“The league was definitely in jeopardy, but now I’d say the future is secure into the next decade, at least,” Cub President Andy MacPhail said. “It’s probably healthier than at any time in history.

“I mean, I can remember going to spring games with my father [Lee MacPhail, a former New York Yankee general manager and American League president] when a good crowd was about 2,000. Now we have facilities that can handle five times that.”

Including luxury boxes, at $50 a seat, as in the Cubs’ new park.

Next year, the Chicago White Sox will move from Florida to share a new complex with the Arizona Diamondbacks in Tucson, and the Milwaukee Brewers will move from suburban Chandler to a new facility closer to central Phoenix.

When those facilities are completed, seven of the 10 teams in the Cactus League will be playing in parks built in the 1990s. The three others, among them the Angels, have had their facilities significantly upgraded in that time.

That will also be it for a while. The Maricopa County Stadium District, which channels money from a rental car tax to Cactus League projects, has reached its debt ceiling, having committed $70 million to improve and build facilities.

Has this revitalization of the Cactus League been a worthwhile project? A survey done for the Cactus League Baseball Assn. in 1993 reported that the league’s financial impact on Maricopa County that spring was $265.8 million, with tourists spending 93% of that--a stunning sum in the Valley of the Sun.

AND. . .

-- Colorado Rockies’ owner Jerry McMorris will head the committee pursuing a new commissioner, but an independent search firm is expected to be hired and assist in the process.

-- The next big contract belongs to Gary Sheffield. A five-year deal for about $60 million has basically been completed, but the Florida Marlins are expected to delay finishing touches until after April 1 to avoid its inclusion in luxury tax computations.

-- Inflation Index: John Schuerholz was general manager of the 1985 Kansas City Royals, who won the World Series with a payroll of about $9 million. Schuerholz is now general manager of the Atlanta Braves, whose 1997 payroll has come in at $55.7 million -- with more to come. Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine are in the last years of their contracts.

-- Eddie Murray through Friday had only one hit in 12 at-bats. Murray is a notoriously slow starter but he’s also 41, and the Angels don’t quite know what to make of a .090 average.