Blue Jays’ Owners Decide Team Is Worth Keeping After All

In a surprise move, the Belgian beer company that owns the Toronto Blue Jays abandoned its two-year search for a buyer Thursday and said it would focus on turning the floundering team into a winner.

Interbrew SA took over the Blue Jays when it purchased Canadian brewery John Labatt Ltd. in 1995. Interbrew then put the teams up for sale.

A consortium led by Toronto real estate developer Murray Frum had been expected to buy the Blue Jays, but negotiations dragged on for months without a sale.

“They are off the market. We are not going to be talking to the Frum group any more. We are focused on building a winning team,” Allan Chapin, chairman of Interbrew and the Blue Jays’ board of directors, said Thursday.

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Winning on a regular basis didn’t prevent Davey Johnson from being fired twice.

Now it seems as if two playoff appearances in two years won’t be enough for Johnson to keep his job as manager of the Baltimore Orioles.

Oriole owner Peter Angelos is in the process of deciding whether to retain Johnson, who has one year left on a three-year contract. The prognosis for the manager is not good--Angelos is livid Johnson fined second baseman Roberto Alomar $10,500 for missing an exhibition game and a team banquet, then asked the player to give the money to a charity that retains Johnson’s wife as a fund-raiser.

Angelos met Thursday with General Manager Pat Gillick to discuss Johnson’s fate and to address the threat by players’ association to file a grievance on behalf of Alomar, upset over both the amount of the fine and its designation.

Angelos said he will not comment on Johnson’s status until the situation is resolved. He did not set a timetable.

Johnson insists he won’t quit the job. His agent has threatened to sue the Orioles if Angelos fires him without his $750,000 salary for the final year on the contract.

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Rod Carew, Joe Maddon, Marcel Lachemann, Joe Coleman and Nick Billmeyer will return as Angel coaches in 1998, the club said Thursday, and Manager Terry Collins said he hoped to fill any vacancies from within.

On Wednesday, first base coach Dave Parker joined the St. Louis Cardinals as a hitting coach, and third base coach Larry Bowa, who managed the San Diego Padres in 1987 and part of ‘88, is one of four finalists to become the Toronto Blue Jays’ manager.

Collins said he has discussed possibilities with General Manager Bill Bavasi and would prefer to move along Angel minor league managers or coaches.

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Four days after he nearly won the World Series and then made the error that helped lose it for Cleveland, Tony Fernandez filed for free agency Thursday.

Fernandez was among 24 players who filed Thursday, a group that included Darryl Strawberry and Scott Kamieniecki.

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With still no word from the Kansas City Royals, the Milwaukee Brewers almost certainly will switch to the National League, a Milwaukee television station reported.

WISN-TV quoted sources close to the Brewers as saying the Royals have not reached a decision, clearing the way for the Brewers to leave the American League, with an announcement possible as soon as today.

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Houston Astro owner Drayton McLane, Mayor Bob Lanier and Houston business leaders donned hard hats and shoveled dirt in a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new downtown retractable-roof ballpark to be finished for the 2000 season.

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Chula Vista Mayor Shirley Horton will tell a San Diego advisory committee today why a vacant, 115-acre waterfront site in her neighboring city would be a perfect place for the Padres to play.

The San Diego task force is also considering two sites in downtown San Diego and one next to Qualcomm Park in Mission Valley.

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Fernando Valenzuela is heading to his native Mexico in an attempt to revive his career.

Valenzuela, who will turn 37 on Saturday, will join the Hermosillo Naranjeros on Sunday, his agent, Tony De Marco, said.

“He’s going there to keep in good shape to look for a chance at the major leagues next year,” De Marco said.

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Staff writer Chris Foster contributed to this story.