Phillips Looking at End of Career With Resignation

Spring training started without him. And, if the season starts without him, Tony Phillips promises to announce a reluctant retirement.

“I’m not saying I want to retire,” Phillips said. “If it comes to that, I can accept it.”

Phillips, who figured prominently in both the rise and the fall of the Angels last summer, said he has rejected contract offers from the Cleveland Indians and Montreal Expos. Phillips would not discuss the terms of the offers but indicated the teams asked him to take a severe pay cut from his 1997 salary of $2.2 million.

“It wasn’t a good enough deal for me to leave my family,” he said from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. “I would love to play, but I don’t need the money. It’s about the respect I’ve earned for getting the job done. It isn’t like I haven’t gotten the job done or had a bad year.

“I made a mistake. That doesn’t make me less deserving. I don’t look at myself as less deserving.”

Phillips, 38, sparked the Angels into a surprising pennant race last year, answering the need for an experienced leadoff hitter by batting .275 and scoring 96 runs. But the Angels fizzled soon after what Phillips referred to as his “mistake,” an Aug. 10 arrest on a cocaine possession charge.

The felony charge, to which he subsequently pleaded guilty, sparked a legal and moral brawl between the Walt Disney Co. and the Major League Players Assn. By the time arbitrators ordered Phillips reinstated, overturning Disney’s suspension, the Angels had lost seven of 10 games and fallen into second place for good.

Although Phillips tied a career high with a 13-game hitting streak immediately following his return, and although season-ending injuries to pitcher Chuck Finley and catcher Todd Greene compounded the Angels’ woes, the Disney management rid itself of Phillips as soon as possible. He did not play in the five games after the Angels’ elimination from the American League West race, and General Manager Bill Bavasi told Phillips--and the world--he would not return to Anaheim.

Upon his reinstatement, Phillips apologized in a press conference. He also agreed to counseling and random drug testing to satisfy baseball’s drug policy. As a first-time criminal offender, Phillips pleaded guilty with the stipulation that the court would clear his record in 18 months if he successfully completed additional counseling and testing.

As Disney and the union exchanged volleys in a national debate over the right to discipline employees, Phillips blasted both sides for using him as a “pawn” in their feud. Today, Bavasi wonders whether the rhetoric from all sides obscured Phillips’ apology.

“He is contrite. He is remorseful. He has not been able to communicate that, and I think that has hurt him,” Bavasi said. “It just got so messy and ugly that nobody has seen him for what he is.”

Phillips has scored at least 90 runs and drawn at least 90 walks in each of the past six seasons, and Bavasi said “there’s no doubt” he can still play. Phillips competes with a fire that often leads to confrontations with opponents and umpires, and that edginess--combined with the drug charge--undoubtedly pushes some general managers away from him.

Bavasi said no general manager has called to ask about the pros and cons of signing Phillips.

“I would welcome any calls,” Bavasi said. “I’ve never been asked. It’s the business of 29 other clubs, and that’s not my business.

“I know Tony. He’s a friend. I still talk to him. He did something extremely wrong and extremely stupid. It’s for somebody else to research and understand and judge.”

Phillips readily agrees the drug charge hampered his marketability. Still, if he must choose between, say, a $500,000 salary and the chance to play or retirement, pride compels Phillips to say he would opt to retire.

“If it comes down to that, it’s not meant to be,” he said. “A lot of people may say that’s a lot of money. It’s not the money. It’s respect for what you’ve done.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to miss the game and miss competing.”

The retirement speech is already thought out, the curtain perilously close to falling on a 16-year career.

“I’m not mad at anyone. I’m not upset at anyone,” Phillips said. “If it’s time for me to say goodbye, it’s time to say goodbye. My family is taken care of. I’ve given baseball a lot of sweat and guts.

“Sparky [Anderson, his manager with the Detroit Tigers] told me a long time ago, ‘If you play the game like it’s supposed to be played, if you do the very best that you can do, if you’re the best possible player you can be, when it’s time to leave, you won’t have anything to be bitter about.’

“That’s exactly the way I feel.”