Claire Bows Out With Grace

Fred Claire said Wednesday that he nearly resigned as executive vice president of the Dodgers after Mike Piazza was traded in May without his knowledge. Instead, he stuck around and new owner Fox fired him a month later.

“I wasn’t happy with the way it happened,” Claire said of the deal that sent Piazza and Todd Zeile to Florida for five players, including Gary Sheffield and Bobby Bonilla.

Claire, 62, and manager Bill Russell were fired late Sunday night after returning from a trip to Colorado, ending their 30-year association with the team. Tom Lasorda, the former manager, took over as general manager and minor league manager Glenn Hoffman replaced Russell.

Surrounded by his mother, wife, three children and two grandchildren during an outdoor news conference on the broad lawn behind the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Pasadena, Claire spoke publicly Wednesday for the first time since his firing.

“I was surprised,” Claire said, dark glasses hiding his eyes from brilliant sunshine. “I never thought I’d get fired.”

Asked if he believed the firing was unfair, Claire replied, “Management clearly has the right to do whatever it chooses to do, whatever it sees is in its best interest. I have no quarrel with that.”

Claire didn’t bash the organization, but it was clear he felt sadness at his longtime ties being severed.

In May, Claire had initiated discussions with Florida General Manager Dave Dombrowski about a trade. They were going back and forth about Sheffield and his contract.

One night, Claire said he got a call from team President Bob Graziano in the Dominican Republic saying the Dodgers had completed the deal. Graziano and Fox executive Chase Carey engineered it.

“I said, ‘That’s the first time being a general manager that I’ve ever been informed that a trade had been made,’ ” said Claire, who told Graziano that after the deal was made public he would have his own announcement to make “because clearly you don’t need me.”

Then it was discovered that Sheffield had a no-trade clause, throwing the whole deal into doubt. Piazza asked Claire whom he and Zeile had been traded for and Claire said he couldn’t tell them.

“I didn’t like that,” Claire said. “It was very difficult for everybody.”

Claire wanted to resign that night, but in the days that followed he said he eventually accepted the trade and believed it could work. He said it was misconstrued that he was left out of the loop, but he clarified his role.

“I didn’t make the trade, I initiated what turned out to be the trade,” he said. “There were some parts to it that I did not know about.”

Noting that Bonilla has been injured recently, Claire said it’s too early to tell whether the trade was successful.

Sunday night, Graziano informed Claire he was being fired. It wasn’t until the next day that Claire said he called Graziano and asked why.

Claire said Graziano told him it was because of the team’s performance this season and last season, when the Dodgers failed to make the playoffs. Los Angeles is currently mired in the NL West standings and has been plagued by injuries.

“It sounded strange to me when it happened,” he said, recalling the scene in the Dodger Stadium office of Peter O’Malley. “So I said, ‘OK,’ and I thanked Peter for what he has meant to me.”

O’Malley hired Claire as GM in April 1987 after he had worked in several positions within the franchise since 1969. Claire had the longest consecutive active service time among baseball’s general managers.

Claire said he accepted the general manager job from O’Malley with one condition. “I get full, total, complete responsibility because if they run me out of town, I want to be sure they’re running me out for the right reasons,” he said. O’Malley replied, “Fred, you got it.”

Asked if he felt betrayed by O’Malley, Claire replied, “Absolutely not.”

“I care a great deal for the people there,” he said.

In fact, Claire said many nights upon leaving the stadium he would find notes on the windshield of his car from Terry Seidler, O’Malley’s sister who owned part of the team.

He pulled a small, yellow piece of paper out of his pocket.

“I thought it was a parking tag. It said, ‘Great game, Terry,’ ” Claire said. “You know how many nights I walked out of that stadium and found a note on my car from Terry. A lot.”

Claire said the answering machine at his Pasadena home is jammed with messages from well-wishers throughout baseball. He said he has no plans to retire and hopes to catch on with another team.

“I believe I’ll have another job,” he said. “There are a lot of teams there, but I’ll be open to all things. I want to set this part of my life behind me.”

He said he’s left messages for Lasorda and Hoffman offering his help for as long as he isn’t employed by another team.

“You can’t care that much and not want them to succeed,” he said. “I hope they win it all.”