Manuel Transition

The firestorm that erupted last July when Chicago owner Jerry Reinsdorf was perceived to have waived a white flag over the White Sox has receded some.

Which is not to say that some Sox aren’t still pained when they think of the decision to trade Wilson Alvarez and Roberto Hernandez with the team only 3 1/2 games behind the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central.

It’s just that they would prefer to focus on the early impact of new Manager Jerry Manuel, who talks about liberating his players so they can better display their talents, about changing their hearts so they can better commit to winning, and who:

* Sought clarity through fasting and prayer in the 48 hours before his job interview with the White Sox.

* Has reopened avenues of communication that became clogged during the tenure of former manager Terry Bevington.

* Lists his priorities as God, family and job, saying, “If I don’t keep those things in order, I could easily let my ego take over.”

* Watches the film “Gandhi” several times a year and relaxes with the writings of the late Indian leader, as well as those of Martin Luther King.

Gandhi and King, of course, were men of peace.

But Manuel, who was Jim Leyland’s bench coach with the Florida Marlins last year and is the fourth minority representative among current major league managers, preaches aggressiveness on the field and has already lectured a couple of his young pitchers for failing to retaliate in an early exhibition game after Sox slugger Frank Thomas was hit by a pitch in a situation Manuel concluded was intentional.

“I read Gandhi, but I when I go play baseball, I play baseball,” Manuel said, suggesting that as a born-again Christian who followed his father in the study of the Book of Islam and practice of Hinduism, he subscribes in baseball practice to the Torah’s eye for an eye.

If not a revelation, Manuel brings a new and--what the White Sox consider to be refreshing--depth to a business in which most managers list the Sporting News as their bible.

“He’s definitely changed the atmosphere,” said Thomas. “We needed an attitude adjustment, and he’s providing it. He’s established roles, defined discipline and restored communications. He’s said, ‘This is how it is, the way it’s going to be.’ He won’t waver. We can respect that.”

It’s only March, of course, and the long season has a way of obscuring the glow of spring.

The White Sox are a team in transition, plugging young players into key roles while reducing 1997’s $54-million payroll by almost $18 million.

The difficult task confronting Manuel is illustrated by the cover of the team’s media guide. He is pictured filling in a lineup card, but six positions are vacant. The only names listed are those of Thomas, Albert Belle and Robin Ventura, none of whom are happy to be part of a rebuilding process but choose their words carefully.

“With guys who have played five or six years at the major league level, you know what you’re going to get,” Ventura said. “We have so many young guys, you can’t do that. It’s frustrating when you think of the people we had, but we don’t make the decisions.”

Starter Alvarez, closer Hernandez and versatile veteran Danny Darwin were dealt to the San Francisco Giants for six young players on the night of the July 31 trade deadline, with Reinsdorf responding to fan, media and player criticism by saying, “ . . . Anyone who thinks this team is going to catch Cleveland is crazy.”

No one was more stunned than Ventura. The third baseman had returned a week earlier after missing the first 3 1/2 months because of a broken ankle. He thought he was returning for the stretch drive. Instead, it was a clearance sale.

“I thought the season ended in October,” he said.

He also supplied teammates with a T-shirt that fed off the Reinsdorf theme, reading: “Maybe We’re Just Crazy Enough to Win This Thing.”

The White Sox weren’t and didn’t. They finished 6 1/2 games back.

Ventura said the other day, “If you allow yourself to go back and think about it, it’s painful and disturbing. We were in the race with a chance to win and lost our top starter and top reliever.

“But like everything else, you move on and try to stop thinking about it and it diminishes each day. The obvious plan from that point last year was to reduce the payroll and go with younger players. It’s no secret now. Just look at our lineup. It’s a different atmosphere, a different goal in mind.

“I mean, we obviously want to win, but you have to be realistic with what you have. The goal is a standard of play now rather than looking at the season and thinking you can win 80 to 90 games. Hopefully, you can keep up the standard of play and things will turn out better than anticipated.”

The White Sox won a division title in ’93 and were leading in ’94 when the strike began. A third-place finish in ’95 was followed by second-place finishes in each of the last two years. Besides Alvarez, Hernandez and Darwin, gone from those teams are Harold Baines, Alex Fernandez, Tony Phillips, Ozzie Guillen, Jack McDowell and Dave Martinez.

The ’98 White Sox will start a rookie right fielder, Magglio Ordonez, 24, the American Assn.’s most valuable player last year, and a 25-year-old center fielder, Mike Cameron, who hit .259 in 116 games with the Sox.

Texas Ranger reject Benji Gil is the probable shortstop for a team that was last in the league in fielding, renowned transient Ruben Sierra will serve as designated hitter, and much traveled Charlie O’Brien and Chad Kreuter will share the catching.

The projected rotation, including $20-million free-agent bust Jaime Navarro (9-14), was a cumulative 32-35 at the major league level last year, and new closer Matt Karchner, 30, has yet to fill that role over a full year, although he was 15 for 15 in save opportunities after Hernandez was traded.

The engaging Manuel, 44, is left to play the hand he was dealt, but inherits a team that was hungering for communication and change.

The White Sox had provided the terse Bevington with public relations tutoring during his two-plus years at the helm, but it didn’t take.

“Bevington was the biggest black eye since the Black Sox,” a person familiar with the situation said. “The players played around him, not for him. He went all of last year without talking to some of the pitchers.”

The final gaffe occurred in a September game against the Indians. Bevington raced to the mound and waved to the bullpen for a relief pitcher but had no one warming up.

Manuel is a baseball lifer and switch-hitting infielder who hit .150 in 127 major league at-bats over 96 games.

He spent the last seven years as a coach under Leyland and Felipe Alou in Montreal, inheriting, he said, their intensity and fearlessness and, from Alou, a deepening spirituality.

In the 48 hours that he prayed and fasted before his job interview with the Sox, Manuel wrote a complete outline of what would be his daily spring training regimen.

“He lit up the room,” General Manager Ron Schueler said of that interview.

Said Manuel, “The White Sox are sticking their neck out, treading into the unknown. Journeyman player, minority, never managed in the majors. But whether I got the job or not, I felt it was my time. I was ready for the next level. That’s not to say I won’t make mistakes, but I expect to be a better manager tomorrow than I am today. I don’t know everything and don’t claim to, but I’m not intimidated, not afraid.”

Manuel also says:

* “I want to liberate my players. Liberation means allowing a player to release inhibitions and run freely. I want to free his mind and let him show his talents naturally and play confidently. Liberation is being at peace with yourself.”

* “I tell guys, ‘I’m not here to challenge you, I’m here to change you.’ Challenge is a mind thing. Change is from the heart. If you can get in your heart, you can change. My mission is to change their hearts to the commitment it takes to win a world championship.”

* “If you institute rules without having relationships, that equals rebellion. I don’t want that. I want to have relationships. You can’t have a communication without a relationship.”

The spotlight will be on his relationship with Belle. He hit 30 homers and drove in 116 runs in the first year of his $11-million-a-year contract and took the blame for the Alvarez-Hernandez trade, saying if he’d had a normal Belle year--50 homers and 140 RBIs--the Sox would have won and the trade wouldn’t have been necessary.

The often belligerent and surly Belle, rededicated to having a Belle-like year, has lost 26 pounds and is acknowledged to be the hardest worker in camp. He has also dropped into Manuel’s office for impromptu chats so often that the manager laughed and said, “It’s like old family week.”

Manuel added, “Albert comes to me with a clean slate. I’m sure he won’t agree with everything I do and I’m sure I won’t agree with everything he does. I have disagreements with my wife, but we love each other and have been married for 25 years.”

Renette Manuel was a cheerleader at the high school they attended in Cordova, Calif. There is little doubt, as the mother of their four children, that she has remained a cheerleader for her husband. The question in March is, Will Belle and the White Sox?