Malone Gets heavy Job to Lift Dodgers

There’s no sense in staying inside the family these days, because there really isn’t a family to speak of anymore.

If the Dodgers insisted on a very public process of interviewing any and all available general manager prospects, then they might as well get it right.

Looks like they did.

Kevin Malone, whom the Dodgers introduced as their general manager Friday, is the perfect GM for the ‘90s, a proper mix of knowledge of the sport and corporate political skills.

Malone is a baseball guy. He knows the game from sitting with a note pad and radar gun to scout high school players. And he knows the big league deal-making loop from his five years in front offices.

He knows how to operate within the framework of the company and how to keep the chain of command in order. For those who wonder what he’ll do if the Fox folks want to get their hand in things, remember that he spent the last three years working as an assistant general manager for Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos, a wannabe George Steinbrenner.

Of course, it’s easier to get along with a meddler if that meddler writes big checks the way Angelos did. But when Malone was the general manager in Montreal, he showed he can work with baseball’s equivalent of a shoestring budget and still win. His Expos were atop the National League in 1994 when the strike ended the season.

Malone even worked well with Pat Gillick, the man who beat him out for the Orioles’ general manager job. They made a great team. Their Orioles went to the American League championship series in two of their three years together--and might have made a World Series appearance in 1996 if a 12-year-old hadn’t reached over the right-field fence in Yankee Stadium to turn a potential out into a home run.

Malone is media savvy to the point that he became the most-quoted No. 2 man in baseball. He’ll do just fine on that front.

There’s no question he’s a good fit for the job. The only question is why someone would want this job.

Malone and his wife love Southern California and its weather, and general manager of the Dodgers is still one of the sexiest-sounding job titles in sports.

But this isn’t the best time to have it. In his 2 1/2 months as the interim general manager, Tom Lasorda shipped away a good chunk of the team’s younger talent to get the talent for a run at the playoffs.

His veterans have large contracts that will make them difficult to trade for prospects.

Second place won’t do for the fans and the organization.

Good luck.

One thing Malone shouldn’t have to worry about is Lasorda interfering with day-to-day activities. Lasorda, who’s about to turn 71, said he’s too old for this job.

Besides, he made enough trades this summer to last him a lifetime. Lasorda said he’ll be like the free continental breakfast at a hotel: It’s there, but you don’t have to take advantage of it.

And Fox Group exec Peter Chernin said there will be no recurrences of the Mike Piazza trade, after which Fred Claire, the executive vice president who served as general manager, claimed to have been left out of the loop.

“I have no desire to” be involved in personnel decisions, Chernin said. “Not only do I not have the desire, I don’t have the skills or the ability or the capacity to. It would be bad for me and it would be bad for the team.”

It’s a good thing the team was in San Diego on Friday, because that spared Glenn Hoffman the indignity of having to be around for the beginning of the end of his stint as Dodger manager.

Malone’s eyes lit up when he talked about his desire to bring in a bunch of his guys, although he said not to expect sweeping changes right away.

Malone said he plans to meet with Hoffman to “see where he’s at.” Actually, all he has to do is look at the standings to see that: third place. With a high-priced team. Which has all the makings of another of those things the Fox folks like to call “a transition.”

Lasorda didn’t make a nice pitch for Hoffman when he said, “There were only two or three ballgames that we went into the sixth and seventh inning without the opportunity to win the game. That’s an indication that we do have talent out on that field.”

And, apparently, an indication that Hoffman didn’t make the most of it.

And that’s why the Dodgers’ third general manager of the year will probably hire their third manager of the year.

Then maybe everything will settle down for a while.

The Dodgers gave Malone a four-year contract. Here’s hoping he’s around for all of it and then some.