Garciaparra Already Enjoying Holiday Cheer

Home from Boston for the holidays, Nomar Garciaparra will join his family at their La Habra Heights Christmas tree Monday morning already having received two extraordinary gifts:

* The Red Sox’s $160-million acquisition of Manny Ramirez, arguably baseball’s most consistent run producer and likely No. 4 hitter behind Garciaparra, should prevent opponents from pitching around Garciaparra and allow the two-time American League batting champion to see consistently better offerings. It may even, as Ted Williams told Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette, “help Nomar hit .400.”

* In this golden era of all-around shortstops, the Texas Rangers’ $252-million signing of Alex Rodriguez certainly will influence the salary scale for Garciaparra and Derek Jeter, who along with Rodriguez form the big three at their position.

“When I first heard about it, I thought maybe Alex was going to be buying the team and paying his own salary,” Garciaparra said. “It was shocking.”

Shocking in terms of both the amount and, combined with other record-setting signings during the last few weeks, the implications for the industry. Management may be determined to change the system, leading to a lockout and the ninth work stoppage when the current labor agreement expires after the 2001 season.

“I’m concerned generally about where all of this is leading, and I think a lot of players are concerned,” Garciaparra said. “Then again, you take a step back and realize that [the owners] are obviously good business people who wouldn’t have achieved the success they have if they didn’t know what they were doing and wouldn’t be offering these contracts if they didn’t have the money.

“The whole labor issue is a complicated subject and a difficult one for the media to present both sides, but name any job in any profession and I don’t think you could find anyone who would turn down the money being offered in baseball. Should the players be blamed for taking it?”

The Rodriguez signing already has affected Jeter’s negotiations with the New York Yankees. Jeter is eligible for free agency after the 2001 season and will make George Steinbrenner pay for rejecting the opportunity to sign his prized shortstop to a multiyear contract last winter, when the owner was reluctant to be the one who set a new salary standard. Now, reportedly, Jeter already has dismissed a multiyear offer averaging $20 million a year.

Garciaparra, a four-year veteran at 27, followed his rookie-of-the-year season in 1997 by accepting the security of a multiyear contract that will pay him $44.450 million if the Red Sox, as expected, pick up the suddenly undervalued options in 2003 and 2004. He might be justified in arguing that the salary landscape has shifted dramatically and that the $10.5-million and $11.5-million option years--if nothing else--should be renegotiated, but Garciaparra refused to draw any comparisons to Rodriguez or any other player.

“I think it’s difficult to compare statistics because, from year to year, every team and every situation is different,” he said. “A player has to be judged on his importance to his own team. Alex is a tremendous player, but there are other tremendous players. I don’t think there’s only one great player.”

There is no minimizing Garciaparra’s importance to the Red Sox.

Despite the loss of good friend Mo Vaughn as the lineup enforcer behind him, Garciaparra batted .357 in 1999 and .372 this year, becoming the first right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio, in 1939 and ‘40, to win consecutive AL batting titles. The .372, achieved despite a league-leading 20 intentional walks, was the highest AL average since George Brett hit .390 in 1980 and the highest by a right-hander since DiMaggio’s .381 in ’39.

Should Garciaparra prevail again in 2001, he would become only the fourth AL player--Wade Boggs, Rod Carew and Ty Cobb are the others--to win three or more consecutive titles. Four National League players did it: Tony Gwynn, Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby and Honus Wagner.

That’s illustrious company, and Williams, a Garciaparra fan from the start, clearly believes, as he told Duquette, that with Ramirez’s protection, the shortstop can become the first major leaguer since Williams himself to hit .400. Williams batted .406 in 1941.

Garciaparra laughed at the prediction, even though he and Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies both threatened .400 last year while also continuing to distinguish themselves as run producers. Neither is a slap hitter thinking only of average.

“Anything can happen,” Garciaparra said. “You had two guys make a run last year, but there are so many intangibles, so many factors involved, that to consider it a goal or a possibility is foolish. I love Ted and I talk to him a lot, but I don’t think of what the addition of Ramirez may mean to me as much as what he means to our success as a team.

“People forget that we added Dante Bichette in the second half of last season and that made a difference as well. Now we have four pretty tough hitters [Garciaparra, Ramirez, Carl Everett and Bichette] in the middle of the lineup, and we’re solid, one through nine. We’ve got John Valentin and Jose Offerman coming back from injuries at the top of the lineup and people like Jason Varitek, Brian Daubach and maybe Troy O’Leary at the bottom. Jimy [Williams, the manager] has a lot of options now when guys get into a funk.”

Whether the Red Sox have enough pitching is another matter.

Whether Ramirez can handle Fenway Park’s spacious and tricky right field also could be a concern. So could clubhouse chemistry, now that the often volatile relationship between Williams and Everett--the manager recently traveled to Houston for a one-on-one attempt at detente--has been joined by Ramirez, who also is viewed as being in his own zone at times, surrounded by old pals from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York.

Under the new scheduling format, the Red Sox play the hated Yankees seven times in April and 19 times overall, but Garciaparra said his team has to focus on overall consistency. Vaughn, he said, taught him that a lineup is like a team within a team, and that it takes time to learn how the approach of one player affects those batting around him. Ramirez’s presence, for example, should mean fewer walks for Garciaparra.

“You see the Yankees add a Mike Mussina and other clubs make other moves, and then we sign Manny, and it’s like you say to yourself, ‘Hey, we’re going to be OK. We’re going to have a good team,’ ” Garciaparra said. “It’s exciting. It’s a motivation to get on with your workouts, your preparation for spring. I want to win a World Series and I’d trade a batting title for a ring any time, especially playing in Boston. If we won a World Series, people there wouldn’t care if I hit a buck fifty.”

The former Georgia Tech and Bellflower St. John Bosco High star makes his full-time home in Boston now. His holiday return to La Habra has been akin to visiting a hospital emergency room.

Ramon and Sylvia Garciaparra’s children are among this area’s most athletically gifted. However, they have encountered a recent siege of misfortune.

Michael, 17, a three-sport standout as a senior at Rosemead Don Bosco Tech, a member of the Olympic developmental soccer team and, in Nomar’s view, a more polished shortstop than he was at that age, tore a knee ligament in a recent football playoff game and will be sidelined six months, which has not slowed college recruitment and should not affect his selection in the June baseball draft.

Monique, 18, a soccer standout at Cypress College, recently broke a leg and will be sidelined two months. Her sister, Yvette, 14, a member of the Fullerton Troy High soccer team and a club-level standout, has been sidelined by leg weakness still being diagnosed.

“It’s been crazy,” Nomar said of his siblings’ setbacks--himself sound of body, mind and certainly spirit since Boston’s signing of Manny Ramirez.

NOTEBOOK

* Money played into the Dodgers’ reluctance to reacquire catcher Charles Johnson, but the key factor is that it would have been an admission by General Manager Kevin Malone that he had made a serious mistake trading him for Todd Hundley. The Dodgers also gave up Roger Cedeno in that deal, but they at least got back pitcher Arnold Gooch.

* The San Diego Padres, slashing their payroll to about $37 million, still could not bring themselves to give up on the potential of center fielder Ruben Rivera.

It had been thought that the Padres would not offer Rivera a contract by Wednesday’s tender deadline. Instead, they gave him a $300,000 raise to $1 million, despite his .208 average of last season and combined two-year average of .201 with 280 strikeouts in 834 at-bats.

Rivera did hit 17 homers last season, more than the combined total of San Diego’s four other probable outfielders-- Bubba Trammell, Eric Owens, Mike Darr and Gwynn.

* The problem that comparatively small-payroll teams have in controlling their payroll and retaining their players was illustrated by the Chicago White Sox’s signing of outfielder Magglio Ordonez on Thursday. Ordonez made $425,000 in 2000 but was jumped to $3.75 million in his first year of arbitration eligibility. Ordonez, however, is a budding superstar who had 126 runs batted in last season and has more RBIs in his first three years than Ramirez had.