CORPORATE REPORTS
Bob Daly didn’t need the job, but childhood memories are powerful and someone had to clean this mess.
The allure of righting the Dodgers’ teetering ship inspired the former Warner Bros. studio boss, a fan since he was 6, despite the aggravation accompanying the gig.
So the longtime Hollywood power broker accepted the challenge. Daly purchased part of the franchise from Fox, becoming managing partner, chairman and chief executive, and rolled up his sleeves.
Now comes the hard part.
The hands-on new boss is trying to restore trust in a once-admired organization that has slipped badly during two stormy years under Fox, alienating fans with poor play, unpopular trades, front-office purges and public-relations gaffes. Of course, the franchise had been going downhill since its World Series championship in 1988. The Dodgers are a punch line for industry jokes--unthinkable during most of the O’Malleys’ 50-year reign--and Daly is determined to stop the laughter.
Rupert Murdoch still pays the bills, and the baseball-operations staff was hired with Fox’s approval. Daly, 63, acknowledges he’s learning on the job, and a turnaround won’t occur overnight.
Not surprisingly, the public and industry are taking a wait-and-see approach, and that’s fine with Daly.
He created fantasy worlds in his movies but doesn’t live in one, saying the Dodgers must prove themselves again. And on the eve of Daly’s first season in control, he will monitor the situation closely.
“We have to build the confidence back, no question about it,” Daly said recently while visiting Dodgertown. “We have to restore confidence in everything, not only in winning ballgames, but making sure that we make decisions people can look at and say, ‘Well, those decisions make some sense.’
“At this point, the Dodgers are under a microscope every day. Whatever we do, I mean whatever we do, people have a view toward and an opinion about. What I hope is that a year from today we will have more credibility.”
It’s an uphill battle.
The Dodger image has been tarnished by sweeping, tumultuous change under Fox, which essentially became a silent partner when Daly took control in October.
That wasn’t a moment too soon for frustrated fans. Many have bemoaned Fox’s apparent disregard for the franchise’s rich history and expressed distrust about the corporate owners because of controversial moves--notably the Mike Piazza trade in May 1998.
Fox executive Chase Carey traded the former franchise player to the Florida Marlins--without the knowledge of team President Bob Graziano and then-general manager Fred Claire--after Piazza spurned Fox’s six-year, $79-million contract offer and criticized Dodger management. The club struggled after the trade and Fox fired Claire, manager Bill Russell and most of the coaching staff during the season.
Former manager Tom Lasorda became the interim general manager and there was chaos at Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers finished 83-79, missing the playoffs.
Of the five players the Dodgers received for Piazza and Todd Zeile, only all-star outfielder Gary Sheffield remains on the roster.
At the October news conference to introduce Daly, Peter Chernin, Murdoch’s top lieutenant, inexplicably claimed Claire traded Piazza, eroding whatever fan confidence remained in Fox. Carey and Chernin declined to be interviewed for this story.
The Piazza trade triggered Fox’s credibility free-fall, sparking a dizzying series of questionable decisions made in an attempt to mollify the public.
The Dodgers’ stunning $105-million commitment to pitcher Kevin Brown was, in part, linked to the desire to replace Piazza on the field and in the hearts of fans. That desire also contributed to the signing of right fielder Shawn Green for $84 million after Daly took over.
Daly, a Brooklyn native who has been hooked on the Dodgers since attending his first game at Ebbets Field in 1943, understands the negative effect of the Piazza trade on the club, fans and city.
“The fans haven’t gotten over it because of what Mike Piazza meant to the Dodgers,” Daly said. “I mean, I was a huge Mike Piazza fan. The guy is going to go the Hall of Fame, so how can you knock him?
“I don’t know what decision I would have made if I was running the Dodgers at the time, but I know I would have looked across the table from him and said, ‘Mike, if we can’t make a deal, I’m going to have to trade you.’ He wouldn’t have found out as a surprise, and I probably would have taken a more open approach to the whole thing. That thing got messed up and everyone knows about it, that’s just the fact that we’re left with, but it’s in the past and we’ve all got to move on.
“The Dodgers have to move to a new plateau, and the only way for that to happen is to get over the Mike Piazza decision. It’s spilled milk and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Feeling Blue
The new regime was supposed to spur success through change last season, but the results weren’t good for the Dodgers.
Fox hired Kevin Malone, formerly the Baltimore Oriole assistant general manager, to run baseball operations in September 1998. Then the Dodgers opened the checkbook, permitting Malone to spend freely to upgrade a roster weakened by the Piazza trade, cutbacks in scouting and development during the ‘90s and many poor amateur drafts under Claire.
Malone moved quickly to reshape the club, giving Brown a record-setting, industry-angering deal, signing center fielder Devon White, reliever Alan Mills and trading catcher Charles Johnson and outfielder Roger Cedeno for catcher Todd Hundley. He also gave pitcher Carlos Perez a three-year, $15.6-million contract.
The free-agent signings and Perez’s package totaled more than $140 million, pushing the Fox-subsidized payroll to $83 million.
Malone continued the front-office reshuffling, hiring many colleagues from his days with the Montreal Expos. Chernin and Carey were pleased, Dodger officials said, because they believed the club would turn a corner and close the door on Piazza.
Not quite.
The team finished 77-85 and in third place in the National League West. Although 18-game winner Brown met expectations, most of Malone’s other major moves were unsuccessful.
Hundley, acquired to provide left-handed power and handle the pitching staff, struggled while battling his painful throwing elbow. Hundley now acknowledges he was still recovering from ’97 reconstructive surgery.
White frustrated the Dodgers and angered fans with his seemingly laid-back approach, prompting questions about Malone’s decision to give White, 37, a three-year, $12.4-million contract.
Setup man Mills was inconsistent, and Perez went 2-10 with a 7.43 earned-run average before finishing at triple-A Albuquerque.
Perez was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol March 11 after police found him asleep behind the wheel of his car at an intersection near Dodgertown, but he has regained his spot in the starting rotation.
Pitchers regressed last season without Johnson, traded to the Orioles, whose guidance and defensive skills provided comfort. Cedeno flourished with the New York Mets, playing regularly for the first time in a supportive environment.
The Dave Mlicki trade followed the Hundley deal, considered the most lopsided of the previous off-season, stirring more doubt about Malone’s judgment. Malone traded right-hander Mlicki to the Detroit Tigers in a cost-cutting move.
Mlicki had a career year for Detroit and received a multiyear contract. Only one of the three minor league pitchers the Dodgers received from the Tigers is on the 40-man roster, and right-hander Robinson Checo, considered the best of the bunch, was taken off the roster after an abysmal audition last season.
‘The New Sheriff’
Many baseball officials interviewed for this story said Malone is overwhelmed. Malone disagrees, though he admits he made mistakes last season.
“The mistake I made was probably having a lot of confidence in individuals,” Malone said. “If you look at them [his big moves] one by one, then, yeah, there are some that didn’t pan out the way they could have. Some guys didn’t have the type of years that they consistently have had. Some guys didn’t perform the way they’re capable of performing, the way their track records and histories would indicate they would perform.
“But I don’t think anyone is ever 100% correct, and I’m not perfect. There was only one perfect person, in my opinion, who ever walked this earth and he was crucified. Everyone wants to focus on what went wrong, no one ever wants to look at what went right. For every move that was questioned there had to have been one or two that turned out exactly the way it should have. But no one wants to talk about that.”
Malone provided many other discussion topics for his detractors. He was harshly criticized within the game for his seemingly brash comments regarding the Dodgers’ supposed return to prominence under the current regime.
He offended his NL West counterparts with a flippant remark about being the “new sheriff in town,” and engaged in a still-ongoing public feud with San Diego General Manager Kevin Towers. The perception in baseball is that Malone became arrogant because of his high-profile position.
“It bothers me that some people think that,” Malone said. “But the people who know me know I became even more humble [after joining the Dodgers] because this was from the Lord. This isn’t about Kevin Malone. I know where I came from and I’ve been blessed.
“This is by the sovereignty and providence of God, there’s no other way to explain it. I know this is by the grace of God that I’m here, it’s not by Kevin Malone. I’ve worked hard, but this isn’t something I could control. So whoever would say that [he’s arrogant] doesn’t know me and doesn’t know what I’m all about. It was never about Kevin Malone. I never said anything about Kevin Malone, it was always about the Dodgers and the players. Never once did I say anything about myself . . . well, other than that Jim Rome thing.”
Malone made the regrettable “new sheriff in town” statement during an interview on Rome’s syndicated radio show shortly after being hired. He holds journalists responsible for the backlash from that comment and others.
“It’s the Jim Rome show, that’s the format,” said Malone, now more reserved with reporters. “[The uproar] bothered me quite a bit because the same people in the media, the people I’ve helped across this country and always returned their calls, always had been accessible to, basically turned against me last year. They took what they liked about me [his candor] and made it into something that wasn’t true, which I still don’t understand how anybody could do that. I don’t understand why that happened, because I didn’t do anything malicious. I was basically being the same person that everyone appreciated and respected and enjoyed wherever I had worked before.
“But I guess you can’t be that way being with the Dodgers. I guess I can’t be the fun guy, the passionate guy, the excitable and enthusiastic guy everyone liked before. I have to be very reserved, very closely guarded and play things close to the vest, that’s what I was taught last year. I was taught that you can’t have fun and people don’t want you to have fun. I’m still going to have my fun, but only with those people who I trust and have confidence in. But I can’t be that other guy [publicly] anymore because people [reporters] must not want that or they wouldn’t have burned me for it.”
Malone wasn’t Fox’s first choice. Carey and Chernin wanted Marlin President and General Manager Dave Dombrowski, who decided to remain in Florida.
With Fox’s backing, Graziano hired Malone, who had also served briefly as the Expo general manager. Graziano supports Malone.
“We all make mistakes,” said Graziano, fired by Fox and rehired by Daly in another recent bizarre Dodger episode.
“Kevin clearly understands that because we talked about a lot of the things he would have done differently if he had to do it all over again. But I continue to believe in Kevin because he’s got a very bright baseball mind. . . .
“We’ve brought people into the organization who can really help Kevin. Whether it’s from the community perspective or the marketing perspective or whatever. . . . As long as we support him in other areas, I think he will be fine.”
Derrick Hall is among those helping Malone. The club’s former publicity director, Hall was rehired as senior vice president, communications, after pursuing TV and radio opportunities last year.
Many within the organization believe Hall could have prevented at least some of the problems Malone created for himself last season.
“I was here when Kevin came on board and I know he feels comfortable with me,” Hall said. “Because of that relationship and the confidence he has in me, and vice versa, I can anticipate what’s expected of Kevin by the media and act as a sounding board to bounce things off of before [he speaks].”
Daly is playing the biggest supporting role. He has become actively involved in baseball decisions, negotiating major contracts and approving transactions, taking some of the pressure off Malone.
He rehired Graziano, Peter O’Malley’s trusted aide, to run the business-side operations so he could focus on baseball. Daly had the final meeting with Green’s agent, Jeff Moorad, before the club acquired the left-handed slugger and made him baseball’s second-highest paid player at the time, to Brown. And Malone was not involved in the recent Adrian Beltre contract negotiations with agent Scott Boras.
Daly also has encouraged Malone to be less sensitive.
“Every decision we make is not going to be perfect, but we shouldn’t be defensive about it,” Daly said. “When you have a bad season like we had last year, it’s not only that we lost more games than we won, it’s that we left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. Therefore, and I say this to Kevin all the time, we can say as many words as we want to say and they really don’t mean anything.
“What people look at is how we perform and how we conduct ourselves. . . . Not only do we have to perform better, but we also have to do it in the style that the Dodgers have performed and succeeded in the past.”
A Minor Problem
Few professional sports franchises are as steeped in tradition as the Dodgers, but many longtime members of the organization, especially in the minor leagues, have been fired or resigned during the past year.
The Dodger farm system wasn’t particularly strong during the last decade, and Malone said some of the former employees were “part of the problem.”
“Some of these guys were telling us what they were going to do, not what was best for the Dodgers and Dodger tradition but what was best for the individual,” Malone said in an angry tone.
“There are certain people who aren’t here any longer because they can talk all that Dodger tradition they want, but they were in it for themselves and they had their own agendas.”
After considering his comments, Malone stressed that Mike Scioscia isn’t among the former Dodgers he considered part of the problem.
Scioscia, who left the club after managing Albuquerque last season, is in his first season managing the Angels. The Dodgers’ all-time leader with 1,395 games at catcher, Scioscia had been a coach on Russell’s staff and was a rising managerial candidate.
He has declined comment about his reasons for leaving, but several team and industry sources said Scioscia was frustrated by the franchise’s direction and was eager to manage at the major league level.
“Mike Scioscia and I had a good relationship,” Malone said. “I’ve always been straight with him and I’ve always told him what I thought was best for him. Now, he might not say that about some other people, and I’m sure there were some things that were done that were done differently than Mike was used to seeing.”
Many longtime members of the organization are concerned about how players are being developed.
Some have described the Dodger farm system under Malone as militaristic. They speak of intimidation tactics by instructors while Malone speaks of introducing discipline in an area that needed change.
“We have some very tough instructors, but that toughness comes where toughness is needed,” he said. “And what’s wrong with discipline? That’s part of the problem not only in this game but in this country. There’s a lack of discipline--and we believe in discipline. We believe that discipline develops and molds character, develops skills, tools and abilities.
“We’re not out here to hurt, but we’re out here to challenge because it takes discipline and sacrifice to be a championship-caliber player.”
Daly has heard some of the complaints but says it’s too early to evaluate Malone and his player-development department. He believes changes needed to be made.
“The people who were doing the jobs before clearly might have been terrific and wonderful people, and I’m sure they were, but their results were less than what I would consider terrific, certainly in the last few years,” Daly said. “When you go back and ask people about the [poor] drafts the Dodgers had the last five years, let’s talk about what we’re talking about then. Looking at the results of the last five years or so, I’m looking at the fact that the cupboard was pretty bare, and that cupboard got bare by the people they were selecting.
“New people came in and maybe they have a different style, maybe they’re a little tougher in terms of routine and regimen, but there’s no indication they’re bad at selecting talent. Those people are the future of the Dodgers because we just can’t keep signing free agents.
“That doesn’t mean that some of those people didn’t come in and ruffle some feathers, I’m sure they did, but the organization needed a little of that. The truth is it wasn’t performing up to what it used to in a long time. But there were definitely so many rapid-fire changes that took place, and not to be critical of anyone, but I think there were too many of them.”
The feeling in baseball is that Daly will make more changes unless the team contends for the division title.
The Dodger payroll will be more than $90 million, after Daly approved the Green deal and gave multiyear contracts totaling $55.05 million to first baseman Eric Karros, second baseman Mark Grudzielanek and Beltre. The Dodgers haven’t been in postseason play since 1996, and their last playoff victory was in the ’88 World Series.
Daly said jobs are not on the line this season. The franchise, and its image, must be rebuilt for the long haul, and Daly takes the responsibility seriously.
“I look upon this job not only as a challenge but as an obligation,” Daly said. “I look upon it as an obligation not only to Dodger fans but also to the city of Los Angeles. I think I’ve got a good [management] team, I have a terrific relationship with Kevin and [Manager] Davey [Johnson], and I like Bob [Graziano] a lot. He went through a hell of a period of time here with everything he was handling, it’s amazing he can still stand up after all of that.
“The bottom line is that we’re all working together nicely. We’ve got a lot of things ahead of us that we have to do, and I’m optimistic that we can accomplish them. Maybe not in one year, but I think we’re on the right road.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
UNDER FOX
Seasons: 2
Record:
160-164 (.494)
Playoff appearances: 0
Best division finish:
3rd, 1998 and ’99
President: Bob Daly (first season)
General manager:
Kevin Malone (second season)
Manager:
Davey Johnson
(second season)
Payroll:
1999--$83 million
2000 (projected)-- $90 million