Vaughn Longs to Return to the Red Sox

After dropping several hints over the last two years, Angel first baseman Mo Vaughn came right out and said it Tuesday: He would love to return to the Boston Red Sox, the team he left under a shroud of controversy after the 1998 season.

“I’m employed by the Anaheim Angels, but let’s just be straight; if I had an opportunity to come back to Boston, I would,” Vaughn said in an interview with WEEI radio in Boston. “The two parties have to make it happen, and the Red Sox organization has to show it wants to do it too. I can’t make them do that. There’s a lot of things being said, but everybody has to want to do it.”

Vaughn, who missed the 2001 season because of elbow surgery, signed a six-year, $80-million contract with the Angels before 1999 but has never felt comfortable in Anaheim.

He has said several times that he misses the intensity of the East Coast and the Fenway Park fans, and there has been much speculation about him being traded to the New York Yankees.

Asked if he has discussed a possible move with his agent, Vaughn, who grew up in Norwalk, Conn., and lives in Easton, Mass., said, “We certainly have. We’re far across the country, and hopefully [the Angels] won’t hear what I’m saying. But if they do, I would just tell them the facts. This is what is right for me in my life. I’m going to be 34, I only have five or six years left to play. [Boston] is where I would like to play.”

Vaughn’s statements--he actually called the radio station--were very troubling to the Angels, who are still trying to recover from Troy Percival’s late-season criticism of the front office, when the closer accused the team of violating confidential contract talks and said he has no desire to stay with the club beyond the 2002 season.

“Certainly, it’s a concern to the club when a player talks about wanting to play elsewhere,” Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman said.

“Obviously, we’ll be talking to Mo about this. Right now, my interest is in him staying on his rehabilitation program and coming to spring training in first-class physical shape.”

Stoneman would not speculate on the possibility of a trade, and he declined comment on troubled Red Sox center fielder Carl Everett, whom the Red Sox would love to dump.

But several baseball sources said the Angels have shopped Vaughn in the past and that they would love to accommodate his trade request.

The problem is, the Angels still owe Vaughn $50 million over the next three years, Vaughn was grossly out of shape when he last played in 2000, and he must prove in spring training he is fully recovered from surgery to repair a ruptured left biceps tendon before any team considers trading for him. The Angels are believed to be willing to assume at least $10 million of Vaughn’s contract in any deal.

Stoneman said he would “examine” the possibility of trading Vaughn, “but I can never say with certainty that I would or would not trade somebody,” he said. “These things are not done through the media.”

Vaughn, who won the American League most valuable player award after hitting .300 with 39 home runs and 126 runs batted in for the Red Sox in 1995, left Boston after years of public confrontations with General Manager Dan Duquette and CEO John Harrington, both still with the club.

But Vaughn seems willing to put that discord behind him.

“I made a tremendous number of mistakes with some of the things I said, some of the things I did,” Vaughn said. “But as you get older, you sit back and realize things about a situation. [Boston] was a tremendous place to play when you win.

“The current administration, that doesn’t bother me. You let bygones be bygones. It’s a great town, a real solid baseball situation. If it were to happen it would be something very, very positive to get back to.”

But for Vaughn to have any chance of being traded--and returning to Boston seems like a longshot at best--he needs to regain the stroke that made him one of the American League’s most feared hitters.

“The first thing is, I’ve got to look sexy,” said Vaughn, who did not appear to have lost an ounce off his 270-pound frame when seen in Fenway Park in late September. “I’ve got to go out there in spring training and get back into shape, show the baseball world I belong.”

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The Angels on Tuesday declined to renew the contract of Darrell Miller, who spent the last two seasons as the team’s director of player development and 22 years with the organization as a player, scout and front-office official. Miller will be replaced by Tony Reagins, a former marketing assistant who spent the last four years as the team’s baseball operations manager.