No Trace of Bitterness

In this spring of transition for the Dodgers, the manager has more to think about than his uncertain future.

The continuity and stability that the new owner talked about in awarding his new general manager a five-year contract hasn’t extended to Jim Tracy, but why worry about that when he is secure about the job he has done and will continue to do?

Why worry about that when there are priorities at hand, when the father who taught him how to handle situations like these is battling prostate cancer and not doing well?

“Unless God decides on a miracle ... ,” Tracy said in the privacy of his spring office, and there was no need to finish the thought, no way his emotions would permit it.

It is impossible, of course, to equate the possible loss of a parent to the tenuous nature of a managerial job, but there are hard realities at issue.

Tracy is signed only through 2004, meaning that other than probably lasting the exhibition slate there is no doubting at whose neck the ax will be aimed if the Dodgers struggle in the first half of the new season.

After all, despite the insistence of owner Frank McCourt and General Manager Paul DePodesta otherwise, it’s conceivable that Tracy might have been swept out in the transition if it hadn’t come so late in the baseball winter and so close to the start of spring training.

As it is, the manager’s status is another potential distraction confronting the Dodgers and their new regime.

At least, there’s this:

In spite of the circumstances, Tracy is getting an opportunity he deserves and is tackling it with admirable bravado and restraint.

He is insistent that he has no reason to apologize for his three years at the helm and confident his uncertain future will resolve itself if he and his players do the job of which they are capable.

He is also unwilling to “chuck spears” at ousted general manager Dan Evans for his failure to provide the type of run producer who might have helped the Dodgers reach the playoffs in 2002 and 2003, even though a person who knows him well said, “Jim definitely has some bitterness.”

Really? Who can blame him?

Evans’ paralysis -- attributable only in the last few weeks of his tenure to the ownership change -- undermined a $100-million-plus payroll and baseball-best pitching staff (last year, at least) while also creating consternation in the clubhouse and manager’s office.

If Tracy would seem justified in expressing his resentment, at both Evans and the uncertainty of his current situation while being 40 games over .500 in three years, his restraint reflects who he is at 48 and the way he was raised by parents now waging a battle of their own.

A long struggle with cancer is taking a toll on the 77-year-old father for whom the oldest of the three Tracy brothers is named.

Yet the senior Tracy has never said a word to the younger Jim Tracy, and that isn’t a surprise.

“He and my mom pretty much formed the foundation of who I am,” Tracy said. “Don’t complain, don’t point a finger, take any situation you’re handed and work at making it the best it can be.

“He has always been the optimist, always found that ray of hope in any situation, and he knows that I’ll work at this to make it the best it can be.

“He knows how passionate I am about it and knows how close we’ve had it to participating in [the playoffs] all three years I’ve managed even though, if you took a poll, most baseball people would say there was no way the Dodgers had a chance of reaching the playoffs in those years.”

Tracy has never been hesitant about expressing belief in himself or the job he has done.

If his players, at times, have privately felt shortchanged in the process ... well, he’s still going to put the facts on the table.

Which is what he did again in his spring office while pointing out how impressive his 86-76, 92-70 and 85-77 yearly finishes have been when measured against the first-year disruptions of Kevin Malone and Gary Sheffield, the second-year pitching injuries, and the hitting woes during each of the last two years.

“I’m not patting myself on the back or making excuses,” he said. “I just don’t feel I have reason to apologize, and I won’t.

“Have I managed every game perfectly? Of course not, but no manager ever has. I’d like to have one game back in particular.”

He referred to the Sept. 9 game at Arizona last year in which the Dodgers blew a 4-0 lead in the eighth inning as Tracy failed to call on Eric Gagne and allowed Paul Quantrill to give up the key hit to Steve Finley, a Quantrill nemesis.

Tracy said he had no reason to apologize after the game and, with his relative silence, left many of the players to think he was putting the blame on Quantrill.

A day later, after a veteran player went to him and said he risked losing the clubhouse if he didn’t take responsibility and didn’t acknowledge that he had every reason to apologize, Tracy called a meeting and did apologize.

“I made a mistake and let people know it,” he said in reflection. “We came back to sweep San Diego [after losing again the next night in Arizona] and I don’t think that one game cost us the pennant. We weren’t going to finish any higher than second in the division, it’s that simple.”

With an offense that ranked last in the major leagues in runs, the Dodgers ultimately finished 15 1/2 games behind the San Francisco Giants.

The Sept. 9 game may not have cost them the pennant, but it regenerated the issue of Tracy’s clubhouse control and raised the specter of disagreements, some of them heated, with Eric Karros, Mark Grudzielanek and Brian Jordan, among other departed veterans.

There was also a potentially volatile incident last year in which Tracy tried to lift Kevin Brown for a pinch-hitter only to have Brown hurl an expletive at him, grab a bat from the rack and calmly walk to the plate to hit.

“What was I going to do?” Tracy said, talking about it for the first time. “Tackle him on his way out of the dugout? I wasn’t going to make a scene in front of the whole world.

“The next day in San Francisco I called him in and we had one ugly argument, but it was done privately, which is the only way to handle an incident like that.

“Look, we’ve played [155] one-run games in the three years, so there’s been plenty of decisions and plenty of chances to second-guess, but I just don’t see where there’s any issue with control.

“We won 17 games in August and 14 in September last year. Generally, when a manager loses control his team loses interest, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“We finished off a pretty good season [despite the lack of run production].”

Now, of course, there are still questions about the offense, an unproven GM’s ability to pull the trade trigger in a largely depleted market and a new owner’s ability and willingness to fund a major acquisition, if one can be found.

At least, said Tracy, there’s a finality to the transition and a lot of time before the April 5 season opener to acquire help.

As for his own situation being a potential distraction?

“I’m not concerned in any way,” he said. “I’ve always found that those situations take care of themselves if you’re doing the job you should be doing.

“I think the industry perception of Jim Tracy is a good one. I think if something happened here I’d get a chance to manage again, but that’s not what I want.

“I want to manage the Dodgers and finish what we’ve started.”

There are no guarantees from DePodesta, although he and McCourt reached similar conclusions about retaining Tracy after talking to people in the industry.

“We kept hearing about his integrity, character and passion,” the general manager said, “and I think that comes through when you talk to him.

“With six or seven weeks until spring training, we have so many things more immediate. We assume he’ll be here. There are a lot of other things we don’t know and can’t assume.”

Tracy, too, is making no assumptions, which is why he brought his parents out for Thanksgiving and why he recently flew to Ohio for their 50th wedding anniversary.

Barring that miracle, who knows how many more chances father and son will have to talk about integrity, character and passion, making the most of any situation?