BASEBALL : Negotiating the Changes for 31 Years

BOSTON —  He has been a baseball executive for 31 years, which makes him a dinosaur in an era of corporate accountants and attorneys operating many organizations.

“If I had to do it over, the job being what it is now, I wouldn’t do it,” Lou Gorman, general manager of the Boston Red Sox, said in his Fenway Park office the other day.

“I think it’s become the toughest in sports. It used to be a job that called for the judgment of a baseball person. You could have a player in and negotiate one on one.

“Now it’s too multifaceted. There are too many complications. I dealt with 17 agents signing 33 or 34 players last winter. It seemed like it was all day every day.”

The Boston payroll has grown from $6.7 million to $34 million in Gorman’s seven years here. The signings of last winter alone pushed the club’s future guarantees to $70 million.

Roger Clemens got a five-year, $21-million extension. Free agents Jack Clark, Danny Darwin and Matt Young were signed for $26.9 million. Tom Brunansky was retained for two years at $5.15 million. Mike Greenwell was bought out of two years of free agency with a four-year, $12-million deal.

The demands of the job got even tougher when Gorman walked into a March meeting of general managers in Tampa, Fla., and was verbally assaulted for what was perceived to be an inflationary series of signings, as if the Red Sox were the only club in a market where one signing impacts every other.

“I got up and defended my position as best I could, but I wasn’t happy about it,” Gorman said. “What would they have done, let Clemens walk (as a free agent after the 1991 season) and get a high school draft choice for a franchise pitcher, a certain Hall of Famer? I’d have been hanged from the flagpole in center field and deservedly so.

“The bottom line is that the market is beyond reason. The players have all the leverage, and every signing impacts every other.

“We wanted to re-sign Mike Boddicker last winter, but then Bud Black signed with San Francisco and it blew us out of the water with Boddicker.”

Black got $10 million for three years from the Giants, prompting Boddicker to raise his price. He eventually got $9.25 million for three years from the Kansas City Royals.

“I went to our owners and said that unless we make some moves, unless we sign someone in kind, we’re a third- or fourth-place team,” Gorman said.

“Most of our minor-league talent looked to be a year or two away. It was a bridge year, a gap year. I told our people that if we did it this time, we wouldn’t have to do it again.”

The signings, Gorman believes, resulted in a team capable of beating the Toronto Blue Jays and repeating as American League East champion. The Red Sox had a record sale of season tickets and should break last year’s attendance record of 2.528 million playing in a park that seats 34,142.

Almost a religion throughout New England, the Red Sox will earn more than $20 million in local radio-TV income on top of their national share of about $16 million. Their gross revenue will exceed $70 million, nicely compensating for the winter shopping spree.

“We’re fortunate with our local TV package,” Gorman said. “But you know the industry is in trouble when you can set an attendance record and that alone doesn’t cover your payroll.

“The players deserve to be paid well, but the next step from $5 million a year for a Roger Clemens is $7 million or $8 million, and how many of those can a club afford?

“You can tell the player to get lost, but what if he’s a franchise player?”

And what do you tell some of your hypocritical colleagues if they ask, except to remind them that you weren’t the only one in the shopping line?

CLOSER LOOK

There’s still room for some old-fashioned judgment by an old-fashioned baseball man. Gorman bolstered the Red Sox pitching staff last year by signing Jeff Gray, Joe Hesketh, Greg Harris and Dennis Lamp, all released players and all still members of the Boston staff.

His free-agent foray of last winter, however, stirred debate as to potential dividends, with the jury still out:

--Young received a three-year, $6.4-million contract after going 8-18 with the Seattle Mariners and winning nine games in the previous three years. He is 2-1 with a 3.86 earned-run average, having failed to make it through the sixth inning in three of seven starts.

“Matt was a gamble,” Gorman said. “I talked with Wade Boggs and Mike Greenwell and they both said that when he keeps the ball low in the strike zone he’s unhittable. His arm is fine, it’s a matter of sharpening his control. I still feel he could be a sleeper.”

--Darwin, 7-2 in Fenway before going to the National League, was 22-8 in his last two years with the Houston Astros, leading the league in ERA last year at 2.21. He received a four-year, $11.8-million deal from the Red Sox at 35, but Gorman dismissed age as a concern, citing several seasons in which Darwin pitched 130 innings or fewer as a reliever. He is expected to rejoin the rotation this week after recovering from pneumonia.

“Our scouts said he was the best pitcher in the National League during the second half of last season,” Gorman said. “We spent more than we intended to because there were five or six other clubs bidding and we looked on him as a guy capable of 35 starts, 200 innings, a No. 2 or 3 pitcher behind Clemens and in front of Young.”

--Clark received a three-year, $8.7-million contract. He would seem to be a prototype power hitter for Fenway Park, but he is viewed by some as a potential cancer because of his tendency to say anything about anybody, and there are those who predict that an uppercut swing will become even more uppercut as he attempts to clear the fabled wall.

Clark went on the road Thursday with a .223 average in 104 at-bats, three home runs, a shocking 37 strikeouts and the boos of Fenway zealots ringing in his ears.

“We lost the playoff (to Oakland) last year primarily because we didn’t hit,” Gorman said. “I saw Jack as the perfect addition for the middle of the lineup and this park, and I still do. I think he’s been pressing, trying to do too much, but I still think he’ll hit 25 to 30 home runs.”

IRON MIKE

The latest is-he-or-isn’t-he-hurt commotion surrounding Mike Marshall underscores what Marshall already knows: His desire to be traded by the Red Sox won’t be satisfied because no club is going to take on the type of problem that the Dodgers, New York Mets and Red Sox have all experienced.

Marshall talked last fall about going to Japan, and is talking about it again.

“I’ll probably have to play there next year,” he said, having rejected the Boston offer of his release without pay. “Nobody’s going to want me the way my reputation is now. There would have to be some kind of major crash for a team to want to sign me. A plane would have to go down or something.”

RELIEF CALL

Seattle Manager Jim Lefebvre made one of his most important winter calls to Pittsburgh Pirate counterpart Jim Leyland, who had done a remarkable job of juggling a pitching staff depleted by injuries and devoid of a bullpen closer.

Nineteen Pittsburgh pitchers had at least one victory last year, a league record, and nine had at least one save, topped by Bill Landrum’s 13.

Lefebvre had operated without injured relief ace Mike Schooler over the final month of last season, knew Schooler might not be ready for the start of the 1991 season and figured that he, too, would use relief by committee in support of a young and highly regarded rotation.

Leyland supplied some pointers for what Lefebvre insists is “not really a revolutionary process,” and the concept has worked as well for the emerging Mariners as it did for the Pirates, who won a division title.

With Schooler expected to miss two or three more weeks, each of Lefebvre’s five relievers--left-handers Russ Swan, Bill Krueger and Rob Murphy and right-handers Mike Jackson and Bill Swift--have at least a victory or a save, and four have both.

“We tend to put labels on pitchers,” Lefebvre said. “You’re the middle guy, you’re the set-up man, you’re the closer. That’s fine if you have an Eckersley, Thigpen or Bryan Harvey to build around, but what I told our guys is be ready to pitch at any time.

“A set-up man one night might be the closer the next. It eliminates egos and helps keep them in the game. They aren’t looking for a specific situation or inning and thinking they won’t be used past that point. The key thing Leyland told me is not to use anyone more than two days in a row, and you shouldn’t have to when you use them all. They’re fresh this way.”

The committee has converted 10 of 11 save opportunities for a team viewed by some as 1991’s long shot special, a team that has ridden a roller coaster to its threatening position in the American League West.

Through Wednesday, the Mariners had lost six, won eight, lost five, won two, lost two, won five, lost one and won three.

“We’re looking for a little more consistency,” Lefebvre said, suggesting he’d like to take the seat belt off.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

* The Baltimore Orioles led the American League in home runs with 37 through Thursday but were only ninth in runs with a 3.9 per-game average. If that doesn’t jibe, consider that 25 of the last 26 homers were with the bases empty.

* Bolstered by the best start of Cal Ripken Jr.’s career, Baltimore’s offense has been diluted by the loss of Glenn Davis, who was put on the disabled list April 25 with an injured spinal nerve and is not expected to play again until after the All-Star break.

Said a frustrated Davis, banned from any kind of baseball activity: “At some point you ask yourself, ‘When is this going to heal?’ My legs feel great, my whole body feels great. It’s hard for me to accept I’m not working.”

* Tim Naehring, the touted shortstop for the Boston Red Sox, had his barber shave an H into the back of his scalp. It stands for hit, an attempt at mind over matter, but it hadn’t worked through Thursday, when the Red Sox went on the road with Naehring hitless in his last 39 at-bats and six for 55 this the season. It’s the deepest slump by a Red Sox player since Luis Aparacio went zero for 44 in 1971.

* The St. Louis Cardinals are off to a surprising start, but Jose Oquendo hasn’t been part of it. Oquendo, through 31 games, had three separate hitless streaks of 17 at-bats or more, prompting the Cardinals to back off possible trade talks involving Ozzie Smith. The struggling Oquendo would be Smith’s successor at shortstop.

* The Cleveland Indians moved the fences back at Municipal Stadium to take advantage of a gap-hitting lineup, but the Indians were 2-11 at home through Thursday, scoring two or fewer runs in nine of those games.

* Left-handers Zane Smith, John Smiley and Randy Tomlin are a combined 13-2 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose starters had given up four or more runs in only six of the first 33 games.

The Atlanta Braves’ signing of free agents Terry Pendleton, Sid Bream and Rafael Belliard seems to have stabilized an infield that made 98 errors last year. The new Braves infield made 10 in 30 games, projecting to 54 for the season. One result is increased confidence on the part of a maturing pitching staff. The team ERA through 30 games was 3.06, compared to 4.89 over the same period last year.

* Former Cal Poly Pomona pitcher Bret Lachemann, the son of Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, is being called Houdini by his teammates at Quad Cities, Iowa, the Angels’ Class A farm team. Lachemann gave up 17 hits and 17 walks in one recent stretch of 21 2/3 innings but escaped with only four earned runs. He’s 2-0 with a 1.66 ERA.

* The Chicago Cubs, through Thursday, did not have a complete game by a starting pitcher over a two-year span of 49 games.