New Houston manager Terry Collins insists he isn’t a Jim Leyland clone but admits, “I learned a lot from him and will use it.” Leyland appears to be baseball’s newest power. Collins was Leyland’s bullpen coach at Pittsburgh and the second coach he has recommended for a managing assignment. Gene Lamont of the White Sox, recently honored as American League Manager of the Year, was the first.
As for Collins, he is 44 and a native of Midland, Mich. Before joining the Pirates, he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a minor-league manager for nine years, the last six in Triple A. Bob Watson, the Houston general manager who made the appointment, said he hadn’t met Collins before he interviewed him, “but this guy has a feel for baseball. When you talk to him you walk away and say, `Wow.’ “
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This will be the first time three 300-game winners will be on the same Hall of Fame ballot. Steve Carlton, who should be a cinch, and Don Sutton are first-year eligibles. Phil Niekro is the other 300-game winner. The ballots go out Dec. 2.
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Could be big trouble ahead on resolving the extra tier of playoffs, which is supposed to begin next season. The Players Association wants more than its traditional 60 percent of the profits from the first three games of a five-game series, or the first four in a seven-game set.
One National League administrator, familiar with the situation, says the players want their cut extended beyond the minimum number of games required for victory. I don’t blame the players getting while the getting is good; with the average major-league salary now at $1.1 million, it never has been better.
But the players, if they already don’t know, should be told why they only share in the games required for a sweep. Anything beyond makes them, and the owners, culpable to charges that they purposely prolonged the action to fatten the pot.
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“Never again,” said Cleveland owner Richard Jacobs after he signed free-agent bust Keith Hernandez before the 1990 season.
Time marches on. Within the last two weeks, the Indians have entertained three free-agent pitchers-Mark Portugal, Sid Fernandez and David Wells. Jim Hart, the Cleveland general manager, not only has had them to lunch but he has taken them on a tour of the new Cleveland ballpark. It’s 80 percent finished.
The park is beautiful, of course, but I don’t understand how it could help convince anyone it will be good for a pitcher; it’s only 325 feet down the lines. But Hart also tells them the Indians are a strong hitting team, which is true. Top hitters Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga and Kenny Lofton are locked into long-term contracts.
That the Indians have money to burn doesn’t surprise me. They had a home gate of 2,177,908 last season. Balance that against a $16.5 million player payroll and I see a profit in the neighborhood of $10 million-which shows you that some of the so-called small-market clubs shouldn’t be shouting poor-mouth.
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With the promotion of Doug Glanville and Ozzie Timmons to the 40-man winter roster, Jimmy Piersall now has sent 14 players to the big leagues in his nine years as the Cubs’ roving minor-league instructor. That reminds me it has been a seven-year famine for the White Sox. The last outfielder to advance through the Sox system was Kenny Williams in 1986, and they tried to convert him into a third baseman.
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George W. Bush, for the last five years the general partner of the Texas Rangers, has begun his Texas gubernatorial campaign and is looking very good in the early polls. Tom Schieffer, the Rangers’ president, has taken over most of Bush’s duties, and last week met with Will Clark, the first baseman-free agent. Clark isn’t likely to re-sign with the San Francisco Giants. They offered him a three-year deal for $15 million, peanuts in today’s baseball circus. That’s the kind of dough the owners use to feed the elephants.
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I don’t like to offer weekly bulletins on the search for the new commissioner, but here’s the latest. When the owners assemble in Florida in January, they are likely to ask Milwaukee’s Bud Selig if he would be willing to extend his term as interim czar for another year. Selig also would be paid at the established salary scale of $54,000 a month, which is what Fay Vincent was drawing before he was so rudely interrupted.