Playboy's 1990 Baseball Preview

In the mortal words of Billy Martin, "If there's such a thing as a good loser, the game's crooked."

Nineteen eighty-nine was the year of good losers. Dodger raviolo Tommy Lasorda lost half a dozen chins and 14 games in the standings and became more famous as a diet shill than he was when his team won. Uncle Fester look-alike Don Zimmer lost 30 pounds and the National League pennant by swearing off the hook as well as the fork--only a man reeling from hunger would have let Greg Maddux pitch to Will Clark. Zimmer's Cubs, the most expert losers of all, starved for the 81st year in a row. Clark and Carney Lansford lost batting titles like real men, taking their cuts on the season's final day, then tipping their caps to the victors. The city of Oakland lost its balance during the Jerry Lee Lewis World Series--a whole lotta shakin', followed by great balls of fire--then rebounded with grace under pressure. Oakland's team lost its superman for three months and still ruled the series, whereupon Roger Craig, in the agony of desweep, praised his Giants' slayers. Wade lost Margo and still got his 200 hits.

And Billy was right. After a season so full of good losers, baseball proved itself crooked. Not in the way the bilious Martin, who lost his life in a pickup truck last Christmas, had envisioned. Not because wienies now profane the game by trading high fives instead of punches. But still crooked. There's something foully skewed about a game that leads its lovers on and then plays hard to get.

The game was never hotter. Major-league baseball sets a new attendance record every summer. Even the minors, bless 'em (they play every April even if the big leagues don't), draw 23,000,000 fans a year. TV rewards baseball with a 1.46-billion-dollar jackpot--enough dollars to circle the globe five times--and what happens? The game turns around and jilts Joe Fan. The players threaten a walkout. The owners--a privileged caste featuring a cowboy tycoon, a Kennebunkport oil-man's son, a burger queen, a pizza baron, a shipbuilding felon and assorted liquor salesmen--plan a lockout. In January, word went out to 24 towns in Florida and Arizona--don't hold your breath waiting for spring training.

There's a long-term solution to the mess. Kids call it halfsies. The owners have offered the players' union 48 percent of selected revenues. If they bump the ante a little and compromise on the meaning of "selected," the players will play ball. Management has no other choice. After cheating the players in the collusion debacles of 1985 and 1986--then throwing zillions at free-agent stars in last winter's suddenly free market--owners couldn't claim to be the poverty-stricken good guys in this year's labor battle. They'll cave in sooner or later. If it's sooner, new commissioner Fay Vincent, the ex-chief of Columbia Pictures, won't have to open his reign with an empty marquee, and the fans won't spend the cruelest month asking directions to Hagerstown, Waterloo and San Jose.

There will be big-league ball this year. Spring may leave a bad taste in the fans' mouths--the taste of a four-dollar beer--but this, too, will pass. By summer, the course of Ball '90 will be as delectably crooked as every season since 1871--when the young Pete Rose got Cap Anson's autograph and charged Anson only a dollar.

Nineteen eighty-nine began with a standing ovation for Rose. The scene: Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, right next to Pete Rose Way. Rose's Reds beat the defending-champ Dodgers that day in a game that was supposed to presage a tight Reds-Dodgers pennant race (they would finish a combined 31 games out of first). And when Pete lightly doffed his hat, responding to the cheers, each fan on hand could safely bet the game was getting weird. Two days later, Orel Hershiser took his 59-inning shutout streak, a remnant of the Dodgers' championship season, to the mound at Riverfront. Five minutes after that, the streak was shot, and the season stopped making sense.

A year ago, Kevin Mitchell and Mickey Tettleton were supporting players. In 1989, the Giants' left fielder and the Orioles' catcher took center stage. Coming off seasons in which they'd hit 19 and 11 home runs, respectively, they homered compulsively, slugging 47 and 26. Mitchell's secret? When the chill winds at Candlestick Park gave him the sniffles, he ate Vick's VapoRub. Tettleton stoked up on box after box of Froot Loops. Mets farm hand Julio Machado fueled his fastball by munching lizards.

Mitchell, hitting with the top of his jersey unbuttoned to make room for his huge VapoPecs, led the Giants to a pennant. Tettleton, hurt in the second half, still might have done the same for the O's had he picked a more fitting cereal, Cheerios. The Mets lost out to the lizard-less Cubs in the N.L. East, perhaps because they brought "Iguana Man" Machado to the majors too late. Judging by 1989, baseball is mostly diet.

The picture of the year was Mitchell, his back to the plate, reaching up to snag an Ozzie Smith drive with his bare hand. "He should have just ripped the cover off the ball with his teeth," said a teammate. And eaten it.

Dodgers manager Lasorda, the diet pitchman who now looks less like a bowling pin, is hungry. Ditto his Dodgers. They have the best pitching in the game. Last season, they led the big leagues in preventing runs but trailed in scoring. This time, Lasorda has a beefed-up attack that will feast on N.L. West fastballs. The Dodgers are going to score 75 to 100 more runs, win 25 more games and hold off the Padres, the Giants and the Reds in the West.

Dave Johnson, yet another slimmed-down skipper, needs a doctor. Luckily for him, he has one of the best. Johnson will be fired if he doesn't win this year, but with Doc Gooden, Frank Viola, Sid Fernandez and John Franco, Johnson's Mets are heavily armed. Last season, they lost Gooden early. Nominal superstar Darryl Strawberry hit .225 and stranded too many base runners in the second half as the Mets bitched their way to second place. Lumbering left fielder Kevin "Mac the Butter Knife" McReynolds blamed the media. Supermodel Ron Darling blamed the fans. "We've spoiled them," he said of the Mets' faithful, who must have a low spoilage threshold. The Mets have won one World Series and two division titles in the past ten years.

This is the year they live up to their self-image. Second baseman Gregg Jefferies, a two-time minor-league player of the year and 1989 rookie dud of the year, will shine as a soph. Viola will be the second man to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues. Strawberry, after a pre-season stint in an alcohol-rehab clinic, is ready to be the youngest, most talented Comeback Player of the Year ever. The Straw, no longer stirring drinks, will stop trying to hit 62 homers and settle for 40. (Is Darryl concerned about his stats? Does he press a little when his home-run count approaches a nice round number? Here are his homer totals for the past three years: 39, 39, 29.) The Mets will win the East and make shortcake of L.A. in the play-offs.

In the American League East, the Blue Jays should fend off the bruised Brewers and rebuilt Red Sox. Ninety wins ought to be enough to crown the champs of the game's crummiest division, and the Jays have the right mix of veterans and tykes to win 95, plus a manager, stoic Cito Gaston, with sense enough to get out of the way and let them play. The Jays would not have won last year under the flappable Jimy Williams; they were 12--24 when Gaston took over for Williams in May. Under Gaston, they played .611 ball, same as the A's. Toronto's new SkyDome--a fern bar with Plexigrass--is an awful place for a ball game. Fenway Park or County Stadium would be a better setting for a late date with the A's. But the Jays have more pitching than the Bosox or the Brewers, and pitching wins pennants.

In Oakland, pitching and Rickey Henderson win pennants. Last July second, Henderson led off a game with a home run for the 37th time. He has hit more lead-off homers than any other player. On July 29, newly reacquired by the A's, he stole five bases and scored four runs. Nothing special for Henderson, except that he did it without an at-bat; he cadged four walks. When he went to Oakland, the A's were clinging to a slim lead on the Royals and the Angels. They won by seven. Without him, there would have been three teams shaken up by the quake: the Giants, the A.L. champ Royals and, watching at home, the A's. Henderson is better than Ty Cobb ever was; he's the finest player in the game. With him, a healthy Jose Canseco, Carney Lansford (who lost the batting title to Kirby Puckett by two hits), bashers Mark McGwire and Dave Henderson, shortstop Walt Weiss and a pitching staff second only to the Dodgers', Oakland will three-peat as A.L. kings.

Maybe. The crooked thing about baseball is that the best team loses almost as often as it wins. The Mets were the best team in the N.L. East last year and look what happened to them. They lost to the Cubs, a team that hasn't won it all since Roosevelt was President--Teddy Roosevelt. The bullet-shaped, hamsterish Chicago manager put it perfectly: In baseball, said Zimmer in his best Stengelese, "sometimes there's always a surprise."

Like Tommy Hardgrove hitting a 414-foot line drive through a basketball hoop. Local businessmen had hung the hoop from the center-field fence at O'Brien Field in Elizabethton, Tennessee, 16 years ago. Nobody came close till last August, when Hardgrove hit the shot heard round the rim. After the fans settled down, the Appalachian League's home-run king got a $1000 reward and a bit of bad news. Since his 10,000,000-to-one shot had not left the park, it was ruled a double.

Rangers knuckle baller Charlie Hough got five surprises in a midseason start against Cleveland. He allowed just six hits in seven and two thirds innings. Too bad for Hough that five of the hits were homers. The Indians scored seven times in the game but never had a runner in scoring position.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Pitchers II--Die Harder: In August, the Astros' Jim Clancy got blasted without really pitching. Clancy failed to retire a single batter in a start against the Reds and had this to think about on his way to the showers: zero innings pitched, six hits, seven runs and an infinite earned-run average. His replacement, Bob Forsch, took the ball and promptly surrendered nine hits in a row. Then Forsch found his groove and held the Reds to ten more runs.

Milwaukee's Robin Yount (.318, 21 homers, 103 R.B.I.s) won the American League M.V.P. award over the Rangers' Ruben Sierra (.306, 29 homers, 119 R.B.I.s), illustrating an unwritten rule of the Baseball Writers' Association of America: When it's close, give it to the white guy. Two years ago, Anglo-American Kirk Gibson (.290, 25 homers, 76 R.B.I.s) beat out African-American Strawberry (.269, 39 homers, 101 R.B.I.s) for the N.L. M.V.P.

Dirty stuff: Yankees outfielder Luis Polonia got caught with his pants down in Minnesota. Convicted of illicit sex with a 15-year-old girl, Polonia said, "Anybody can make the mistake I made," as though he'd overrun third base. Which, in a way, he had. Boston batsman Wade Boggs had swingus interruptus with Margo Adams, an ex-shoplifter who eventually lifted his wallet. Former Dodger and Padre Steve Garvey, who once specialized in grounding into double plays, doubled up in a new way. As the dreaded Impregnator, Garvey stalked women Schwarzenegger style until they either married him or bore his seed, or both. And some joker scrawled Fuck Face on the handle of Orioles second sacker Billy Ripken's bat before he posed for his baseball card. The card triggered a run on "Fuck Face" futures and wound up selling for $250.

The California Angels handcuffed their ace, Bert Blyleven, to a post in the dugout.

"Kinky," said Blyleven.

Ballplayers actually began to say "Bleep" in interviews, censoring themselves. The Orwellian (Jesse Helmsish?) nonword even tainted the World Series, where Canseco used it repeatedly. "Bleep bleep bleep bleep," he said in a fit of eloquence. What Canseco does, other players copy. It was a bleeping bad moment for fans of the game's four most respected words, two of which are combinations of the other two.

You want kinky? On the night he betrayed every kid who ever slid head first--the night he was banned from the game--Pete Rose hawked $40 baseballs on the Cable Value Network.

It was a shaky fall for Giants hurler Don Robinson. He was 11--8 going into September, then limped home 1--3 on a dead knee. Robinson, called Caveman for his 240-pound frame and Cro-Magnon looks, gutted out the pennant drive on cortisone shots and a knee brace that made his right leg look like a grain silo. He was in the bull pen at Candlestick, warming up for his first World Series appearance, when the earth moved. The Sony-made scoreboard blinked, then displayed a series of Japanese characters. Was the message We Will Bury You? Was it We Will Buy You? Robinson didn't wait for a translation. He hustled to his cave and iced his knee. Eleven days later, on October 28, he made his series debut. Rickey Henderson hit his third pitch of the night over the hurricane fence in left. The A's finally brought some sense to 1989, beating the Caveman 9--6 to sweep the series. After the longest season ever, the best team won.

Oakland is still the best team. That's why I'm picking the Mets. The best team wins the series twice in a row about as often as the series features a quake delay. I think the A's will wear themselves out wearing down the Royals and the Angels in the game's best division. Oakland will rebeat the Jays in the A.L. play-offs, then lose to Doc, Darryl, Frank and Franco in another crooked classic.

It might go like this.

Late in the season, Oakland phenom Felix Jose goes 0--4, distracted by A's fans either yelling his name or mourning Canseco (jailed at Alcatraz for doing 180 in his Lamborghini in a school zone--inside the school). The Royals keep pace in Baltimore as Bo Jackson steals home in the 12th, knocking O's backstop Tettleton into the upper deck. "What is this, diddley?" says Bo, brushing Froot Loops off his shoulder.

The Jays, leading Milwaukee in the East by ten, win their tenth straight on a Junior Felix grand slam. Cleveland and Detroit secede from the East and go looking for teams they can beat. Russians, maybe. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner overrules his cronies. He gives manager Bucky Dent a new title, Special Advisor in Charge of Deli Sandwiches, and brings Billy Martin back to run the team. "The team looks dead," says Steinbrenner. "I say it's time to put the fear of God in these million-dollar crybabies." He hires a trance channeler who relays Martin's signals via the clubhouse TV--a SportsChanneler. The new manager's first directive: "Steal, you bleeps."

Canseco escapes and returns in time to make the 40-40-44 club. He hits 40 home runs, steals 40 bases and carries a .44 Magnum onto the field. Oakland wins the A.L. championship series when he shoots his way out of a rundown between home and third. "Made their day, didn't we?" he says, trading bashes with McGwire. In the N.L. play-offs, Strawberry hits a pennant-winning 500-footer off Dodger reliever Jay Howell. Lasorda, down to 110 pounds after a grueling seven games, goes on a linguine bender that doubles his weight in a week.

New York wins the first three games of the Redeye Classic on shutouts by Gooden, Viola and Fernandez. Oakland takes the next three as manager Tony LaRussa goes to a one-man rotation ("All Stewart, all the time"). In game seven, Dave Stewart duels Gooden, Darling, Franco and Iguana Man Machado into the 15th. Pitching left-handed since the ninth, when his right arm fell off, Stewart walks pinch hitter Tim Teufel. He goes 3--2 on Machado, batting for himself because Johnson is out of hitters. Machado shuts his eyes and slaps a one-hopper past Lansford into the left-field corner. Weiss's relay to the plate is inches off line and Teufel slides around the tag.

In the locker room, Machado sprays reporters with champagne. "I see the ball good, I feel good and I hit the bleep out of it," says the winning pitcher and series M.V.P. "Hey, any of you guys got a lizard?"

The Blue Jays fussed and feuded for three years under jittery Jimy Williams, then replaced him with Clark Kent. The mild-mannered Kent ducked into one of the SkyDome's luxury phone booths and became Cito Gaston, supermanager. The Jays went 77--49 for Gaston and won the East on the season's final weekend. This year, they should be in full flight by August, as the rest of the division self-destructs. If healthy, Toronto is the only East team with any resemblance to the dominant clubs in the West. The Jays have the best offense in the East; they trailed Boston in batting average in 1989 but clubbed 34 more homers and swiped 88 more bases. Mookie Wilson, who sparked them through last season's pennant drive after coming over from the Mets, will be on board from the start in 1990. The only ballplayer def enough to get a Spike Lee character named after him (Do the Right Thing might have flopped Mets style with a hero named, say, Howard), Mookie spurs a line-up that features strong men George Bell, Fred McGriff and Kelly Gruber, plus Velcro-gloved shortstop Tony Fernandez and star child Junior Felix. The speedy Felix had an inside-the-park grand slam last year. Rookies Glenallen Hill and John Olerud will push for playing time. Dave Stieb, whose slider corners like a Maserati, leads the finest mound corps in the East. The Jays are ten games better than the Brewers and the Bosox, 15 better than the Orioles and the Yanks and 20 better than the Indians; their wives are better than the Tigers. Cito's men by ten.

If healthy. Starters Jimmy Key and Al Leiter spent the winter with their arms on ice. Gruber has a bad right hand; he can't sign an autograph without wincing. If the Jays stay out of the hospital for once, Toronto may be spared another play-off loss to the Bashers from the Bay.

Milwaukee's bruise crew lost its pit bull, second baseman Jim Gantner, when Yankee scrub Marcus Lawton clipped Dog with a dirty slide last August. Gantner was out for the season and may never be the same. Ditto the Brewers, who finished a butterfingered and boring 81--81. Their defense would have embarrassed some softball teams. Starter Teddy Higuera struggled with a bad back and got no help from an infield that made 96 errors. The attack, starring Robin Yount, third baseman Paul Molitor, septuagenarian D.H. Dave Parker and rookie outfielder Greg Vaughn, will be potent enough. High-strung shortstop Gary Sheffield, Dwight Gooden's nephew, may live up to his bloodlines with help from ex-slugger/future manager Don Baylor, whom the Brewers hired to serve as Sheffield's role model. But the suddenly lite Brews need premium performance by Yount, Molitor, Parker, Sheffield, starter Chris Bosio and closer Dan Plesac to stay in the race.

Nick Esasky took his 30 home runs to Atlanta. The Red Sox think they can replace him with Carlos Quintana, who hit 11 at Pawtucket. Seventy times last year, the Sox were behind after eight innings; they came back to win zero times. They thought they'd re-signed long reliever Mike Smithson. But no! A front-office oversight invalidated his contract and Smithson went to the Angels. Future Cooperstowners Roger Clemens and Jeff Reardon cement a passable pitching staff, but catcher Tony Pena--drooling at the Green Monster after three years of trying to hit the ball out of the St. Louis airport--will spend 1990 overswinging at A.L. breaking stuff. Rookie Mickey Pina will help in the outfield, but this doomed franchise is epitomized by pitcher John Dopson. Never heard of Dopson? He led the majors with an astounding 15 balks, seven more than his closest competitor.

Two years ago, they spent every single day of the season in last place. Last season, they hung tough until their Rookie of the Year, Gregg Olson, bounced an eighth-inning curve on the final weekend. It could have happened only in baseball's weakest division, but give the Orioles credit. They pulled off the turnaround of the decade with defense, young pitching and mirrors. The best-fielding team in big-league history, they made just 87 errors, fewer than the Brewers' infield. With Olson, Bob Milacki and Pete Harnisch, plus the commanding arm of rookie Ben McDonald, they have the pitching staff of the Nineties--the late Nineties. This year, the mirrors will crack. A club that gains 33 games in one season is bound to give some of them back. Juan Bell, kid brother of Toronto's George Bell, is a natural shortstop who won't play that position in the majors until Cal Ripken, Jr., takes a rest. That may take a while; Ripken, Jr., has played 1250 games in a row. Bell will unseat his kid brother, obscene-baseball-card star Billy Ripken, at second.

Don't you feel sorry for George Steinbrenner? Me either. Squatting on his overstuffed duff in the owner's box at Yankee Stadium, he insists that this is the year he'll turn the Yankees around. He tops other teams' offers for primo free agents--$3,500,000 more for Mark Davis than Davis got from the Royals--and burns when they take less to play for human beings. Burn on, George. You deserve these candy stripers. The Bronx bomb shelter hasn't seen a full-season pennant since 1978, because the owner, like a kid collecting cards, thinks ball clubs are built with three or four stars and 20 or 21 interchangeable parts. He has the stars in hitters Don Mattingly and Steve Sax and pitcher Dave Righetti. The rest is confusion. After dealing off quick young arms for a decade, Steinbrenner suddenly realized that Andy Hawkins was no Whitey Ford. He sent Rickey Henderson, the best player in the game, to Oakland for hurlers Greg Cadaret and Eric Plunk and sex offender Luis Polonia. Spurned by free agents Davis and Mark Langston, he signed flying squirrel Pascual Perez (9--13 in 1989) and got Tim Leary (8--14) for minor-league batting champ Hal Morris. Mattingly, Sax and Righetti deserve better, but you know what they say about pearls and porkers.

"It's a weird game," said catcher Sandy Alomar, Jr., two-time triple-A M.V.P. In the 1988 and 1989 seasons, he hit over .300 with 172 R.B.I.s for the Las Vegas Stars and was rewarded with 20 big-league at-bats. All-star Benito Santiago blocked his path to the plate in San Diego, so he asked to be traded. Alomar wanted to play in the majors. He got his wish--in weird, monkey's-paw fashion. He's with the Indians.

With Alomar and rookie outfielders Joey Belle and Beau Allred, Cleveland has a decent nucleus to go with its strong starting pitching. Greg Swindell, Bud Black and Tom Candiotti totaled 38 wins last season; bull-pen stopper Doug Jones saved 32. But by the time the young hitters are ready to help, the rest of the team will be old. How did the Indians respond to the graying of the Tribe? They signed Keith Hernandez and Tom Brookens, both 36. The Tribe has also picked up a whole outfield of failed National Leaguers--Chris James, Mitch Webster and Candy Maldonado--to stand in the way of Belle and Allred. Weird.

Asked in December if he were looking forward to 1990, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson nodded sagely. The man does everything sagely, including pulling your leg. "Sure am," he said, pausing for effect. "Not necessarily to the season, though." Anderson's team is a toothless bunch. Last year, supposed slugger Alan Trammell hit five home runs in 449 at-bats. Jack Morris, who won more games in the Eighties than any other pitcher, won six. And while former Tiger Howard Johnson hit 36 homers and stole 41 bases for the Mets to rejoin the 30--30 club, Detroit has only one member of the seven--seven club. Is the manager dreading the West Coast road trips? "I'd like to bypass California and Oakland," he said, "and just slip up there to Seattle."

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Are the Athletics tough enough? The only pennant winners to repeat since 1978, the only series sweepers since 1976, they ruled the game in what should have been a down year. Jose Canseco went down for three months. Closer Dennis Eckersley, starter Bob Welch, shortstop Walt Weiss and corner men Carney Lansford and Mark McGwire all spent time on the D.L. In mid-June, the A's were one game ahead of the Angels. Then came Rickey. He hit "just" .294 for Oakland during the regular season but left cleat marks all over October. His post-season stats: a .441 batting average, three homers, eight R.B.I.s in nine games, 11 steals. Henderson stole so wildly in the play-offs he might as well have had Jays catcher Ernie Whitt's scalp in his pocket. He led the league in runs, walks and steals. This year, he will break Lou Brock's all-time stolen-base record. Manager Tony LaRussa, who saw Canseco's famous 40--40 season up close, calls Henderson baseball's most dangerous player.

And that's just the lead-off man. Canseco, whose million-foot blast in game four of the play-offs left a dent in the Sky-Dome's roof, won't miss the first three months this year. He played just 65 games last year but plated 57 runs, a pace that projects to 142 R.B.I.s over 162 games. Lansford (.336), McGwire (33 dings), steady shortstop Weiss, rock-solid Dave Henderson and D.H. Ken Phelps complete the attack.

And that's just the offense. Dave Stewart may have Snow White's voice, but his fork-ball is a wicked witch. His past may be marred by a stint as Steve Howe's bodyguard (he used to block the fans' view while coke fiend Howe tooted in the Dodgers bull pen), a scary run-in with a hooker who had a secret ("Lucille" was a man) and the pitcher's worst indignity (he was cut by the Phillies), but the A's ace has now won 62 games in three years. Welch, Mike Moore and Scott Sanderson should each win 15 to 20 in 1990. And Eckersley, the control freak who walked three men all year, is the game's best closer.

Enough?

Not this time, say the Royals. John Wathan's club has improved its stellar staff--led by A.L. Cy Young winner Bret Saberhagen--by paying $13,000,000 on a four-year contract for N.L. Cy Young man Mark Davis. Davis is the game's best lefty closer. Royals stat: Kansas City lefties had no saves last year. Real stat: The Royals didn't need any; righties Jeff Montgomery and Steve Farr had 18 apiece. Still, signing one Davis makes sense--Wathan can now use Montgomery and Farr as setup men. Signing two doesn't. Kansas City's other new Davis, Storm, was 19--7 for the A's in 1989 but had a 4.36 E.R.A. That means 13--13 with a lesser team. I have nothing against a club that puts George Brett and Jim Eisenreich on the field every day, and Bo Jackson is already one of the 20 best players in history. National League refugee Gerald Perry will hit .300 if his shoulder doesn't separate every time he brushes his teeth. But there are two things to hate about the Royals. For one, Jackson demanded a $1,900,001 salary--a dollar more than Ruben Sierra wanted from Texas. Did Bo really need a buck's worth of ego boost? I'll also have trouble rooting for a team that wants Storm Davis. After the ten-day quake delay in last year's series, he bitched because LaRussa started Stewart instead of him. Whiners finish second.

Cowboy zillionaire Gene Autry will pay Mark Langston $16,000,000 over five years. Langston will be 34 in 1994. Maybe no one told the owner that 34-year-old arms--Nolan Ryan's excepted--are a mil a dozen. But the 82-year-old Autry wants to see his Angels in the series before he sees any real angels. He's paying Langston $100,000 per start to help make it happen. There's no reason to think that the team's other starters can match their celestial 1989, or that the Angels will again lead the league in homers, or that the right fielder will ever stop hearing the heckle "Claudell, have you stopped beating your wife?" Still, Doug Rader is a player's manager--he gave up his number so Langston could wear number 12. He'll keep the halos loose. They can stick with the A's if the pitching holds up; Autry might ride into the sunset a winner.

I used to hate the Mariners because fungal skinflint George Argyros owned them. Now I like them because he sold the club to a couple of guys from Indianapolis, the best town that never had a modern major-league team. M's, Indiana wants you. Last year, you drew only 1,300,000 fans--maybe the fans stayed away because you finished 26 games out of first. Maybe they'd pay to see real ball and keep you in Seattle. If so, it's too bad you're getting better. You have a good young pitching staff, and new first baseman Pete O'Brien is going to love hitting Domers in that comfy park of yours. Kid hitters Ken Griffey, Jr., and Greg Briley will be all-stars soon. Ditto bull-pen stopper Mike Schooler. There's help on the farm, all the way from Calgary to Wausau. But go ahead, Seattle fans. Stay away. Make Indy's day.

Nolan Ryan's Rangers started fast last April, then limped all the way home. It wasn't Ryan's fault. He was better than ever. He won 16 and led the league with 301 Ks, exactly 100 more than N.L. strike-out king José DeLeon. At 42, Ryan was the most effective pitcher in the big leagues. It wasn't Sierra's fault either. The shouldabeen M.V.P. ruled the A.L. in most offensive categories (but not most-offensive, Canseco's domain). The culprit wasn't all-star second baseman Julio Franco (.316), rookie starter Kevin Brown (3.35) or closer Jeff Russell. It was Tom Grieve's karma. The aptly named general manager traded wild man Mitch Williams for sweet-swinging Rafael Palmeiro, who hit a silent .275 as Williams led the Cubs to the play-offs. Grieve counted on a big year from starter Bobby Witt; Witt went 12--13 and walked people who weren't even in the ball park. By July, the pitching plan was "Ryan and Brown and pray we don't drown." Grieve now signs Gary Pettis, who can't seem to drive in runners from third with fewer than two out (he was 0 for April, May, June, July and August in that stat). Pettis is the glove the Rangers need in center but has hit just five homers in three years. Texas has three promising rookies who will play a lot when the team drops out of the race; Grieve hopes it won't be in June.

For a team that plays its home games in a closet, Minnesota doesn't hit many homers. First baseman Kent Hrbek led the Humpdomers with 25. No one else hit 20. They don't have many good pitchers. Allan Anderson won 17, nobody else more than ten. They don't have Frank Viola and Jeff Reardon, series heroes from way back in 1987. The Twins won't win many games, but they do have the funnest player in baseball. Now that Eric Clapton is a beer salesman, Kirby Puckett is God.

Last May, Tom "Vander" Drees of the Vancouver Canadians--Chicago's triple-A affiliate--threw two no-hitters in a row. He tossed another in August. Drees was the first guy in 37 years to rack up three no-hitters in a season. The White Sox never brought him up.

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The Flushing Mets started their spin down the toilet in the pre-season, when rap master Darryl Strawberry rapped Keith Hernandez on the noggin during a team photo shoot. Then Dwight Gooden's shoulder went south. Second baseman Gregg Jefferies devolved from teenage ninja to major-league flop. Front-office suits banished center fielder Len Dykstra and stopper Roger McDowell to Philly and got Juan Samuel in return. He hit .228 and played center with the grace of the Energizer bunny. Then, ignoring the lesson of Do the Right Thing (Mookie wins), they shipped Wilson to Canada. They did manage to swipe Frank Viola from the Twins, and 30--30 third sacker Howard Johnson made a run at M.V.P., but 1989 was lost. Hernandez finished with 19 R.B.I.s. Strawberry played the field like the Mighty Casey, approaching fly balls that landed at his feet with a look that said, "That ain't my style."

Still, winning baseball is all about pitching ("Without the pitcher, you throw the ball around the horn, and then it just sits there on the mound," Casey Stengel would have said). The Mets have a royal flush in Gooden, Viola, Sid Fernandez, David Cone and John Franco. They will rule the wilting East. Jefferies will play in the All-Star Game if the Cubs' Ryne Sandberg or the Padres' Roberto Alomar falters. The suits will find the center fielder to replace Samuel, bat lead-off and save manager Dave Johnson's job. Kevin McReynolds, Hojo and Strawberry will combine for 100 home runs. Strawberry stat: After seven big-league seasons, he has 215 homers; in his first seven years, Willie Mays hit 216. The same spoiled fans who dissed him last fall will spend September chanting "Dar-ryl!"

Whitey Herzog's view of 1990 is as clipped as his crewcut: "We can compete." Herzog's Cardinals will try to match New York's Gooden and Viola with José DeLeon and Bryn Smith. Bull-pen ace Todd Worrell is out until July, at least. First baseman Pedro Guerrero, who carried the offense last year, hasn't been healthy two years in a row since the 1985 season. Tony Pena now swings for the fences in Boston. The outlook isn't brilliant for the Redbird nine, but looks can deceive. Take Whitey's hair. Please. On TV, it looks white; up close, it's more of a uric yellow. Take Pena's defection. That looks like a debit, but rookie catcher Todd Zeile (who must be resilient; he's married to Olympic gymnast Julianne McNamara) is better than Pena. Pitchers DeLeon and Smith secretly pitched their back pockets off last year. Ozzie Smith no longer backflips on opening day, but his uniform number still matches his all-time rank among shortstops. Take the odds; put a few dollars on the grand master of managers, who always finds a way to compete.

One day, the Cubs will be 162--0 going into the play-offs. In the ninth inning of game seven--after Greg Maddux walks nine Giants to erase a 6--0 lead--Don Zimmer will let Maddux face Will Clark, who will bunt. The lights at Wrigley will blink and go out. Clark will find his way home for a 15-foot slam and the Cubs will lose. That's what makes them the Cubs. They'll have the best outfield in the N.L. this year if Andre Dawson's knee is healed. And when young third baseman Ty Griffin comes up from Iowa to join shortstop Shawon Dunston, all-timer Ryne Sandberg and first baseman Mark Grace, the infield of the Nineties will be set. Mitch Williams will rack up 35 saves while spraying the seats with 0--2 fastballs. Still, for 18 more years, the Cubs will lose. They are waiting to mark the centennial of my favorite T-shirt: Chicago Cubs, World Champions. And under that, in smaller print, 1908.

Nine times last summer, Montreal's Tim Wallach hit the ball at Pirates third baseman Bobby Bonilla. Six times, Bonilla kicked it. Manager Jim Leyland has called Bonilla's defense "adequate" but is dying to shift him from the hot plate at third to the outfield, where center fielder Andy Van Slyke's Gold Glove skills might rub off. Van Slyke and Bonilla, who combined for 200 R.B.I.s a couple of years ago, are the girders of Steeltown's order. Leyland has the foundations of a pitching staff in starters Doug Drabek and John Smiley but not much else. In praising rusty hurlers Walt Terrell and Ted Power, the manager called them "tough people, simple people." Condemned by faint praise, Pittsburgh has a right to be depressed.

In 1989, there were five horrendous pitching staffs in the 12-team N.L. The Pirates, the Astros, the Braves and the Reds, blast victims eight through 11, allowed from 595 to 607 earned runs. The Phillies gave up 644, two extra weeks' worth. Aside from Ken Howell, who was 12--12, no Phillies starter won more than six. Rookie left-hander Pat Combs will win the Cy Young before the millennium. Late-inning specialist Roger McDowell, acquired from the Mets, was a steal, and the offense isn't bad, but you wonder whether second-year manager Nick Leyva has a plan. Last September, trailing by four runs in the eighth inning, the Phils had no outs and a 3--0 count on first baseman Ricky Jordan. Leyva let Jordan swing away.

When you call the Expos' front office, a woman with a voice like Grand Marnier says, "Allo, les Expos." She puts you on hold and the tape is Piaf. Fancy. Too bad that except for left fielder Tim Raines--who will finish 1990 elsewhere--first baseman Andrès Galarraga and young hitters Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker, Montreal may as well be Asheville. Sacre merde--les Expos could lose 100 games.

Tommy Lasorda lost weight and his team turned anemic. The 1989 Dodgers didn't crash-diet; they just crashed, scoring 74 fewer runs than they did in 1988. They led the big leagues in pitching, as usual--due partly to the thick air at low-lying Dodger Stadium and partly to its notoriously high mound--but terrain can't explain the hitters' 74-run shortfall. One reason for that was Kirk Gibson's hamstring. Torn in the championship post-season of 1988, it never healed. Gibson played half a season at half speed. Next up: first baseman Eddie Murray. After 12 years in Baltimore, Murray was slow to adjust to N.L. smoke. He still led the team with 20 homers (another department in which they trailed the world). All the L.A. hitters seemed to be on low-stat diets. Center fielder John Shelby, who hit 31 homers in the previous two years, clouted one. He hit .183 with 12 R.B.I.s. Without his horses, all of Tommy's hugs and all of his hurlers couldn't put the Dodgers together again. Hershiser pitched nearly as well as in 1988, when he won 23, and had to go 11 innings on the season's last day to finish 15--15.

So general manager Fred Claire got Lasorda some bats. New to the blue are Juan Samuel and Hubie Brooks, proven right-handed hitters who will balance the league's most improved line-up. Neither is much of a glove, but then, neither are incumbent outfielders Gibson and Kal Daniels. Brooks may wind up at third or Samuel may play second. Even so, the L.A. outfield won't win any Gold Gloves--maybe a tumbling award or two or three. At least newcomers Brooks and Samuel can say, "I lost it in the smog." But if Lasorda can find room for everyone, his club will provide the firepower that blanked out last year. Hershiser, Tim Belcher, scarecrow Ramon Martinez, off-season shark hunter John Wetteland and bull-pen ace Jay Howell are a cut fastball above the competition. Peering down off their lofty perch, they'll enjoy protecting a few leads. And if feast and famine run in cycles, L.A. will rematch 1988 with New York in the N.L.C.S.

The Padres got southpaw Craig "Leffty" Lefferts to take over for departed reliever Mark Davis. Big deal. They got Joe Carter to play center and drive in 120 runs. Big deal. Last year, they picked up a lefty (Bruce Hurst) and a clean-up hitter (Jack Clark), took four months to learn one another's names and finished second. Now they say they're ten games better. It's a Kroc. This is a fine team--I love second baseman Roberto Alomar, utility-bip Bip Roberts and, most of all, right fielder Tony Gwynn, who went to the final day last season trailing Will Clark by .0006, got three hits and won his third straight batting crown. But teams that revamp themselves every year seldom get around to winning. Their roster looks better than that of the more moderately retooled Dodgers, but they're no cinch, and by August, they will wish they hadn't let Davis get away.

Roger Craig swears he never fretted over the drubbing his team took in the World Series. "We lost four straight to a great ball club." How did he spend the off season? "Worked my ranch, drank whiskey, got in my whirlpool and relaxed," he says. A sensible man, Craig knows that his Giants were not a great ball club. They rode Kevin Mitchell's great first half (31 homers at the break, 16 after) and first baseman Will Clark's greatness (.333, 23 homers, 111 R.B.I.s) to their best campaign since 1966. They won't repeat in the West--their pitching is nothing special and the six to eight slots in their batting order add nil to the attack. "We got a pretty good top five," says Craig, underselling Brett Butler, Kevin Bass, Clark, Mitchell and Matt Williams, "but this isn't basketball."

The Reds can win the West. If starters Danny Jackson and Jose Rijo stay strong, Lou Piniella's clean-shaven crew can boast ten solid all-star candidates. Screwballer Tom Browning and fastballers Scott Scudder and Jack Armstrong round out a promising rotation. Young guns Rob Dibble and Randy Myers rule the eighth and the ninth. Right fielder Paul O'Neill might join Eric Davis in the 30--30 club. And shortstop Barry Larkin deserves better luck than he had in 1989. Larkin hit .357 early, made the all-star team and hurt his arm showing it off in a pre-all-star drill.

The great Mike Scott won 20 last season to run his five-year record to 86--49. The Astros do all they can not to help him. They dumped Kevin Bass, who committed the crime of hitting .287 over four years with 280 R.B.I.s and 85 steals, and will save money by playing rookie Eric Anthony.

If any team can pull off an Orioles-style turnaround--from subbasement to sublime--in 1990, it's the young pitching-rich Braves. They even have a real-life Nuke LaLoosh in their farm chain. Right-hander Dennis Burlingame of the real-life Durham Bulls threw an opening-day perfect game on April ninth. He wound up 4--0 with an 0.50 E.R.A. Burlingame will be up soon, and you can bet his first words will be, "I'm just glad to be in the show."

October

N.L. East

1. Mets

2. Cardinals

3. Cubs

4. Pirates

5. Phillies

6. Expos

N.L. West

1. Dodgers

2. Padres

3. Giants

4. Reds

5. Astros

6. Braves

A.L. East

1. Blue Jays

2. Brewers

3. Red Sox

4. Orioles

5. Yankees

6. Indians

7. Tigers

A.L. West

1. A's

2. Royals

3. Angels

4. Mariners

5. Rangers

6. Twins

7. White Sox

A.L. Champs A's

N.L. Champs Mets

World Champs Mets

Scouting

Your favorite team brings its rookie star up from the minors. The kid looks lost. To the casual eye, it's a mystery how he ever made his high school team. The scout's eye is sharper.

"He may not look like much at first. Kids press themselves, and it's a game of relaxation. You can't hit or pitch if you're tense," says Dick Bogard, scouting director for the world-champion A's. "But a good prospect always shows you something." Fit and 50ish, with the career scout's year-round tan, Bogard knows what to look for.

He looks first at physique. A big, quick Jose Canseco--style frame is the obvious ideal, but Bogard doesn't ignore smaller players. Not if they have what every scout calls baseball instinct. "Is his initial reaction to go to the ball, or does he let the ball play him?" Beyond these basics, scouts evaluate hearts. "Does a kid work hard, or just do enough to get by? Does he slide hard? Does he bust his butt running to first base?" After recording his first impressions, the scout looks closer. Check that rookie hitter. Are his hands motionless as the pitcher delivers the ball? That's a "still bat," says Bogard. "He's a defensive hitter. All he can do is fight the ball off." The scout looks for rhythm--a short, quick stroke that begins with a rocking motion and gets the bat moving fast.

Look at the hitter's front elbow. As he starts his swing, does he straighten the elbow? Bad move; it wastes time. A good hitter keeps that elbow bent--the V of his forward arm leads the bat straight to the ball. Good hitters use the off field, too. Many young sluggers spend brief big-league careers trying to pull pitches they can't reach. "Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire still get into that rut, pulling off the ball. But when they're going good, you'll see them hit balls to the opposite field," Bogard says. He remembers falling in love with a high school hitter in 1972: "Robin Yount could drive that outside pitch."

What the scout prizes in young hurlers is fluidity--a smooth, one-piece motion, each part of the pitcher's body moving straight at the catcher's mitt. Two other clues sound like civil-defense terms: command and control. Control is simply throwing strikes. Command is the ability to pitch to spots, dissecting hitters by exploiting their weaknesses. The rare kid pitcher with both command and control--like the Orioles' Ben McDonald--is a potential rookie of the year.

Bogard sees 1200 to 1500 scouting reports a year. He trusts only his own eyes and the views of his 20-man staff. Any youngster of serious interest to the A's will see Bogard himself behind the backstop at a high school or college game. "I wish they'd all come play in my living room," says Oakland's top scout, who spends his summers criss-crossing the country looking at prospects. Still, the job has its perks: "I've got a lot of frequent-flier miles."

American East League

Factoids

Mickey Hatcher, the Dodgers' square peg, got hurt twice last year. Early in the summer, he hurt his hamstring chasing a couple of rock-throwing kids away from his house. Also in 1989, Hatcher pulled a groin muscle moving furniture in his house.

Last fall, a team of Eastern League players went on a minaret-storming tour of the Soviet Union. The American minor-leaguers, accompanied by a K.G.B. agent, did not electrify Lenin's land. In a game against the Soviet national team at Kiev's Olympic Stadium--capacity 100,000--they drew 200 fans. Our boys set détente back a bit by beating the Borscht Belters 13--0 and 22--0 in their first two games, but all was forgiven when the U.S. squad made its most historic contribution to the international pastime--introducing the Russian players to chewing tobacco.

Nobody noticed, but in the final game of the World Series, the Giants pulled off an unusual stunt. In the seventh inning of game four, they hit for the cycle in reverse. Greg Litton homered, Candy Maldonado tripled, Brett Butler doubled and Robby Thompson singled.

Will "the Thrill" Clark's answering machine played a golden oldy before the beep: The Thrill Is Gone.

Cardinals rookie Tim Jones played one game at catcher in 1989. So what? He was the first player named Jones to catch in a big-league game in 105 years.

Don Sutton, who won 324 games for the Dodgers, the Astros, the Brewers and the Angels, is now a color man for the Braves' broadcasts on TBS--he's the next "thinking-man's announcer." Sutton has a colorful insider's lexicon. He calls a brush-back pitch a "faceball," a slider a "slide piece" and a Latin pitcher's curve "el cambio grande."

Last March, first baseperson Julie Croteau of St. Mary's College became the first woman to play college baseball. She had no hits but fielded flawlessly.

In October, Baseball Chapel--the Christian organization that provides Sunday church services for major-league players--launched its "Hall of Faith." The Chapel's first inductee was not Preacher Roe or Angel Salazar but Baseball Chapel's own president Bobby Richardson, who coaches Jerry Falwell's team at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Right-handed pitcher Greg A. Harris--not to be confused with the Padres' Greg W. Harris--was only 4--4 for the Phillies and the Red Sox last year, but he's special in one respect. Harris can also pitch left-handed.

American West League

How To See a Breaking Ball

Folk wisdom has it that a slider appears to have a red dot on it. Maybe Ted Williams, with his 20--10 vision, saw a dot. Other hitters just see red. Since breaking balls spin quickly, the red seams on the ball seem to redden them. A fastball "looks whiter."

There's another way to tell breaking stuff from gas. Watch the pitcher's wrist. If his wrist is facing you, it's a fastball. If his wrist is sideways, expect something bent.

Now all you have to do is hit it.

National East League

Money

In 1949, Joe DiMaggio became the first player to make $100,000 a year. In 1989, 108 major-leaguers made at least $1,000,000. Don Mattingly will make more this season than DiMaggio made in his entire career. Why the sudden jackpot for ballplayers? The owners asked for it.

By conspiring to hold salaries down in 1985 and again in 1986, the chiefs of the baseball industry saved millions. They got caught in 1987 and are now reaping the whirlwind. For the first time in 119 years, the players are earning their fair market value, and the owners don't like it one bit. Like the robber barons of an earlier age, they don't think fair is fair.

Three million dollars sounds like a lot for hitting a ball with a stick, but the Knicks' Patrick Ewing makes four mil for tossing one through a hoop. Boxer Mike Tyson makes a million a minute. Joker Jack Nicholson got $11,000,000 for dancing around in purple tie and tails. Michael Milken made billions milking corporations. These are all worthy pursuits. Whining when your pocket's full of money is not, and make no mistake--the owners' are full of it. Baseball broke its all-time attendance record last season. The previous record had been set in 1988. The record before that had been set in 1987. Tickets now cost more than ever, further lining the teams' pockets. The same goes for parking, peanuts and Cracker Jacks. And then there's TV. The owners' new network contracts mean $14,420,000 per team per year--that alone is enough to pay many big-league payrolls. And that's not counting local TV rights, which add from $5,000,000 to $42,000,000 per team. So the next time you hear an owner moan, "These salaries are going to ruin me," you should boo.

In the meantime, lift a light beer to the best buys in the game, the 1989 Econo All-Stars: pitcher Gregg Olson ($70,000), catcher Mickey Tettleton ($290,000), first baseman Mark Grace ($140,000), second baseman Roberto Alomar ($150,000), shortstop Jeff Blauser ($82,000), shortstop Barry Larkin ($302,500) and outfielders Ken Griffey, Jr. ($68,000), Jerome Walton ($68,000) and Roberto Kelly ($80,000).

National West League