Baseball / Ross Newhan : Herr Making Dodgers’ Claire Look Good

PHILADELPHIA —  Fred Claire, executive vice president of the Dodgers and baseball’s executive of the year in 1988, apparently was right again when he tabbed Tom Herr to replace Steve Sax as the club’s second baseman.

Herr is batting .341, second in the National League to Will Clark.

Unfortunately for Claire and the Dodgers, though, Herr is doing it with the Philadelphia Phillies. He rejected the Dodgers’ offers to sign with the team closest to his hometown, Lancaster, Pa.

Claire had been so convinced that he was about to sign Herr that he had the publicity department prepare a news release.

“Fred did everything he could to sign me,” Herr said the other day. “At one point he even said, ‘What will it take to get you to come here?’ In essence, he was saying I could write my own contract.

“It was hard to pass up and my wife and I spent a lot of time talking about it. I’d have probably gone if I was younger, but at this point in my career we felt that a major family move like that wasn’t in our best interest.”

Herr, 33, signed a two-year contract at $825,000 a year with the Phillies.

Claire then made a futile offer to Ron Oester, who remained with the Cincinnati Reds; tried in vain to trade for Wally Backman, whom the New York Mets later traded to the Minnesota Twins, and finally signed New York Yankee free agent Willie Randolph, now hitting .226.

“Everything about the Dodger offer was better than the Phillies’ offer,” Herr said. “From a pure business standpoint, I was foolish to pass it up. And from a professional standpoint, I was rejecting a club that had a chance to win again. But those considerations just weren’t at the top of my priority list when weighed against the value I placed on playing at home.”

Herr is a .273 lifetime hitter who spent eight-plus seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, contributing to three pennant winners with bat, glove and a quiet intensity that is now said to have contributed to a new attitude in the Philadelphia clubhouse.

“Nobody expects him to keep hitting what he’s hitting now, but even if he hits .300 it won’t be close to the No. 1 thing he’s brought to this team,” pitcher Don Carman said. “What he’s brought to this team is the idea of what it takes to be a winning club.”

Defined by Carman: A strengthening of relationships on and off the field.

Herr has his personal goals as well. Traded to Minnesota for Tom Brunansky last year, then sidelined twice by a leg injury, he wants to erase the memory of a .263 average with the Twins and the negativity that accompanied it.

“I came here feeling I was on a personal mission,” Herr said. “I read a lot of reports that I was slowing down, that I wasn’t the player I once was. There was a lot of negative press in Minnesota. I wanted to reverse that sentiment and I worked harder than I ever have during the winter.”

Can he keep it up? Can he continue to hit .341? That might have been easier with a defending World Series winner like the Dodgers, who figure to be more of a pennant threat than the Phillies.

“There’s excitement every day when your team’s in the race,” Herr said. “It’s harder to get up when it’s not. It’s harder to go out there with the same intensity. My off years have coincided with my team’s off years and I can’t ignore that.”

Mike Schmidt also rejected the Dodgers to stay with the Phillies. He has talked about how he was romanced by Tom Lasorda at a time when he was coming off shoulder surgery for a torn rotator cuff and it appeared he might have to play first base rather than third.

The Dodgers eventually traded for Eddie Murray, and Schmidt, saluting the acquisition of a younger, switch-hitting superstar willing to move, returned to third base at Veterans Stadium, removing the cynics’ doubts in the process.

At 39, Schmidt has driven in 24 runs and hit six homers for a career total of 548.

He says he is 99.9% sure that this will be his last year, that the lure of joining Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays as the only players to have hit 600 homers is not strong enough to make him continue.

“If everything broke right I might, but I’m ready to move on, to get the ball rolling in another direction,” he said.

“I’ve had a great run and I’m grateful for that and the money I’ve made, but it’s time to start leading a normal life.

“I’m still a damn good hitter but only an adequate player and I don’t have the get up and go I once had. I’ve had four knee operations and several other operations. There’s been a lot of wear and tear.

“I mean, I’ll be 40 when the season is over and, God willing, I’ll have another 40 years. Hopefully, there’s another position for me in baseball.”

Schmidt mentioned managing, broadcasting, the front office.

His ultimate choice?

“I’d like to move to Florida and run an expansion club,” he said.

If, indeed, this is Schmidt’s last year, he will leave with the satisfaction of having come back from the shoulder injury but the frustration of having been caught in a rebuilding process.

So close, but yet so far, he said of the Phillies, who have won only one game in which they scored fewer than five runs.

“We do have a great offensive team,” he said. “If we had a pitching staff with the horses that the Dodgers do, we might walk away with it. Pitchers win the games, the pennants, the World Series.”

Two veteran members of the Kansas City Royals are also weighing their futures.

George Brett, recovering from torn knee ligaments, isn’t sure he wants to risk another injury on what he perceives to be a dangerous carpet at Royals Stadium. He may ask to become a designated hitter or to be traded.

Willie Wilson, 33, batting .180 with an on-base percentage of .255 before a weekend series with the Texas Rangers, isn’t sure he still has a baseball future.

“I’m totally frustrated now,” the center fielder said. “I feel lousy before, during and after the game. If this continues I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know whether I’m just losing some skills or am too old, period.”

Said Brett: “I remember the first words I said to (Royal management after his latest injury). I told them they could take this turf and stick it. I’ll never play on it for the rest of my life.”

He may not have a choice, however.

“How can I get off the stuff when I have four years left on my contract?” he said. “I have a lot of thinking to do. We’ll see what happens.”

One of baseball’s procedural rules will be satisfied by the May 25 hearing that Pete Rose and his attorneys have been invited to by commissioner Bart Giammati.

But there is another rule, if violated, that could form the basis for a due-process suit that Rose is believed to be considering if he is suspended for gambling activities.

Rose has the right to cross-examine witnesses, but most of the testimony against him is believed to come from several men who are serving prison sentences, or soon will be, for felonies such as drug trafficking and income tax evasion.

Will those witnesses be called to the hearing?

“It’s a possibility,” deputy commissioner Fay Vincent said. “The decision will be made on what happens between now and then.”

The San Diego Padres’ spring optimism has faded amid the futility of their offense. The Padres need that one more hitter they keep pursuing--Jim Presley, Wade Boggs, Dale Murphy, Lenny Dykstra--but can’t land.

Jack Clark, the one hitter they did land, was batting .200 before a weekend series in New York, but the more telling statistic is that he led the National League in walks. The hitters who were asked to protect Clark, batting behind him, were hitting a combined .179.

All-Star catcher Benito Santiago was hitting .204, John Kruk was on the disabled list and, as a team, the Padres were 11th in the league, leading only the Dodgers, with a batting average of .231.

“We went into the season telling our pitchers to hold teams to three runs and we’d win,” Manager Jack McKeon said. “The way we’re going, we better hold them to one.”

Added Clark: “Now we know why (former manager) Larry Bowa made out 96 different lineups.”

Despite denials, the New York Mets are apparently still tantalized by the potential availability of Seattle Mariner left-hander Mark Langston but concerned that Langston would want a larger contract than Dwight Gooden, who received $6.7 million for three years.

“I wouldn’t care, give it to him,” said Gooden. “The $6.7 million is what I asked for. In a couple years, I’ll be knocking on the door again anyway.”

Shortstop Ozzie Smith of the St. Louis Cardinals is in the final year of a four-year, $8 million contract, a $2-million average, of course.

The Cardinals have offered the same average in a two-year, $4-million extension. Smith, however, contends that he is being asked to take a cut based on his actual 1989 salary of $2.2 million.

He also wants a three-year deal and says he will need more money to accept a two.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything to warrant being cut,” he said.

The challenging position resulting from the Chicago Cubs’ strong start is likely to prove temporary while right fielder Andre Dawson recovers from knee surgery and center fielder Jerome Walton rehabilitates a torn hamstring.

Dawson and Walton went down on successive days last week, leaving the Cubs a powerless outfield of Mitch Webster, Dwight Smith and Doug Dascenzo, and leaving General Manager Jim Frey convinced that estimates of the farm system’s rebirth under predecessor Dallas Green have been significantly overstated.

Frey’s view is that the cupboard is bare except for a few pitchers and position players, all built along the lines of the 5-foot-8 Dascenzo and 5-11 Smith.

When Cardinal reliever Dan Quisenberry batted for only the third time in his career the other day against San Francisco, he picked up his front foot while swinging.

“Mel Ott did it and it worked for him,” Quisenberry said. “Of course, I wasn’t sure I was picking up the right foot.”