Upping the Ante : After Almost a Year of Matching Each Other Move for Move, Steinbrenner and Angelos Put All Their Cards on the Table

NEW YORK —  It’s as if New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos have been in a dim, smoky room, cards and chips scattered over the table.

Angelos: “I’ll open with a veteran National League manager.”

Steinbrenner: “I’ll see your veteran manager and raise you a $19.2-million all-star pitcher.”

Angelos: “I’ll see your ace and raise you an $18-million all-star second baseman and a left-handed starting pitcher.”

Steinbrenner: “I’ll see your second baseman and raise you a $20-million left-handed starter.”

Angelos: “I’ll see your left-hander and raise you a power-hitting third baseman and a chubby designated hitter.”

Steinbrenner: “I’ll see your third baseman and raise you a huge DH, with a $9.2-million salary, a regular king of clubs.

Angelos: “Enough! I’ll call. Whattya got?”

Beginning tonight in Yankee Stadium, Steinbrenner’s Yankees and Angelos’ Orioles will lay their cards on the table in the best-of-seven American League championship series.

It’s not quite winner take all. But the winner will get a chance to take all, moving on to face the Atlanta Braves or St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

The Yankees and Orioles have always provided good theater, from the Thurman Munson/Reggie Jackson-Jim Palmer/Brooks Robinson days of the 1970s to the summer of 1996, when the teams, separated by a few hundred miles on the eastern seaboard, battled for American League East supremacy.

But if the on-field action was crisp--New York won the season series, 10-3, but six of its victories were by one or two runs--it may have been even more intense in the front office, where Steinbrenner and Angelos have established a fierce rivalry.

“That was one of the biggest card games in the off-season that I’ve ever seen by two owners,” Yankee third baseman Wade Boggs said of the winter of 1995-96.

“Every time Angelos made a move, Steinbrenner would counter. Every time George did something, Angelos would counter. It was a poker game between two owners. It was sort of scripted in early January that these two teams would face each other in the playoffs.”

You might say it was in the cards, but the dealing was hardly confined to the off-season. Both teams made late-season trades, taking on millions more in payroll, continuing a game of one-upmanship that has been going on for a year now.

These are hands-on, some would say overbearing, owners who think nothing of spending a few million dollars for a part-time player who can fill a void, or of giving up a top prospect for a player who might pay immediate dividends. They oversee baseball’s largest payrolls, New York’s $60 million and Baltimore’s $50 million.

They are win-at-all-costs owners who attack the free-agent market with the zeal of a Wall Street trader, who have waged head-to-head battles for the same players and managers and who have even bickered over the weather.

“There’s no rivalry between owners,” Steinbrenner said, sounding as convincing as he did when he told Billy Martin his job as Yankee manager was secure. “We’re nothing in the picture.”

Yeah, right. Then what do you call that high-stakes war waged over pitcher David Cone and second baseman Roberto Alomar last winter? And what about the arms race in which one team traded for a marginal left-hander and the other shelled out $20 million for another lefty?

And how is it six players--Cone, Alomar, David Wells, Kenny Rogers, B.J. Surhoff and Mariano Duncan--were being wooed by both teams last winter?

And what about those controversial rainouts, when each team refused to agree to the other’s desire to play day-night doubleheaders without compensation?

And Steinbrenner’s criticism of how Angelos handled the Alomar spitting incident, saying he would have benched Alomar for the playoffs had he been a Yankee?

“They were going at it pretty hard,” Baltimore utility player Billy Ripken said.

It began last fall, when the teams hired managers within four days of each other, the Orioles signing Davey Johnson on Oct. 30, the Yankees signing Joe Torre on Nov. 2.

The Yankees had an interest in Johnson, but the Angelos-Steinbrenner skirmish didn’t really begin heating up until Dec. 11, when Duncan, an infielder, spurned the Orioles and signed a two-year, $1.45-million deal with the Yankees.

Surhoff, an outfielder-third baseman, then rejected a Yankee offer to sign a three-year, $3.7-million contract with the Orioles Dec. 20.

Angelos then got Alomar with a three-year, $18-million offer on Dec. 21 and seemed to have a line on Cone after Steinbrenner inexplicably lowered his offer from $19 million to $18.55 million over three years.

But then Angelos blinked, asking Cone to defer money in his contract with no interest, and Steinbrenner swooped in. He called General Manager Bob Watson from a pay phone outside a Tampa hospital and ordered him to boost the offer to $19.5 million with a no-trade clause.

Cone signed on Dec. 22, but an armistice was hardly in order. The Orioles were trying to swing a deal for Wells with Cincinnati, and the Yanks elbowed their way in, initiating trade talks with the Reds about the left-hander.

Wells went to Baltimore on Dec. 26, and the Yankees said they were through pursuing starting pitchers. Steinbrenner, though, met secretly with Angel lefty Chuck Finley in late December. Then he came up with $20 million to sign Rogers from Texas on Jan. 4.

The tussle continued into the summer, when the Yankees swung a blockbuster July 31 deal for designated hitter Cecil Fielder, a $9.2-million player who doesn’t play against some right-handers.

After Angelos vetoed trades involving Wells and Bobby Bonilla in favor of a wild-card push, the Orioles added third baseman Todd Zeile and outfielder Pete Incaviglia in a deal with the Phillies Aug. 29.

It’s no coincidence that on the next day, the Yankees traded for third baseman Charlie Hayes, who now platoons with Boggs.

“They’re two very aggressive owners who both have an insatiable desire to win and will do whatever it takes,” Cone said of Angelos and Steinbrenner. “They’ll add the extra player to get a team over the hump.”

And neither knows when to fold.

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THE PLAYOFFS

AMERICAN LEAGUE

TONIGHT’S SERIES OPENER

* Baltimore (Erickson, 13-12) at New York (Pettitte, 21-8), 5 p.m., Ch. 4

* Matchups: C4

NATIONAL LEAGUE

WEDNESDAY’S SERIES OPENER

* St. Louis (Andy Benes, 18-10) at Atlanta (Smoltz, 24-8), 5 p.m., Ch. 11