Despite New Status, Sparks Won’t Relax

Steve Sparks has moved into the high-rent district this season, in more ways than one.

Not only has the knuckleballer’s salary jumped from $200,000--a previous career high--to $1.35 million, his Tempe Diablo Stadium locker is on rotation row, a bank of cubicles traditionally given to Angel starting pitchers, and his new neighbors are Chuck Finley, Ken Hill and Tim Belcher.

This is what happens when a journeyman right-hander gets called up at midseason, goes a surprising 9-4 with a 4.34 earned-run average while patching a gaping hole in an injury-plagued rotation, and the manager all but assures him of the fourth spot in the rotation before camp even opens.

It’s certainly a different view for Sparks, who had appeared in only 53 big league games in 11 professional seasons before 1998 and sat out all of 1997 because of elbow surgery, but it’s not one he plans to grow too comfortable with.

“I had a good year in 1995 [with Milwaukee] and went into camp the next year knowing I made the rotation, and that was a mistake,” Sparks, 33, said. “I pitched poorly at the beginning of the [1996] season and went back and forth between triple A and Milwaukee three times. So I know not to relax.”

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Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks: Jason Dickson, who opened the 1997 and ’98 seasons in the Angel rotation and made the ’97 All-Star game, was moved to the locker formerly occupied by reliever Mike James.

But just because James will be out at least half the season and reliever Pep Harris the entire season because of arm injuries, and Dickson was much more effective in 1998 as a reliever (3-0, 0.87 ERA in nine games) than starter (7-10, 7.11 ERA in 18 starts), the Angels “are not looking at Dickson as a reliever,” Manager Terry Collins said.

“If he throws in this camp like he did in 1997, you’ve got to start him. He knocked our socks off that year. But he also pitched well out of the bullpen, so we know he can do that.”