Baseball Playoffs : American: Detroit vs. Minnesota : Notebook : Free Agency Battle Still Bothers Jack Morris

By ROSS NEWHAN

Oct. 8, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

MINNEAPOLIS — A few hours before Wednesday night’s American League playoff opener, a man with a microphone asked Jack Morris what it felt like to be part of an organization with the rich heritage of the Detroit Tigers.

Morris, one of last winter’s several unwanted free agents, a proven pitcher who returned to the Tigers through salary arbitration after the club rejected his contract proposals, smiled sardonically and said:

“I’d like to give you a lecture on loyalty, but I’ll leave it at this: It’s a bunch of crap.”

The wounds remain and could be reopened after Morris throws his final pitch of 1987. He said he would like to end his career with the Tigers but has again heard nothing. He said he expects to be a free agent again but will leave negotiations--if there are any--to attorney Dick Moss.

“I didn’t get a chance to relax as much as I should have last winter and I owe myself that,” Morris said. “I’m not going on a full-scale grandstand tour again. It served its purpose.”

Morris tried to sell his services to the Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and the Angels but found no takers. The tour’s futility, he feels, helped substantiate the existence of a conspiracy among the owners.

Will there be a viable market now that the arbitrator has ruled against the owners.

“Only if he penalizes them enough that they won’t do it in the future,” Morris said. “They broke the law. As I said at the time, now we know they’re crooks. That first question has been answered. The second is, what do you do with crooks?”

The union Jack of last winter labors on another front tonight, facing the team he rooted for as a youngster growing up in nearby Highland Park, the team that was the first to receive his sales pitch last winter and a team that has never defeated the winningest pitcher of the ‘80s.

Morris, 18-11 during the regular season, has an 11-0 career record in Minnesota and is 8-0 in the Metrodome.

The key to his success in a hitter’s haven? Morris listed good support, luck and a determination to take the Twins seriously--no matter where they were in the standings.

“I also don’t look at this as a homer dome,” he said. “I pitch in Cape Canaveral North. Tiger Stadium gives us more home runs than any park.

“I don’t like the turf here, I admit that, but I’ve been successful in eliminating the negatives. I also grew up wanting to play for the Twins and I guess that when they didn’t draft me, it subconsciously wanted me to beat them that much more.”

Metrodome mystique: Are the Twins packing something extra in their home stadium?

Like, say, a “secret” center-field camera that enables them to steal signals from opposing catchers?

That rumor has been floating around since midseason, when Seattle Manager Dick Williams speculated about such a camera and a Kansas City sportswriter accused the Twins of using a dugout television monitor to steal signs from that camera.

Naturally, on the eve of the American League Championship Series, the rumor has resurfaced, and Wednesday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune questioned several Twins on the topic.

From .191-hitting catcher Tim Laudner: “That’s scary, man, real scary. I’m hitting a buck-90 and we’re stealing signals? How come nobody told me about the camera? You better ask some guy hitting .300.”

From .332-hitting center fielder Kirby Puckett: “If someone told me what was coming, I couldn’t hit it anyway. If someone told me what was coming, I wouldn’t believe it either. No way. You’re thinking curveball and here comes a fastball right at you. Don’t believe it, man. Don’t believe it.”

From .285-hitting first baseman Kent Hrbek, who doesn’t quite take the rumor completely seriously: “You see, in my helmet I’ve got a little TV, one of those Watchmen. When they show the center-field camera, I know automatically what’s coming.

“I also have a stereo system in my earflap and I can hear the games on the radio. Sometimes (Twins radio announcer) Herb Carneal will say, ‘I think a fastball might be coming,’ and then I know.”

The Twins do have a TV monitor in the corner of their dugout, but according to Manager Tom Kelly, it is supposed to be turned off during games. But even with it on, Kelly told the Star Tribune, “How are you supposed to (steal signs)? You’re supposed to look at the monitor, run down the dugout and scream, ‘Here comes a fastball!’ All in a second? That’s absurd.”

Was Bill Madlock, the former Dodger who has become a significant factor in the Tigers’ success, surprised by his former club’s retention of Tom Lasorda and Fred Claire in their current capacities?

Madlock said only that Dodger problems go beyond management.

“You’ve got to have the horses,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to keep turning over players from within the system.” The acquisition of Eddie Murray, Rickey Henderson or both would help, Madlock said, but not at the expense of losing Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser or Bob Welch.

“They need both of those guys and the three pitchers,” Madlock said. “But you’re not going to get either one without giving up one of the pitchers.”

The Tigers did more than produce the best record in baseball. Their record after the first 30 games was superior to that of the runaway Tigers of 1984.

Those Tigers went 26-4, then 78-54. These Tigers went 11-19, then 87-45.

Last Sunday, in the nation’s 15 largest markets, NBC had an 11.7 rating for its telecast of an NFL strikeball game. CBS had ratings of 15.0 and 10.8 for its strikeball doubleheader. Those ratings were two to three times greater than the 5.9 that ABC produced for its telecast of the Toronto-Detroit game that determined the championship of the American League East.

A barometer of declining interest in baseball?

Dr. Bobby Brown, the American League president, disputed that.

“I think it was probably the fact that the ABC game wasn’t publicized well enough,” Brown said of the disparity. “ABC was going to do the game only if it had a bearing (on the race). We heard from some people in various parts of the country that they didn’t even know it was on.

“Last year, I think it was during the World Series, we went head to head with the (New York Giants) on a Monday night game and our ratings were very much higher.

“You can’t contribute a great deal of significance to one isolated event.”

Both managers are considering using just three starting pitchers this series, with Sparky Anderson possibly bringing back Doyle Alexander on three days’ rest for Game 4 Saturday and Kelly doing the same with Frank Viola.

“Frank’s gone on three days’ rest a couple of times before,” Kelly said. “He’s better with four days, but we’ll see. He can rest up all winter.”

Times staff writer Mike Penner contributed to this story.