Grass Is Greener for Karros in Oakland

PHOENIX —  The right-handed-hitting first baseman with a measure of power had wanted to fill that vacancy with the Dodgers in 2004.

Eric Karros probably should have known that you can’t go home again, even though he tried, to the extent of having lunch with Jim Tracy early in the off-season, when he was “flat out” told by the Dodger manager that, as Karros put it, “there were no problems between us.”

Of course, that was still when then-general manager Dan Evans was touting his mystery plan to improve the Dodger offense.

It was also only a year after he had traded Karros and Mark Grudzielanek to the Chicago Cubs for Todd Hundley and Chad Hermanson in what turned into a bust of a deal for the Dodgers. So, obviously, it was too soon to swallow any pride by bringing Karros back, particularly because they had portrayed him, in the first baseman’s view, as “a clubhouse nuisance to validate the trade.”

A long way from Dodgertown, Karros, 37, sits in the clubhouse of the Oakland Athletics, wearing the same green and gold that he wore at Patrick Henry High in San Diego.

He is coming off the high of his contributions to the Cubs’ division title last year, when he hit .366 against left-handed pitching, .297 when in the starting lineup and .286 overall with 12 home runs in 336 at-bats.

Karros figures to get about 400 at-bats as a first baseman and designated hitter with Oakland, having rejected, because of the A’s proximity to his Manhattan Beach home, “enticing” inquiries from the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. There also was the lure of more playing time than he would have received with either of those East Coast teams, and the A’s stature as an annual playoff contender.

“Playoffs, proximity and playing time,” he said. “This place met all three criteria.”

What Oakland can’t match, however, is the atmosphere of Wrigley Field.

“I would have loved to go back,” he said. “Last year was the most enjoyable experience of my career, and that’s not taking anything away from anywhere else.

“It’s just that whole thing about Wrigley and Chicago baseball and being able to walk to the park from where I was staying. I mean, the last month of the season, it was like a playoff game every day. There’s no way I can do justice trying to describe it.

“I would have gone back in a heartbeat. Money wouldn’t have mattered.”

Karros said he was told by Manager Dusty Baker that he was wanted again, only to have Derrek Lee’s acquisition in the trade that sent Hee Seop Choi to the Florida Marlins “come out of nowhere.”

“Choi has a lot of potential, but Lee is a proven commodity,” Karros said. “It was a great trade for the Cubs, but I was very disappointed. I thought I had a great opportunity to go back.”

Deprived of first base in Chicago, Karros scanned the market, saw an opening with the Dodgers, thought about how it might be to possibly end his career where it started, and was relieved to learn over lunch with Tracy that their sometimes heated and closed-door talks involving playing time and other issues in 2002 had left no scars.

Ultimately, Karros said, he also talked with Evans and Chairman Bob Daly and came away thinking an offer was imminent, although he laughed in reflection and said:

“It’s just that Daly would say he had to clear it with Evans, and Evans would say he had to make sure Trace was on board, and it obviously took Dan about three months to walk downstairs to check with Trace because that’s about how long it was before I decided that I’d better find work. In the end, I guess, Dan felt he could go in another direction and there were other things he could do, although I don’t know what they were.”

Neither does anyone else.

As it is, pending the acquisition of a first baseman, the Dodgers are hoping Shawn Green can make the move from right field, where he would prefer to stay.

Karros thinks the Dodgers are putting a lot on Green, considering he’s coming off surgery and a season in which he struggled because of the shoulder injury.

“There’s all that pressure, and now you’re asking him to learn a new position?” Karros said. “Maybe you can make the adjustment, but that’s asking a lot for a guy who is also being counted on to carry the club. I wish him the best. If anyone can do it, Greenie can, but it’s a tall order.”

Wearing green and gold again, Karros hasn’t entirely stopped thinking blue.

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The Lofton Factor

There is general consensus that the Cubs have baseball’s best rotation with the addition of Greg Maddux to go with Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Matt Clement and Carlos Zambrano.

Are they automatic to repeat in the National League Central, considering that Houston’s rotation isn’t far behind, with the addition of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, and that St. Louis’ has been significantly rebuilt?

“Everybody is justifiably excited about the Cubs’ starting pitching, but the thing that triggered us last year was getting Kenny Lofton,” Karros said of the July 22 trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“If there’s no Lofton, there’s no winning the division, no playoffs, nothing. They don’t have a leadoff hitter and that’s something they need to address. I mean, everybody wants to go, ‘Oh, yes, the Cubs have the starting pitching now,’ but there are other considerations.”

Lofton batted .327 with a .381 on-base percentage in 56 games with the Cubs, but he’s a hired gun who has since moved to the Yankees, his fifth team since the start of the 2000 season.

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The Hall Truth

The decision by Derrick Hall to resign as the Dodgers’ senior vice president of communications is the most telling example yet of the instability, insensitivity and, what one remaining executive said, the incredible naivete with which Frank and Jamie McCourt have infected the organization in a short time.

Let’s see: Within 24 hours, McCourt backpedals on his commitment to acquire a hitter and the most indispensable member of the front office resigns because of intolerable working conditions.

In ways too numerous to mention, Hall put out fires, pointed reporters in accurate directions and, during a tumultuous era, provided the organization with a community face amid the faceless News Corp. regime and the Boston-based McCourt tenure so far.

Now, he has joined the organization’s two other top executives, the respected Bob Graziano and Kris Rone, in resigning, and it is worth remembering, as an additional example of how the McCourts operate, that they basically guillotined the two people vital to them during the transition period.

Corey Busch headed their transition team, and Duffy Jennings was their media contact. Both had justifiable hopes of being rewarded with full-time roles when the McCourts took over, but both were dismissed -- well, Busch was retained as an office-less consultant -- almost as soon as the documents were signed.

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What Impact?

A steroid-obscured spring hasn’t prevented a stampede on major league ticket offices.

Baseball is expected to announce shortly the preseason sale is an all-time high, which could translate to a new attendance record, breaking the 2000 mark of about 73 million.

“It’s been stunning,” Commissioner Bud Selig said of the advance sale.

“The Red Sox and Cubs are almost sold out for the season, and almost every club is talking about equaling or surpassing what they did last year.”

The factors: New parks in San Diego and Philadelphia, expanding parity, increased interest from the wide-scale player movement of the off-season, clubs packaging their most attractive dates within the sale of larger plans and, in some instances, new and more attractive interleague pairings.

The Dodgers, for instance, play host to the Yankees for the first time and visit Boston for the first time, and even with uncertainty about the ownership change and doubts about their offense and overall competitiveness, they sold 87,000 individual-game tickets on Saturday of last weekend and expect to draw 3 million again with a season-ticket base of 20,000.

The Angels, of course, have generated an even stronger response to Arte Moreno’s winter investments.

They have already sold 2.1 million tickets, up more than 292,000 from mid-March of last year, and expect to set a club attendance record of 3.1 million.

Selig called it another measure of the sport’s popularity and ongoing recovery since the 1994 strike.

“In no way, however, does it diminish our resolve to address the steroid issue,” he said. “In fact, it should strengthen the commitment. We shouldn’t let anything get in the way of the popularity.”

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Media Medics

It’s surprising how many reporters seem to have earned their medical degrees during the off-season, implying in their coverage that because this player or that player is noticeably thinner, he must have cycled off steroids in anticipation of the random testing this spring.

Union lawyer Michael Weiner raises an interesting and valid point regarding that coverage.

“Some of the same people who say [the baseball] program has no teeth are the same people who are pointing to clubhouses and, rightly or wrongly, saying players look different this spring,” Weiner said. “So, in their view, they are effectively saying that the program has indeed changed player conduct. If that’s true, isn’t that the point of the program?”