Joe Magrane

Left-handed pitcher Joe Magrane and third baseman Craig Wilson agreed to one-year contracts with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Left-handed pitcher Joe Magrane, released by the Angels in late April, signed with the Chicago Cubs and was sent to the team's extended spring training camp in Mesa, Ariz. The Cubs will pay Magrane the major league minimum $109,000, and the Angels will pick up the balance of his $1.5-million contract.

Left-handed pitcher Joe Magrane, released by the Angels in late April, signed with the Chicago Cubs and was sent to the team's extended spring training camp in Mesa, Ariz. The Cubs will pay Magrane the major league minimum $109,000, and the Angels will pick up the balance of his $1.5-million contract.

Rumors that the Angels will trade a high-salaried left-hander persist, but now they've expanded to include Mark Langston as well as Chuck Finley. A New York newspaper reported Wednesday that the Yankees are interested in Langston, who started Wednesday night's game against the Oakland Athletics, and the Cleveland Indians are said to be interested in Langston and Finley. But Langston, who is signed through 1997, won't be going anywhere.

St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Joe Magrane will have elbow surgery April 1 and miss the 1991 season. General Manager Dal Maxvill, after consulting with team physician Dr. Stan London, said Magrane will undergo surgery to correct medial collateral ligament damage. "It's not good news, either from the personal standpoint of Joe Magrane or the ballclub," Maxvill said. Magrane's surgery will be performed by Dodger physician Frank Jobe. The 26-year-old left-hander flew to Vero Beach, Fla.

So Richard Brown is disappointed with Angel crowds because the dogs won't eat the dog food. I used to be a fan, but I haven't been to a game in years, even though I live 10 minutes from the park. Brown needs to take Marketing 101 to find out you first need to have a product that people want before you can make a sale. The Angels could save a bundle if they got rid of Brown and that great judge of baseball talent, Whitey Herzog. Joe Magrane is the latest example. JOHN L. HOFFMAN Santa Ana

The Angels were cautiously optimistic after pitcher Joe Magrane's surgery Tuesday that he will be able to return to the starting rotation by May. Magrane underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left elbow in which "loose bodies and scar tissue were removed," Dr. Lewis Yocum said. If the swelling is minimal the next seven to 10 days, Yocum said, Magrane will be able to start throwing softly in three weeks and begin a rehabilitative assignment in mid-April.

In news that resurrected painful memories of Kelly Gruber, the Angels announced Monday that starter Joe Magrane will undergo arthroscopic surgery today on his left elbow, which will sideline him for at least two months. Just as traumatic for the Angels knowing that their No. 3 starter will be lost until mid-April is the ridicule they surely will receive by their peers in baseball.

General Manager Whitey Herzog, determining that the Angels could not afford to lose starter Joe Magrane to free agency, reached a two-year contract agreement with the left-hander late Monday night, club sources confirmed. Magrane, according to sources, agreed to sign a two-year contract with an option that will guarantee him at least $3.5 million, and could be worth about $6.3 million if he remains healthy the first two seasons.

Three pitchers--Bobby Witt of Texas, Joe Magrane of St. Louis and Jim Deshaies of Houston--avoided arbitration by signing contracts for the 1991 season. Witt, who had a 12-game winning streak last season, agreed to a three-year contract worth $7.3 million. He was 17-10 and had the longest winning streak in the major leagues since Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox went 14-0 to start the 1986 season. Witt's 221 strikeouts were second in the American League behind teammate Nolan Ryan's 232.

You watch Joe Magrane get roughed up by aspiring Seattle Mariners in a spring training B game and it seems hard to believe this is the same pitcher who started Game 7 of the 1987 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals. "I think about guys I came up with like (the Atlanta Braves') Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux and wonder what might have been without the two surgeries," said Magrane, a left-hander struggling for a job on the Angel staff. "But I don't spend too much time dwelling on it.

The Angels, rebuffed in their efforts to buy out pitcher Joe Magrane's contract, have virtually no chance of trading him. Magrane suffered a cracked rib and cuts on his pitching arm in a one-car accident in October near his home in St. Louis, dispelling thoughts about winter ball. "We were hoping to get him pitching this winter in the Dominican or Venezuela," Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said Sunday. "It's something we thought he needed. "But the accident took care of that."

The Angels, publicly conceding for the first time that signing starter Joe Magrane to a lucrative contract was a mistake, swallowed their pride Saturday and demoted him to the bullpen. The Angels, who provided Magrane a contract last September that will guarantee him $3 million and can be worth as much as $9.3 million over three years, made the decision after Magrane yielded six hits and seven runs (four earned) in 2 1/3 innings Friday in their 14-7 defeat to the Baltimore Orioles.

Today's assignment, Angel fans, is to compare and contrast. The subject is left-hander Joe Magrane, the losing pitcher in the Angels' 8-4 loss to Detroit Friday night at Anaheim Stadium. In his last start Sunday, Magrane was superb. Friday, he was not. Sunday, he gave up one run and four hits in his first complete game in four years. Friday, he gave up four runs and six hits with three walks, three strikeouts, three wild pitches and one hit batter. He didn't make it past the fifth inning.

In his last start Sunday, Angel left-hander Joe Magrane was superb. Friday night, he was not. Sunday, he gave up one run and four hits in his first complete game in four years. Friday night, he gave up four runs and six hits with three walks, three strikeouts, three wild pitches and one hit batter. He didn't make it past the fifth inning and the Angels lost, 8-4, to Detroit at Anaheim Stadium. Sunday, he dazzled the Milwaukee Brewers with a firm command of his pitches.

Sunday's performance by Joe Magrane, a pitcher who had not thrown a complete game since 1990, was the kind of turnaround the Angels' top management envisioned when it hired Manager Marcel Lachemann. Magrane, who brought an 8.51 earned-run average into the game, had a shutout going into the ninth inning and limited the Milwaukee Brewers to four hits as the Angels ended a six-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory in front of 33,581 at Anaheim Stadium.

In the time that passed between Joe Magrane's last complete game and this one, the Angels fired Doug Rader, hired Buck Rodgers, fired Buck Rodgers, hired Marcel Lachemann, hired Dan O'Brien, fired Dan O'Brien, hired Whitey Herzog, retired Whitey Herzog, hired Bill Bavasi, changed uniforms, changed pitching coaches, changed just about everything, give or take their luck. The key transaction there, of course, was hiring Whitey Herzog. When he was released by the St.