Replacement Players

I may be in the minority, but I think the use of replacement players is the best thing that could happen to baseball. Look at today's major league rosters and salaries. How many of those journeymen players would be missed? The strike is like a stock market correction. I say get the best players available, suit 'em up and play ball. MIKE MacDONALD North Hills Major league baseball owners kept raising the salaries of their players year after year, making them millionaires.

The shirts lie folded under a counter at the stadium souvenir shop, collecting dust, reeking of dishonesty. The words, "World Series Champions" are on the front. The lie fills the back. That's where the Angel roster is listed, a player-by-player tribute that is missing a player. Brendan Donnelly isn't there. He was there last October, recording one of the Angels' four World Series victories. He was there, pitching 7 1/3 scoreless innings in the Series. He was there with a 2.

An Ontario law that would prevent the Toronto Blue Jays from employing replacement players for striking major leaguers is not the only legal hurdle facing owners if they attempt to open the season with replacements. They will also have to overcome the opposition of noted labor lawyer Peter Angelos, who owns the Baltimore Orioles and insists he won't field a replacement team. "My position hasn't changed," he said.

I wish someone would do a survey of major league fans and see how we feel. I have had season tickets to Dodger games for 25 years. I go for hot dogs, peanuts, Vin Scully on the radio and Nancy Bea Hefley on the organ. The players come and go and I don't really care much who's out there. The reason I would like a survey is that the way I feel is the way everyone I know feels. And that is, fire them! All of them. Jerks like Barry Bonds along with class acts like Shawn Green. All of them.

While several teams have been secretive about replacement players--the Giants, for instance, won't release their entire spring training roster until today, the sixth day of camp--the Angels have been surprisingly candid about the identities of potential strike-breakers. Their roster, which grew to 49 Tuesday with the addition of infielder Jose Peguero, was released on the first day of camp, along with biographical information and statistics for 46 of the players.

Scrap the strikers, more than half of baseball fans say. Bush leaguers would be just as entertaining as Clemens and Canseco. Fifty-one percent of fans say they would attend the same number of games next season even if replacement players are used, according to a national poll released Thursday by the Associated Press. If Griffey and Glavine won't play, fans say they would still pay to watch unknowns in big league ballparks.

Regular umpires made their return to baseball--and their first visit to new Coors Field--a successful one on Wednesday. "The reaction from the players was very gratifying," home plate umpire Bruce Froemming said after the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres, 12-7. "The first time around (the batting order), when everybody came up, they said, 'Nice seeing you guys back."' Then Froemming added with a laugh, "A couple of days from now they may not be thinking that."

Three players impressed the Angels enough during replacement spring training to earn assignments to the team's triple-A affiliate in Vancouver, where they will be teammates of several 40-man roster players who were on strike for almost eight months. Tony Mack, who went 1-2 with a 2.77 earned-run average; Darrel Akerfelds, who was 1-0 with a 1.80 ERA, and infielder Jose Peguero, who hit .333 with eight runs batted in, were among 20 replacement players reassigned to the minors.

The left-hander who works in the car-detailing business zipped a fastball into the mitt of the Home Depot department manager Friday, and with that the Angels' 1995 spring training camp was in full swing. Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann and his coaching staff--including Rod Carew and Rick Burleson--plus General Manager Bill Bavasi and assistant GM Tim Mead were all on the Gene Autry Park field as workouts for pitchers and catchers began, lending a big-league air to the proceedings.

Larry Bowa, a coach with the Philadelphia Phillies, isn't eagerly anticipating a major league baseball season with replacement players. In fact, he says, he's "frothing at the mouth" over what he has seen in spring training and what he expects to see when the season begins next Sunday, providing it is not delayed. Bowa, at least, still cares. Does anyone else? How rampant is the apathy on the sidewalks and sandlots? How deep are the wounds?

The NFL's first job action in 14 years means replacement officials on the field for exhibition games and increased concerns about player safety. Just as in 1987, when the NFL used replacement players for three regular-season contests, the games will go on. Ten officials will work each game this weekend, beginning tonight. They will be rotated in and out, both to provide a break and determine who are the best.

Coley Kyman had waited four years for the phone call he received Thursday night. His dream of making a living playing beach volleyball hadn't quite expired, but the meter was running low. Dan Greenbaum, the captain of Team Paul Mitchell, needed a fourth player for this weekend's Bud Light Volleyball League tournament, and his team also needed a little inspiration, having failed to win a tournament this season after capturing the league title the previous year.

Further proof that sports is just the toy department of life. The toy department: In a lifetime spent rooting against the Dodgers, few players have irritated me more than Brett Butler. While I always admired his skills, his style of play can be maddening if you're pulling for the other team. And off the field, his brashness has led him to take public positions (on the replacement players, for example) that I find truly annoying. The life department: Yet within seconds after reading that Butler has cancer, I found myself one of his biggest supporters in the game of life.

For 43 springs he could be found in the clubhouses of old stadiums in Florida and Arizona. Now his home away from home is the clubhouse of Sunset Country Club near his Thousand Oaks home. Just one of the boys, telling fibs about that 12-foot putt on No. 17, says Sparky Anderson, who, for the first time since he came out of Dorsey High and signed with the Dodgers in 1953 as a middle infielder, isn't going to spring training.

Most of his "big-number guys," among the favorite phrases of Long Beach State baseball Coach Dave Snow, play for pay now. Newcomers might make Long Beach better defensively, but what about leadership? Big West Conference neighbor Cal State Fullerton--the 1995 College World Series champion--is still far ahead of the pack.

February 19 "We're not even replacement players, we're fill-ins. We do our job until they get their [stuff] together, then they take over." --Pete Kuld, 28, a former Chatsworth High catcher and replacement player for Cleveland Indians during the major league baseball players' strike.

Baseball's replacement season was put on hold Saturday, pending the results of a lockout vote at Sunday's owners meeting in Chicago. Acting Commissioner Bud Selig said Sunday night's scheduled replacement-player opener between the New York Mets and Florida Marlins was being postponed. Sunday's final exhibition games, including the last game of the Freeway Series between the California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, were canceled.

New York Yankee pitcher David Pavlas was the only replacement player voted a share of postseason money by the regular players. As the Dodgers vowed, Mike Busch was voted nothing. Busch was 4 for 17 (.235) with three home runs and six runs batted in after serving as a strike-replacement player. The only other replacement who got postseason money besides Pavlas, who got $250, was Jose Mota of the Kansas City Royals, but all players on the major league roster from June 1 on got a full share.