Buck and Davey will give the A.L. a double-switch

Sporting News, The, Oct 23, 1995 by Bob Nightengale

We're trying to figure out what would be a more idiotic decision: Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner firing Manager Buck Showalter, or Showalter accepting a contract to return.

Showalter, who has been in the Yankees organization since 1988 as a minor league player, coach and manager, was asked the other day if he wanted to return. There were 10 seconds of silence on the telephone before he answered.

"I'm very proud of the fact that we've improved every year in some form or fashion," Showalter said. "If our work is perceived as something that they'd want to see continue, under the right circumstances, I'd be interested."

Prediction: Showalter, who stripped his office wars of all pictures and memorabilia, will manage the Orioles next season. The Orioles are courting Tony La Russa for the second consecutive year, but he isn't sure he wants to work for an organization that doesn't have a general manager in place and doesn't seem to have a game plan other than spending a lot of money. "What if you hire a G.M. and he doesn't want me as manager?" La Russa asked Orioles Owner Peter Angelos. "Don't you think you should hire the G.M. first?"

La Russa can have the job in St. Louis, where a G.M. - Walt Jocketty, who worked for years with La Russa in Oakland and wants to work with him again - already is in place. La Russa is leery about having to do double-switches and learn National League tendencies after all these years in the American League, but he also notes that Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams were successful in both leagues. The Cardinals were awful in 1995, but La Russa also knows that ownership made a bigger commitment last year after President Mark Lamping and Jocketty came aboard - bringing in Ken Hill, Danny Jackson and Scott Cooper. No one expected those moves to backfire.

Meanwhile, Davey Johnson is a prime candidate to move into the Bronx if Showalter leaves. Johnson, whose Reds suffered a dismal sweep in the N.L. Championship Series, didn't walk away from Atlanta without reiterating his belief that he could coexist with Boss George.

"I know he's very clear about what he wants done with the club," Johnson says, "but I think he just wants to win. I'm not good at being a yes-man, but I'm really a pretty easygoing guy. I'm known for being a little hard-headed, but in this game you have to have opinions. I've never felt like there's anybody I couldn't work with."

In Johnson, Steinbrenner would get his first manager who has won a world championship somewhere else. And in New York, no less. Johnson has dealt with the controversy there, media criticism, Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden at their best and worst, and he has dealt with Marge Schott. As Bill Madden of the New York Daily News notes, Johnson would bring to the job a winning pedigree and a pooper scooper. If there is such a thing as the perfect manager for Steinbrenner, Johnson might be it.

As for Johnson's replacement in Cincinnati, expect a rude awakening for Ray Knight Considering the drastic managerial differences between Johnson and Knight, the Reds will be little more than a .500 team in 1996.

Braves in 6

The Braves themselves will tell you that no one in his right mind expected a sweep. The reds were dangerous, coming off a three-game sweep of the Dodgers, and setting up a rotation with three lefthanders designed to stop the Braves' offense.

There was only one problem.

The Reds forgot how to hit, and Reggie Sanders had a postseason that will be remembered as one of the worst. He never hit the ball out of the infield against the Braves, batting .125 while striking out 10 times in 16 at-bats. Since homering off Dodgers starter Ismael Valdes in Game 2 of the Division Series, Sanders batted .095 with 16 strikeouts and two double-play ground balls in 21 at-bats. "It happened," Sanders says, "and I have to deal with it. I'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be back."

The Braves, meanwhile, will win the World Series in six. After dominating the N.L. in the 1990s, this is their year.

Solved mystery

One of baseball's longest mysteries is over. Pitcher Jason Grimsley confessed he was responsible for swiping Albert Belle's corked bat from the unpire's dressing room last year in Chicago.

The incident began when White Sox Manager Gene Lamont challenged the legality of Belle's bat, and umpire Davey Phillips had the bat removed to the umpires' dressing room. Grimsley, knowing Belle's bat was corked, scouted the layout of the various offices in Comiskey Park from the ground level.

Then, with a vague blue-print in his mind, he climbed to the crawl space over the visitors' clubhouse with a flashlight, in a space four feet wide by three feet high. He thought he had reached the umpires' dressing room, lifted the tile - and in horror, realized he was looking into the groundskeepers' room, where they were sitting and chatting. He quietly replaced the file and moved on.

Grimsley finally found the umpires' dressing room, climbed down and replaced Belle's bat with one that belonged to Paul Sorrento; unfortunately, Belle did not own one bat that wasn't corked.