Baseball / Gordon Edes : Giants’ Management Edits Craig’s Column Right Out of Paper

Who says Jim Murray couldn’t manage the Dodgers? It was Page 1 news in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day when the Giants ordered Manager Roger Craig to cease writing a column for the paper.

“Giants Yank Craig From Chronicle,” the headline blared. In the story, club President Al Rosen explained his reasons for taking Craig out of circulation.

“In the heat of a pennant fight, a manager has so many things to deal with that are mental in nature, and outside activities can be mentally exhausting,” Rosen said.

“I think it’s wearing on Roger. If it isn’t now, it would get to be mentally debilitating. He’s got one master at the moment, and that’s the ballclub.”

And ballclub executives apparently weren’t too happy about the negative public reaction to a column by Craig after the recent brawl between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in which the manager praised his team’s combative conduct.

Craig said he would like to have kept his byline.

“But I’m a manager, not a sportswriter,” he said. “And it’s hard to do both.”

Pittsburgh Chain Saw Massacre: After being beaten by Rick Rhoden last week, the Giants joined the list of those accusing the Pirate pitcher of scuffing the baseballs.

Said catcher Bob Brenly: “Why don’t they just throw away the rule book and give him a chain saw?”

But George Steinbrenner knows he exists: The biography of catcher Ron Hassey, who was sent last week from the New York Yankees to the Chicago White Sox, cannot be found in the 1986 media guide of any big league club.

Last Dec. 12, Hassey was traded from the Yankees to the White Sox, along with pitcher Joe Cowley, in the Britt Burns deal.

On Feb. 13, Hassey was sent back to the Yankees for three minor leaguers and pitcher Neil Allen.

Then last Tuesday, the White Sox traded Ron Kittle, Joel Skinner and Wayne Tolleson to the Yankees, and it was back to Chicago for Hassey, now a teammate of Cowley and Allen.

Hassey, unlike many former Yankees happy to leave the Bronx zoo, was sorry to go.

“I thought I did everything they asked of me here,” Hassey said. “I did it without complaint. Maybe that was the problem. I was happy here.”

And St. Louis is on the Nile: On his first trip into Chicago, Padre rookie John Kruk, a native of Keyser, W.Va., looked out the window, saw the water below, and asked: “What ocean is that?”

On his second trip, Kruk said: “I know that’s Lake Michigan. Before, I thought it was the Mediterranean.”

Tom Landry was in London: A local radio station in Dallas surveyed listeners for their choice as sexiest man in the area. The winner: Texas Ranger Manager Bobby Valentine.

Meet George Jetson: Houston reliever Charlie Kerfeld wears a Jetsons T-shirt when he pitches, an indication of his devotion to the space-age cartoon family.

“They’ve got a rock video out, too,” Kerfeld said. “Some band does the music. It’s great.”

A GQ kind of guy: New York Met pitcher Ron Darling, profiled in the August issue of the men’s fashion magazine, appreciated that the story went beyond his earned-run average.

But he didn’t like the way some of his comments about Manager Davey Johnson came out, among them the following passage:

“Davey Johnson hasn’t spoken to me three times all season. He doesn’t believe in communicating with his players. Some players maybe--Ray Knight and Keith Hernandez--but not pitchers. Pitchers are not players, you understand, and Davey was a player.

” . . . I think he could get more out of his people if he’d say something. Not much, just a verbal pat on the back. Pitching, after all, is a roller-coaster ride through the land of confidence.”

What the magazine didn’t write, Darling said, was that he also said most managers don’t converse with their players. “What I said was . . . he gets on me because he wants me to do well. He reminds me of my father.”

Add GQ: Johnson’s reaction to the story?

“No one likes to be described by someone else unless it’s funny or flattering.”

The best trades are the ones never made: In 1982, the Chicago Cubs almost traded reliever Lee Smith to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitcher Warren Brusstar, outfielders Dick Davis and George Vukovich, and an unnamed fourth player.

With his next save, Smith will tie Bruce Sutter’s club record of 133.

Four more years: The Montreal Expos recently recalled pitcher Dave Tomlin, 37, who returns to the majors 20 years after signing his first pro contract.

“I want to pitch professionally in four decades,” said Tomlin, who has pitched for the Reds, Padres, Pirates and the Expos once before, in 1982.

“When I retire, they ought to cut off my arm,” he said. “They’ll find it’s bionic.”

From one blue crew to another: Umpire Rich Garcia was chief of the crew that worked the Boston Red Sox-White Sox game in which pitcher Roger Clemens was ejected for bumping umpire Greg Kosc, and pitchers Al Nipper and Bruce Hurst were tossed for verbally joining in the fray.

“I know (the Red Sox) have been going bad,” Garcia said. “They had a rough road trip, and you almost expect things like that.

“But you’re a professional athlete, and you have to learn to control your emotions. I think it was all very unprofessional of Nipper, Hurst and (second baseman Marty) Barrett to stand on the top step of the dugout and hurl obscenities at the umpires.”

Old before his time: At 38, Tom Grieve of the Rangers may be the youngest general manager in baseball, but he’s also one of the youngest participants of some of this summer’s old-timers’ games.

That’s why Warren Spahn, 65, wasn’t impressed when Grieve tripled off him in a recent game.

“You think it’s great to hit a ball on the line like that?” the Hall of Famer said to Grieve. “At your age, I was still playing. I won 100 games after that.”

Spahn, a 363-game winner who pitched until he was 44, was a 20-game winner three times after his 38th birthday and won 117 games between then and retirement.