He’s Yankee for Love, Money : Sax Still Says Dodgers Didn’t Show Him Either in Negotiations

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. â€”  His recollections of those final negotiations with the Dodgers still leave a bad taste and he has no regrets about accepting a free-agent offer from the New York Yankees, Steve Sax said Monday.

In the waning hours of February, a long way from the Bronx Zoo and the first salvo from Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, Sax also seemed to say he will be better prepared for the 1989 season than if he were still training at Dodgertown.

“I loved it there, but I just think I get more work in here,� he said. “There’s not as much standing around. Every minute is accounted for. It’s more organized, efficient and businesslike. The team is loose, but the workouts are more regimented and I like that. It reminds me of the way my dad ruled our house with an iron hand.�

The strong-willed Dallas Green wields the hammer as Yankee manager. No interruptions, please, as he attempts to instill discipline and a team concept. Reporters must leave the clubhouse 30 minutes before workouts begin and are not allowed beyond the dirt track in front of the dugouts until work is over. In other words, keep off the grass.

In addition, there is no need for a Dodgertown-type road map. The three diamonds at the Yankee complex are back to back to back. No autograph-seeking, camera-toting fans clog the pathways as they do at Vero Beach.

“The clubhouse is bigger, the batting cages are better and you don’t get bogged down by people walking up to you in the middle of a workout,� Sax said.

“I’m happy here. I like it a lot.�

What would he be expected to say after only one week with his new team?

Will the euphoria last or will the pinstripes turn to poison?

Doesn’t he think he might have made the wrong decision?

“I did all my thinking before I made the decision,� he said.

“I had 11 wonderful years with the Dodgers, but I haven’t once regretted that decision. I’ll miss the friendships, but there was no comparison between the contracts. On sheer economics, there was no problem leaving.�

Sax signed with the Yankees on Nov. 23 and said then that it went beyond economics to a difference in tone.

He said then that he was made to feel wanted by the Yankees but shown little respect by his own Dodgers. He said that Executive Vice President Fred Claire treated him with aloofness, as if he were a “punk� kid.

Sax said he still develops a “bad taste� when he weighs that treatment against his 11 years with the organization and his contributions as an offensive catalyst, particularly during the Dodgers’ improbable march to their 1988 World Series victory.

“I came in with a positive attitude, expecting to hammer out a new contract in 15 or 20 minutes, but never got close,� Sax said. “They made me feel that I was lucky they were even talking to me.

“I guess I had my hopes up and shouldn’t have. I guess it was vain to think I’d be treated special.

“You hear all that stuff about the Dodger family. Well, they convinced me that my family lives at home.�

The Dodgers began the negotiations with an offer of $2.3 million for two years, then went to $3.2 million for three years and finally $3.5 for three. Sax and his agent, Jerry Kapstein, wanted $3.9 for three and eventually got a three-year, $4-million guarantee from the Yankees.

In addition, the New York contract guarantees Sax $350,000 in commercial opportunities, provided $50,000 in moving expenses and stipulates that he will receive $100,000 if traded in any of the three years and $100,000 if sent to the minors in that time.

The Dodgers, Sax said, assumed a take-it-or-leave-it stance from the start and, at one point, Claire told him, “ ‘If you think you’re getting screwed, go somewhere else.’ So, I did. I made my own business decision and feel good about it.

“The most upsetting thing is that Fred keeps saying he wasn’t given the right of first refusal, but for nine straight days we told him what it would take (the $3.9 million). The last time Jerry told him, I thought it had finally sunk in, but apparently not.

“We didn’t come back to him with the Yankee offer because I wasn’t going to shop it around. I wasn’t going to do my free-agent business that way. I would have taken less to sign with the Dodgers, and Fred knew what it was. We dealt with the Dodgers in good faith. I thought they’d treat me professionally, but it was the Yankees who did.�

There have been unconfirmed reports that Steinbrenner tricked the Dodgers by failing to file his $4-million offer with the owners’ information bank. The Dodgers, according to the reports, were under the assumption that the Yankees had not gone beyond a $3.4-million offer and, thus, they did not have to improve their $3.5-million offer.

Whatever happened, Sax is only concerned now about the present and future.

“Same show, different channel,� he said.

Different league and different coast, too, but he said that he was going to move his family anyway, leaving the smog and traffic of Los Angeles for a house he is having built near his hometown of Sacramento. During the summer, he will rent a house in New Jersey.

Asked what advice he would give Sax for coping with the club and fan environment, Tommy John smiled and said, “Ride with the tide. Sit back, stay away from it, and hope you get off to a good start.�

Said Sax: “All I can do is give 100%. I can’t worry about things I have no control over. It’s like anything. If you do well, people like you. If you do badly, they don’t. Willie Randolph (who is now taking Sax’s former position with the Dodgers) played here for 13 years and never had a problem. I don’t expect to either, but ask me in September.�

It was only last October, during the playoff against the New York Mets, that Sax responded to rude fan treatment by suggesting that urban renewal start with a widespread detonation.

He now dismisses that as heat-of-the-moment rhetoric and said he has always enjoyed the zeal of New York fans and hopes to show them similar enthusiasm.

“I know that the owner and manager are committed to winning, and I share that commitment,� Sax said. “I’ve been on two world champions and I’d like to make it more.�

Manager Green said he strongly encouraged the Yankees to pursue Sax because he is a player who will do anything to win, understands the concept of “situation baseball� and “knows how to spell team.�

Sax, who has a .282 career average and batted .277 with 42 stolen bases as the Dodger leadoff man last season, will hit second, behind Rickey Henderson.

“I look for him to do what Jim Gilliam did for the Dodgers when Maury Wills was in his prime,� Green said of Sax’s ability to hit behind the runner and take pitches when Henderson steals.

“We now have two rabbits to worry the defense and give us guys in scoring position for Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield and whoever else is batting behind them.�

There is a chance, too, that another Sax will be in the lineup. Steve’s brother Dave, a catcher-infielder who was also once in the Dodger organization and spent last year at Buffalo in the Pittsburgh Pirate system, also signed with the Yankees as a free agent. The only guarantee in a contract also negotiated by Kapstein is that he will be given a chance to make the team.

A package deal? Dave Sax smiled and said that it was only to the extent that Steve’s signing might have made the Yankees more willing to sign him as well.

The brothers last played together in 1983, when Dave was up briefly with the Dodgers. Asked about Steve’s departure, Dave Sax said:

“He had been with the Dodgers so long, had such a good career for them, was so popular with teammates and fans, and wanted so much to stay that I know he was shocked and disappointed when it didn’t work out.

“I also think he’s not looking back and regards this as a new challenge. He’d like to show the Dodgers they made a mistake and the Yankees they didn’t.�