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Sunday, March 23, 2003

By Robert Dvorchak, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

BRADENTON, Fla. -- Camp McClendon, Phase III, had a different feel to it from the start. That's different as in better. "This is the most experience and most depth I've had since I've been here," Pirates Manager Lloyd McClendon said last week as the Pirates worked toward filling the final spots on the 25-man roster.

	Lloyd McClendon on 2001: "Jim Leyland told me that I'll have better teams and win more games, but I'll never do a better job just for holding things together." (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette)

"If we pitch the way we're capable of pitching and guys perform the way they can perform, it's going to be an interesting year for us. I don't know what it's going to equate to. But I certainly like our chances of having a successful year."

Does success mean being in the race in September? Posting the franchise's first winning record in a decade? Reaching a certain number of wins?

McClendon, in his third year as manager, is about as forthcoming as a riverboat gambler when he says, "Performing better than we did last year."

In the past two years, McClendon had to play the cards he was dealt, and those cards didn't win many pots. The poker hand is stronger this time.

McClendon has a healthy Kris Benson for the first time. His starting rotation -- even if it is all right-handed -- and bullpen are as strong and as deep as they have been. He has added experienced major-league players in Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton, Matt Stairs and Randall Simon. Jason Kendall and Aramis Ramirez showed signs in the spring that they would bounce back from sub-par seasons. Even the bench has more substance over the threadbare group McClendon has had in reserve.

While he may not yet be able to rubber stamp his lineup card on a daily basis, McClendon at least has enough stability to order a mold -- starting with a leadoff hitter in Lofton.

"If we stay healthy, this will be the most talented team I will have had on the field. It gives you a certain comfort level as a manager," McClendon said. "It gives you a fighting chance. But it all has to play out, and guys have to stay healthy. We still walk a fine line with injuries. We're vulnerable if we get hit in the wrong spot."

For a team that lost 89 games last year, there weren't that many jobs available, which meant the spring battles were concentrated on a few key spots instead of having an open competition. In fact, General Manager Dave Littlefield kept adding players like Sanders and Lofton as camp progressed, a refreshing change from years past when the Pirates lost players to injury and searched minor-league camp for stopgap replacements.

"It's a little different this year," McClendon said. "It's the first sign of becoming a good club when you don't have seven, eight, nine spots open."

Strange days

It's a nightmare that nobody wants to revisit, but the best way to underscore how far the Pirates have come in a short time is to conjure the camp two years ago.

That was the year the Pirates expected a rebirth from moving into PNC Park had a chance to make history. The only historic thing about it was that it ranked among the franchise's worst years.

Camp began with a public snit by John Vander Wal over whether he'd get his at-bats because Cam Bonifay had signed Derek Bell to play right field. The feeling in the clubhouse was that if that was the biggest problem the team had in camp things would be OK. It turned out to be small potatoes compared to the real woes that followed.

	The times that try a Manager’s soul Spring 2001: Even before Lloyd McClendon manages his first game, three-fifths of his pitching rotation is out with arm problems, capped by the disabling of Kris Benson. June 25, 2001: McClendon makes his memorable “steal” of first base, right. Oct. 6, 2001: The club loses its 100th game of the year, 13-2 to the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Spring 2002: Derek Bell’s “Operation Shutdown” doctrine dogs Camp II. Bell would be gone soon after, but $4.5 million richer and with a place in Pirates infamy secure. Sept. 28, 2002: Critics rise up when it gets out that McClendon passed out champagne for a win that assured the club would not lose 100 games for a second year.

Within the space of a week, 60 percent of the rotation -- Jason Schmidt, Francisco Cordova and Benson -- were injured. In a bit of gallows humor, McClendon said he would have hanged himself if not for the fear that the tree limb would break.

In addition, the entire camp was disrupted when the Pirates went to Mexico City for a two-game series with the Devil Rays, and infielder Mike Benjamin blew out his elbow. A few days later, center fielder Adrian Brown came down with a shoulder problem at about the same time he was named the starter. Essentially, both were done for the year.

The extraordinary became commonplace. Blue chip prospect Chad Hermansen, since traded, reported to camp wearing a toupee. Pitcher Balvino Galvez, who hadn't pitched in the major leagues in 15 years, had the team made because so many pitchers went down. But he stalked off the field during a pickoff drill -- actually, he flung a ball into the stands when he was told to do it over -- and was not heard from again. So much for what Bonifay called his "secret weapon."

"Before we left camp, Cam told me he was sorry," McClendon recalled. "That meant I wasn't getting any help."

Pitchers who failed to make the cut this year could have been No. 2 or No. 3 starters on that team.

The drumbeat of bad news continued unabated into the season. Terry Mulholland, signed as a reliever, was inserted into the rotation and his knee was injured in the second game of the season. Jason Kendall's catching thumb was injured in the first week of the season and he had his worst year as a pro.

Just about the time Kevin McClatchy bowed to fans' demands that bottled water be allowed in PNC Park, reliever Jose Silva took a line drive that broke his right leg during a game. The next batch of bottled water should have come from Lourdes.

By early June, Bonifay was fired. Not only was Bell a flop, he got into a dugout scrap with his manager. Pat Meares hit a paltry .211. And a rebuilding phase began at the trading deadline.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the season came on the night McClendon stole first base -- he yanked it off its anchorage, tucked it under his arm and flung it into the dugout after he was ejected for arguing a call with the first base umpire.

"Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong," McClendon said. "If I survived that, I can survive anything. And I'm a better manager for going through it. Jim Leyland told me that I'll have better teams and win more games, but I'll never do a better job just for holding things together."

Slow improvement

Things began to turn around last spring. Kip Wells and Josh Fogg were acquired in a trade to stabilize the pitching staff, and closer Mike Williams returned as a free agent. There was a derby for all five rotation spots, and free-agent Ron Villone was the opening-day starter.

Not that everything went smoothly. Bell went into "Operation Shutdown" and sailed off into the sunset on his yacht, his guaranteed paycheck in hand. Meares never recovered from hand surgery and failed to play a game, but second baseman Pokey Reese was brought aboard as a free agent to improve the infield defense.

The Pirates posted a winning record in April. But to show just how thin they were, their season turned south April 17 when Aramis Ramirez's right ankle was injured in a brawl with the Brewers. The offense went on crutches with him. Ramirez, who had batted .300 with 34 home runs and 112 RBIs in 2001, struggled to regain his form after the injury. Opponents dealt with the only threat the Pirates had by pitching around Brian Giles.

The Pirates improved by 11 games in McClendon's second year, but the season's end had its own brand of controversy.

On the final weekend in Chicago, the manager bought some champagne and poured it into Gatorade cups. He toasted his players for the effort they put out, saying that they were short on talent but not short on heart and the next time the bubbly flowed would be when they won a title. There was no mention of having avoided 90 losses.

But the perception became that players were dousing themselves with champagne. Everything gets magnified when you lose.

All of that is behind him now, but McClendon lost the bulk of his coaching staff a week after the season ended. And nary a week will go by this year that someone doesn't bring up the fact his contract wasn't extended and that he's in the final year of a three-year contract.

In this game, it is often said that managers never have a good day, because they're always under the microscope. McClendon dismisses his contract status as a nonissue, and he draws a line of demarcation between comfort and security.

"I've shown what kind of manager I am," McClendon said. "If this organization wants to move in another direction, then I'll go make somebody else better. Managing to me is getting guys to believe in a common goal, then preparing them every day to achieve that goal. Our players need me most when they're down. That's when you grab the flag and say, 'Follow me, guys; we can make it.'"

Seven days from now, Camp McClendon III becomes history, and getting the job done begins in earnest.