VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Orioles owner Peter Angelos has been trying to steer clear of controversy the past few weeks, but it always seems to find him.
Last week, there was the report that he had refused the San Diego Padres permission to interview assistant general manager Frank Robinson, then his much-publicized change of heart. Two days later, there was his decision to inform competing teams that the Orioles would only play spring games against legitimate minor-league players.
The weekend brought another headline -- atop a report in yesterday's Los Angeles Times that Angelos had offered the Orioles managerial position to Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda last September.
Last night, Angelos said he had considered Lasorda.
"We were interested in Lasorda," Angelos said. "I talked to [Dodgers owner Peter] O'Malley, but O'Malley decided to keep him. This was back before we put the [manager search] committee together. . . .
"I talked to O'Malley. O'Malley said he wanted Tommy back. They worked it out -- I think the next day. That was the end of it."
Lasorda was quoted as telling the Times: "I could have gone there. I talked to Mr. Angelos. But I didn't out of loyalty. I wasn't going to turn my back on Mr. O'Malley and the Dodgers."
Lasorda disavowed that quote yesterday, perhaps out of deference to Angelos, but the story -- true or not -- is just part of a bigger one about the way Angelos has been received and perceived during his first 17 months as a baseball owner.
It didn't exactly shake the rafters at Camden Yards. Angelos threw a lot of names around during the search for a replacement for Johnny Oates, and no one would be particularly surprised to learn that he was considering possible candidates even before he let Oates know that he wouldn't be retained Sept. 26.
What makes the revelation newsworthy is the fact that -- if true -- it would be another case of Angelos inadvertently running afoul of baseball convention and talking to an employee of another club without permission. In this case, one of the clubs that still is friendly with the Orioles.
"If it happened, he clearly was out of line," Dodgers general manager Fred Claire said, "because Tommy still was under contract to the Dodgers. Tommy wasn't going anywhere. It was never an issue that he was coming back."
Claire said that Angelos eventually did call O'Malley to ask permission to speak to Lasorda on Sept. 22 or 23, but that apparently was after the phone call to Lasorda and after Lasorda had agreed to a contract extension with the Dodgers.
Lasorda's name never was prominent in the Orioles' managerial hunt. The club was refused permission to talk to Pittsburgh Pirates manager Jim Leyland, New York Yankees manager Buck Showalter and Oakland Athletics manager Tony La Russa. The Orioles turned instead to a list of candidates that included Davey Lopes, Davey Johnson, Elrod Hendricks, Bill Virdon, Jeff Torborg, Buck Rodgers and Chris Chambliss before eventually hiring Phil Regan.
"I never turned down a job with the O's," Lasorda said yesterday. "The only time he talked to me was to ask my opinion of [coaching candidate] Merv Rettenmund. He didn't call me about that, so how could I say that when it wasn't offered?"
The Dodgers manager was surprisingly sensitive about the Times report, though it wasn't a major story in Los Angeles. He insisted over and over that Angelos only called him for a reference on Rettenmund -- who would become a prominent candidate for Orioles hitting coach a few weeks later -- but it seems curious that the Orioles would go to Lasorda for a reference on someone he had never worked with.
"I don't know what happened," said Rettenmund, who was reached by telephone at San Diego Padres training camp in Peoria, Ariz. "I don't know Lasorda more than to say hi."
Angelos isn't looking for this kind of publicity, especially so soon after A's general manager Sandy Alderson blasted him for the way he handled the managerial search. The A's denied permission to talk to La Russa, but that didn't keep his name from surfacing as a leading candidate for the Orioles' job at a time when the A's were trying to sign him to a contract extension.
The La Russa flap may cost the Orioles a chance to reschedule the Aug. 18 game in which Cal Ripken is scheduled to break Lou Gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games. The Orioles are scheduled to be in Oakland on that date, and the A's have made it clear they will not cooperate in the attempt to alter the schedule.
It probably won't be the last time that Angelos feels the pinch because of his maverick approach to club ownership. He has come under heavy criticism for his failure to go along with baseball's hard-line labor strategy in the long-running labor dispute, and figures to find other owners reluctant to deal with him after the labor dispute is over.