PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Johnny Oates liked the question, but company loyalty must first be satisfied.
"I would love nothing more than to finish my managing career for Doug Melvin, Tom Schieffer, Rusty Rose and Gov. [George W.] Bush," Oates said. "Nothing would make me happier. They've all treated me very well."
Oates paused.
"Of course, we haven't had a four-game losing streak yet," he said with a laugh.
Then he addressed the question: If Billy Martin, who went through one horrible experience after another with George Steinbrenner, could manage the New York Yankees five times, could he manage the Orioles again?
"I would like nothing more than the opportunity to prove to the man that I was a better man and a better manager than he thought I was," Oates said. "I'm just stubborn enough, just like Billy, to think I could change the man."
The man is Peter Angelos, owner of the Orioles. He fired Oates on Sept. 26 even though the manager had just led his team to a third consecutive winning season.
Angelos had reservations about Oates' public demeanor and his ability to handle pressure. There was also what Angelos perceived as an incident of severe defiance over who would play third base.
"I have nothing against Peter Angelos," Oates said. "If I needed something right now, I believe I could call Peter. There was no animosity in our meetings. It was just a judgment. He didn't hate me; he just didn't like the way I was managing the ballclub."
As Oates spoke, rain was pelting the Rangers' spring training complex. Practice was driven inside. Pitching coach Dick Bosman -- another former Oriole -- and his minor-league assistants would oversee the pitchers getting their 10 minutes of work.
Oates, sitting in the coaches' dressing room, allowed himself time to relax and reflect back to last year's troubles in Baltimore. It was a rare moment for a manager who puts on his first pot of coffee at 5 a.m. and doesn't leave the ballpark until after 5 p.m.
During the session, minor-league executive Monty Clegg walked through the dressing room, and Oates asked him about the afternoon basketball games being held by some of the staff after practice.
"When are we going to get you out there?" Clegg asked.
"You guys play too early," Oates said with only a trace of a smile. "I'm still working, having meetings. You have to wait until later for me to play."
There's no doubt that Oates and his staff run a tight camp with few frills and no nonsense. The trademark sound is camp director Reid Nichols' air horn, which reverberates through the camp every 10 minutes and keeps players moving briskly from station to station.
Oates has yet to be heard singing, but he does have a commanding presence. During a pop-up drill, he needed five minutes to make sure minor-league manager Bobby Jones had the pop-up machine set right.
"We don't want them to have too much time to react," Oates yelled out. "We want them to react quickly."
Yet Monday, Oates was content to sit in the clubhouse and talk to the media while his pitchers were throwing. There was an ulterior motive. A group of writers who covered the Orioles had driven down from Sarasota, Fla. He knew their visit was inevitable, and it was time to get it over with.
"I probably took it more personally, getting fired as a manager, than I did getting released as a player," said Oates, who was a second- and third-string catcher for most of his 11 seasons in the majors.
"I knew as a player I couldn't throw anymore, so it didn't bother me. I knew as a player I was through. I knew it was time when Danny Ainge stole home on me. He was on third, I bounced a throw to second, and Ainge walked home."
Oates paused, and a smile worked its way through the granite facade as he thought of the NBA star's futile attempt to be a baseball player.
"I don't know how Danny Ainge got to third base," Oates said. "He got to third base about as often as I did in my career."
Oates immediately turned serious again.
"But when I got fired as a manager, I thought, 'How many people have I let down?' " Oates said. "I felt I was letting down people when we weren't supposed to lose any ballgames."
He was fired because he couldn't please Angelos, even when he did agree to use Leo Gomez at third base instead of Chris Sabo. Gomez was an Angelos favorite. Sabo had signed a lucrative contract in the off-season and wasn't living up to it with his bat.
"I really believe that if Chris Sabo had played the way we thought he would play, none of this would have come up," Oates said.
But Sabo struggled, and the order came down in midseason from Angelos -- through intermediaries -- that Gomez would play and Sabo sit.
"It's his ballclub; he can do what he wants," Oates said. "If he wants to pick out eight or nine guys for the lineup, that's fine. As manager, I'm going to tell him why not. Then he can do what he wants. But I'm going to voice my opinion. I don't think I was compromising my principles."
What Oates didn't realize was Angelos wanted Gomez there every day, the same way Cal Ripken plays every day at shortstop. Because a few days later, the Orioles had a doubleheader against Cleveland. Oates played Gomez in the first game and Sabo in the second game, a natural move for a doubleheader.
Angelos, by all accounts, was livid.
"It never entered my mind, by not playing Gomez in the second game, that I was defying the owner," Oates said. "But I know Peter looked at that as defying him. They wanted to know why I played Sabo at third base."
Oates asked if Gomez was the everyday third baseman (which means occasional rest) or was supposed to play every day. The answer was clear. Gomez started every game the rest of the season.
On Aug. 12, the players went on strike. The Orioles were in second place, 6 1/2 games out. Oates and Angelos talked that morning. They haven't talked since.
"I believe that I'm a better man and a better manager for having gone through it," Oates said. "I let a lot of negative feelings affect me. I started fighting it, and it started snowballing.
"I didn't get smart overnight and I didn't get dumb overnight, and I thought I had. The next time I go through something like that, I won't let people who don't know me or who I am affect my feelings and beliefs."