Front Office

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Seeking to add a young mind and a fresh perspective to the Orioles' front office, Andy MacPhail announced yesterday that he has hired Matt Klentak as director of baseball operations. Klentak, 27, who spent the past four years working in Major League Baseball's Labor Relations Department, will assist MacPhail, the Orioles' president of baseball operations, with scouting, player development, contract negotiations and the overall construction of the team's major league roster.

Having had four days to swallow the hurt and assess his options, Frank Robinson is expected to tell the Orioles today that he will accept a position in the front office.Following a lengthy meeting with club president Larry Lucchino and general manager Roland Hemond, Robinson met informally with the media yesterday afternoon. After making a brief statement, the former manager participated in a one- hour question-and-answer session with members of the media.He expressed regret only that he was unable to turn over a better, and healthier, team to his successor -- and that he was unable to continue as manager through next season, the first in the new park.

There is no more time to lose. The long-term health and welfare of the Orioles' organization is at stake, and the only way to assure it is with a bold front office reorganization that will restore fan confidence and set the flagging franchise on the right course. Orioles owner Peter Angelos knows this. He wants to do the right thing and get the right results, but he doesn't want to be viewed as a knee-jerk reactionary in the wake of the club's horrible 4-32 finish. He isn't talking about it publicly yet, because he wants to make sure that whatever he decides to do during the next few weeks is about making sense and not just making headlines.

The Baltimore Orioles might be under new ownership in the near future, but club officials insist that the team will not be in turmoil while owner Eli Jacobs tests the marketability of his major-league franchise."

NEW YORK - The two-day, all-out hammering the Orioles just absorbed from the New York Yankees all but begs for an organizational response. Make a trade. Replace someone. Shake things up. At the very least, do something other than stand around saying, "Be patient, it's a long season." Patience should be viewed as a crutch, not a virtue, in the wake of yesterday's especially dismal effort, which included three early errors, five unearned runs and a fourth-inning knockout - the ugly markings of a slumping team hitting bottom.

The banker hired the farm director. That's what happened, and don't anyone deny it. Joe Foss, Orioles vice-chairman of business and finance, just appointed himself minister of baseball.You should have seen Foss at yesterday's news conference, gazing at Syd Thrift as if he were Marilyn Monroe. No one in the front office wanted Thrift, but what do those silly baseball people know?"It's our intent to make major strides in improving our farm system," Foss proclaimed, neglecting to mention that the system was progressing just fine under the evil Doug Melvin.

The Orioles will open spring training this week under new front office management. They will look toward the future with new hope for a long-term organizational turnaround. The Mike Flanagan-Jim Beattie era is about to begin in earnest. This is all very positive, considering what has been going on the past few years, but it will take some major developments in the next few weeks to put an upbeat spin on the coming season. The offseason - for all the excitement about the new front office hierarchy - turned out to be relatively short on actual on-field improvement.

Let me give you a quick assessment of the Orioles, as they're now constituted. They have a manager in Johnny Oates with no experience. They have a general manager in Roland Hemond who is afraid of the president. They have a president in Larry Lucchino who is afraid of the owner. And they have an owner in Eli Jacobs whose major concern, other than attendance figures, is whether or not Dick Cheney is coming to the game on a given night.That's the kind of front-office setup that inevitably leads to firing a manager the minute something goes wrong.

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Pat Gillick as a well-paid consultant and Kevin Malone as the next Orioles general manager? It sounds like that's what Gillick might want. And it would be the next best thing to him remaining GM."I probably wouldn't retire," Gillick said this week. "I don't want to say I'd retire. I might change my job description. I don't think I'd retire. I'm probably going to do something."But that doesn't mean Gillick, 60, will choose to stay in such a demanding role after his three-year contract expires at the end of this season.

SAN DIEGO - In the wake of the Ravens losing James Harris to Jacksonville, there is speculation that Phil Savage may become the Ravens' director of football operations. Harris, the team's pro personnel director, was hired as the Jaguars' vice president of player personnel Thursday after Savage, Jacksonville's first choice, broke off negotiations. Savage, the Ravens' director of college scouting, could be promoted to second in command in the front office next week and would be in charge of overseeing both the college and pro personnel departments, a league source said.