Gillick

Orioles general manager Pat Gillick says he hopes his pending departure from the organization won't jeopardize a gradual transition from free agency toward player development as the primary means of stocking a perennial contender.Gillick advocates that the Orioles adhere to "a five-year plan" for making themselves more self-sufficient. "That allows proper development," he says. "It's very difficult to put a lot of young people together on a club at one time. The ideal way is to try to add one [rookie]

The 1998 season was an embarrassment. The fans are as disgusted as they've been in a decade. But don't ask for accountability down at 333 W. Camden St.Two words you'll never hear from the Orioles:My fault.The owner blames the front office, and vice versa. The manager blames the players, and vice versa. Everyone blames injuries, because that's the easiest excuse of all."Certainly, I'm accountable, but so are the players," manager Ray Miller said Friday night. "I'll take some of the blame, but I won't take it all."

BOSTON -- Too late to salvage a winning record, manager Ray Miller began to place the Orioles' frustrating season into perspective yesterday.After Scott Erickson and a rejuvenated offense powered past the Boston Red Sox, 5-2, at Fenway Park, Miller strongly suggested that front office uncertainty factored in the first-half meltdown that pushed baseball's costliest roster toward a fourth-place finish. Ending a six-game slide while winning for the second time in 12 games helped Miller's mood.

General manager Pat Gillick made it official yesterday. He announced what everyone had assumed for the past several weeks -- that he does not intend to remain with the club beyond the Nov. 26 expiration date on his three-year contract.Gillick, 61, who came out of retirement to replace Roland Hemond as general manager in November 1995, presided over Orioles teams that went to the playoffs in 1996 and 1997. But he will leave after a disappointing 1998 season in which the club failed to live up to the biggest payroll in the history of baseball.

Of all the things Ray Miller wants to be remembered for in a professional baseball career that began in 1964, this isn't one of them.Though it wasn't his call to end The Streak, he'll forever be known as the manager of record when it happened. Cal Ripken walked into Miller's office 30 minutes before the game and asked to be taken out of the lineup. Miller obliged, and the rest is history.Not long before, Miller had sat behind the desk in his office, twirling a cigar in his fingers and relaying his intentions of starting Ripken for the last week of the season.

The Orioles have cleared a significant hurdle in their search for a successor to general manager Pat Gillick: The Cleveland Indians granted them permission to interview assistant general manager Dan O'Dowd. But access to O'Dowd, a leading candidate, is conditional, according to sources familiar with the talks.Indians owner Richard Jacobs and general manager John Hart stipulated that O'Dowd's availability is contingent upon an agreement that no Indians personnel follow O'Dowd to Baltimore for a specified length of time.

Would-be general managers are lining up for one of the best-paying off-the-field positions in baseball, or any sport. Peter Angelos pays well. He enticed Pat Gillick out of the retirement pasture for a salary of $2.4 million for three years.Gillick is now taking a hike, maybe a return to the Toronto Blue Jays, after spasmodic success with the Orioles. Yes, they qualified for two out of three playoffs, but 1998 has been a woeful disaster. Never has a team payroll approaching $69.7 million achieved so little.

Davey Johnson was on the phone, talking about all that was for the Orioles, and all that might have been under general manager Pat Gillick and former assistant GM Kevin Malone."

Speculation continues to grow that new Los Angles Dodgers general manager Kevin Malone will try to hire Orioles GM Pat Gillick as a special consultant when Gillick's contract runs out Nov. 26.Malone didn't do anything to squelch the speculation yesterday when a Los Angeles reporter asked him how such a scenario would affect the status of Dodgers vice president Tom Lasorda."

Kevin Malone is gone. Pat Gillick is going. How do we assess their three years as the Orioles' architects?Not easily.It would be no problem if they'd had unchecked authority to make trades, choose managers and do all the things high front-office officials do in a normal organizational arrangement. Accountability is easily judged then.But Gillick and Malone didn't have unchecked authority. Orioles owner Peter Angelos had opinions that counted, and his overruled those of Gillick and Malone on several key decisions.