Yankees Put Howe To Work Front-Office Duties Will Satisfy Probation Order That He Has Job

While 10 Texas Rangers players walked out of spring training camp Saturday rather than agree to play exhibition games, Steve Howe checked into the New York Yankees camp.

But Howe wasn’t becoming a strikebreaker. As part of his probation from a 1992 drug conviction, he has to have a job. So the Yankees hired him to work in the office at Fort Lauderdale Stadium for $772 a week.

“The bottom line is this is a condition of my probation,” said Howe, who was convicted in 1992 of attempting to possess cocaine. “I’m doing what I think is best for me and my family and to comply with what the federal government has told me I have to do.”

“Yeah, I could have gone out and flipped hamburgers at Denny’s. The important thing is that I needed to be somewhere where I could do what I needed to do to train. And it just happened to work out that I could work and be associated with the Yankees and not be in a position where I was going to harm the union, too.”

Howe, who is to make $2.3 million as a pitcher this season, won’t work out with replacement players and won’t play in exhibition games.

“Any of my players in the same situation would get the same kind of consideration from me,” Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said. “And I don’t really care about anybody in this instance, what they think, except Steve Howe and his family. This is a human thing. He needed to have a job.

“Ask yourself, for people who are not as familiar with the young man as I am, how many jobs are there available in the state of Montana? And how many of those are available for Steve Howe with what he’s been through?”

Union head Donald Fehr, who resumes negotiations with owners Monday at Scottsdale, Ariz., wasn’t bothered by the arrangement between the Yankees and Howe.

“You have a unique situation,” he said. “The probation order in Montana says he has to have a job. And while he has a right to strike, they were uncomfortable with him being on strike. What the Yankees have done is made an attempt to accommodate his situation.”

At Port Charlotte, Fla., the Rangers were unable to reach an accomodation with 10 of their minor league players.

“I let them know I wasn’t coming down here to be a replacement player. It can be a bad influence on your career and the rest of your life,” catcher Craig Colbert said. “I have two years in the big leagues and I respect what the union did for me.”

Also walking out were pitchers Dave Geeve, Steve Sadecki and Lance Schuermann; infielders Marty Brown, Mike Edwards, Erik Johnson, Rich Schu and Duff Brumley; and outfielder Donald Harris.

Infielder Trey McCoy walked out, then returned and said he would decide what to do today.

Rangers spokesman John Blake said the players who left will come back when minor league camp begins in mid-March.

Exhibition games start Wednesday night, when the California Angels play Arizona State at Tempe, Ariz. Just 600 tickets have been sold for the game in Tempe Diablo Stadium, which holds 9,800 people.

“This is the first game in a very unusual situation so there will probably be more media attention than any of these guys have ever been involved in,” Angels manager Marcel Lachemann said. “Yeah, there might be some nerves.”

Philadelphia Phillies owner Bill Giles still doesn’t know if the Baltimore Orioles will show up for his team’s scheduled exhibition opener Friday at Clearwater, Fla. The Orioles say they’ll be involved only in games restricted to minor leaguers, not replacement players.

“I guess if they still have that policy, then we won’t play, but I’m not sure what their policy is,” Giles said Saturday.

Giles said he wrote to the Orioles, asking for a decision by Monday or Tuesday.

“It’s either going to be play or not play. We’re not going to play anyone else,” Giles said. “It will either be called off or they will show up with whatever they show up with.”

In the first unofficial game of the spring, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Samsung Lions of South Korea 6-1 Saturday at Vero Beach, Fla. No tickets were sold for the game, which was played on a back field.

Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda watched the first six innings of the game from the press box behind home plate.

“It was nice - first game of the year,” he said.