Campanis Finally Gets Back In Ballgame Resurfaces As Team Executive In New Independent League

He wrote the book, “The Dodgers Way to Play Baseball.”

Now the book sits on his desk here with tape covering “Dodgers” and the word “Suns” written on it so that the sequel is titled, “The Suns Way to Play Baseball.”

At 78, recovering from a stroke, Al Campanis has returned to the game as vice president of baseball operations for the recently formed Palm Springs Suns of the recently formed Western League, among the newest of 11 independent leagues.

“I’m like a boy with a new toy,” Campanis said, as he prepared for Friday night’s league opener in the colorfully refurbished stadium that was the Angels’ spring training base for more than 30 years.

Owners Don DiCarlo and Paul Scheibe estimate that they have spent more than $500,000 on stadium improvements, including the addition of field-level boxes that put patrons almost in the catcher’s lap and a $20,000 misting system for those torrid summer nights. But whether a minor-league team can make it here - the Angels ultimately gave up and moved their California League franchise to Lake Elsinore - remains to be seen.

Campanis is helping plot the future rather than looking back in anger or frustration. He had been unable to find work in an industry to which he had given more than 50 years as a player, scout and front-office executive after the fateful appearance on “Nightline” on opening night of the 1987 season from Houston.

On a show dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major-league debut, Robinson’s friend and former double-play partner with the Montreal Royals said, among other things, that blacks “may not have some of the necessities” to become major-league managers or general managers.

Those who knew Campanis best called it a breakdown in semantics rather than an accurate gauge of his beliefs, but Campanis was fired as the Dodgers’ general manager, a move he agrees with even now, saying that owner Peter O’Malley had no choice considering the potential furor if he hadn’t.

Campanis wasn’t destroyed when forced to leave an organization that he had helped build and sustain. He had the support of family and friends and a comfortable lifestyle with houses in Fullerton and San Clemente. But it was almost painful to see him at ballparks or on the job hunt at winter meetings, on the fringe of the game and no closer.

“Some people may have thought I was too old, but I think I can judge players better than ever,” Campanis said. “It’s like being a doctor. Some things you never forget. I love to evaluate and teach. I grew up in the game around Branch Rickey, and I’ve always considered myself a teacher at heart.

“I mean, sometimes it was difficult to be at a game and see something that needed correcting and not being in a position to do it, but I’m not bitter about what happened. I was fortunate. I had a lot of fun in my career. Peter ultimately had a tough call, but it wasn’t as if he turned his back on me. I had season tickets to the Dodgers, and he’s allowed (the Suns) to use their complex in the Dominican (which Campanis helped develop and where he and DiCarlo held two tryout camps, signing 10 players for their team). I still have my Dodger friends.”

In fact, he’s surrounded by them. Former Dodger catcher Bill Sudakis, the Sun manager, talked Campanis into taking his current job. Former Dodgers Lee Lacy and Steve Yeager are coaches with the team. Tom Lasorda spoke at a Feb. 5 fund-raiser for the Suns attended by Maury Wills, Don Newcombe and others with Dodger links.

His new team is basically a collection of rookies and released pros. Each of the eight teams in a league stretching from the Coachella Valley in the southern California desert, to British Columbia will play 90 games and operate with a $92,000 payroll cap. Jeff Burroughs is managing the Long Beach Barracuda. Tom Trebelhorn is managing the TriCity Posse in Washington.

Campanis lives only 10 minutes from his stadium office in a house he had built here even before he got the job. It’s the best of all worlds, he said. Back in the game that has been his life “with time left over to smell the roses.”

If it is not quite the way the author of “The Dodgers Way to Play Baseball” would have written it, there is solace in what others have written. A one-sentence letter from Sandy Koufax, who was signed by Campanis off an Ebbets Field tryout in 1955, may be the best example. It reads: “Don’t allow a few moments to destroy a lifetime of good.”