COLLINS IGNITES ANGELS; HIS STYLE PROVES TO BE JUST WHAT TEAM NEEDED.

Byline: Mark Whicker Orange County Register

One team's acid is another team's tabasco.

The Angels needed a shot from the pepper mill, and Terry Collins' charcoal eyes have delivered it.

They could have hired Tim Johnson or Rick Down, but neither had managed in the big leagues, and general manager Bill Bavasi was through experimenting.

They could have hired Sparky Anderson, but could Sparky regain the edge, after a year off? Earl Weaver couldn't.

Collins had managed, and quite well - 27 games over .500 in three consecutive second-place finishes with Houston. He also had taken a bullet. But there is life after the day they paint somebody else's name on your parking place. Especially in baseball. Bobby Cox, Lou Piniella, Tony La Russa, Roger Craig and Jim Fregosi have used Job 2 to get to a World Series. Collins was fired on Oct.4 and hired on Nov.4, but the pause still refreshed.

``I decided I wasn't going to try to please everybody this time,'' he said. ``I was going to be myself and let everything fall where it would.''

Being himself doesn't mean driving up the team blood pressure, as some Astros maintained. But it does mean Collins is wired for mistakes.

``If a player does something out there that needs to be corrected, you should correct it as soon as possible,'' he said. ``That's not easy these days. The cameras are always looking in the dugout for something, so you can't make a big scene. You have to find ways to take care of things.

``After each game, when I'm through with the media, I'll walk around the clubhouse and speak to guys. Sometimes, it's a comment on the great game and a wonderful weather. Sometimes, it's: `I never want to see you do that again.' And nobody ever knows.''

Collins tries to make some sort of contact with every player, every day. That is a John Madden tenet, and Jim Leyland showed it to Collins after hiring him as a coach in 1992. With Collins making the first move, no player can say he has a bone unpicked.

Collins also makes sure a player knows Tuesday if he's playing Wednesday. Or, more important, not playing.

``If a guy knows he's going to be off in three days, it means he doesn't have to be grinding inside from 9:30 a.m.,'' Collins reasoned. ``He can be more relaxed at home. If an extra man knows he's in there, he can prepare better. And it's funny - the regulars who do have the night off, they're the first ones who want to pinch hit in the late-inning situations that night.''

The Angels' summertime charge also is a blow to cronyism.

Angels management did not know Collins. When he came, coaches Rod Carew, Marcel Lachemann, Joe Coleman and Joe Maddon were retained, and Collins did not bring ``his guys'' from Houston. Instead, he hired Dave Parker to coach first and Larry Bowa to coach third.

He'd played minor-league baseball with Parker, but that was 25 years ago. And he'd managed against Bowa in the Pacific Coast League. But Collins had never worked with either. They brought two world championships and 12 All-Star Game appearances, and they are loud and opinionated. There was jocular speculation that Collins hired Bowa for those specific instances in which an umpire would tell the sawed-off little !&% in the Angels dugout to shut up, and he could rightfully claim it wasn't him.

``We're a lot alike,'' Collins said, ``But I hired Larry and Dave because they're high-impact guys. They bring a lot into this clubhouse, including credibility.''

Bowa said, ``He was at Albuquerque, and I was at Las Vegas. In fact, my opening game as a manager was against Terry. They scored some runs and I had a guy warming up in the first. Terry saw me later and said, `Not in this league, you don't.'''

Collins was blocked at Albuquerque. He hadn't played for Tommy Lasorda. Then he snapped back at Lasorda's criticism of Dodgers call-ups.

``My statement was something like, `Now that the Dodgers are losing, why is it a big deal what we do at Albuquerque?'' Collins remembered. ``I was wrong. But I'd been there 5-1/2 years, and I needed a change.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) ``They scored some runs and I had a guy warming up in the first. Terry saw me later and said, `Not in this league, you don't.' ''

-- Larry Bowa, Angels third-base coach, on managing against Collins in the minor leagues

(2) Terry Collins, who has the Angels in the pennant race, says he tries to make contact with each player every day.

Associated Press