Padres Don’t Offer Bevacqua a Contract

SAN DIEGO —  Kurt Bevacqua won’t be a Padre on opening day.

Bevacqua, a 37-year-old free agent, had until 9 p.m. Wednesday to sign a Padres contract. But San Diego didn’t offer one, which, under baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement, means he can’t sign with them again until May 1.

Opening day is April 7.

So he has several options remaining:

Sign with another team.

Accept a Padres offer to attend spring training as a non-roster player.

Retire.

What to do? Well, no other teams are knocking down his door, although Bevacqua said Wednesday he has some possibilities. He wouldn’t name names, but said: “If they (the Padres) think I can’t play, they might have to find out differently if I get with a ballclub in their division.”

Certainly, he isn’t ready to retire.

“I don’t think I’m at that point yet,” he said. “I think I’ll know when I’m there. I know one thing--there wasn’t anybody throwing fastballs by me last year. Until that time comes, I know I can still play.”

Finally, he could always return to Yuma, Ariz., with the Padres, although even if he made the team, he couldn’t be activated until May 1. Anyway, he thinks the Padres might have offered to bring him back to Yuma just as an “insurance policy,” in case some new players such as Leon “Bip” Roberts don’t perform well.

“I am not going to Yuma, to be an insurance policy for the San Diego Padres,” Bevacqua said Wednesday. “There’s just no bleeping way I’ll do that. I’d rather stay home and make $30,000 (he owns a baseball newspaper) than do that. I’ve got more pride than that. I’ve done that too many times, and I think I deserve better.”

So, the only way he said he’ll return to Yuma is if the Padres genuinely want to see if he can make the team and will give him every opportunity.

“And if that’s the case, I’ve got to question their judge of talent for one thing,” he said. “Because I know damn well I can still hit . . . (But) If something doesn’t work out with another club, and if I want to stay in baseball, then it would be idiotic for me not to take them (the Padres) up on their proposal.”

Certainly, this scenario is not surprising. Bevacqua, seen last season as the Padres’ top pinch hitter, failed to get a pinch hit from April 27 to Sept. 3. It was an 0-for-18 streak. And he’d begun the season so well. Through April 27, he’d been 4-for-4 with three RBIs and two game-winning hits.

But if he wasn’t going to help as a pinch hitter, he wouldn’t help, period. As a part-time third baseman, he had trouble defensively. He hit .239 for the season.

Padres General Manager Jack McKeon currently is on a cruise and could not be reached for comment, but he has said that Bevacqua wasn’t in his plans “at this time.”

However, back in December, McKeon did offer Bevacqua a chance to go to arbitration, which would have guaranteed Bevacqua a 1986 Padres contract (although San Diego could have released him at any time). Bevacqua, not wanting to limit his options with other teams, turned down the chance for arbitration, which meant he had until Wednesday to sign with the Padres, or wait until May 1.

Other teams haven’t come through yet.