On the Padres, a Good Leader Is Very Hard to Find

HOUSTON —  August’s dog days are now dire days for the Padres, who are making their move on last place.

Manager Steve Boros--who has been privately nicknamed “Mr. Move” by his players--has done everything conceivable to shake up and wake up his lineup, but little has worked--though that kooky rookie John Kruk hasn’t done half bad.

Perhaps the time has come for all good Padres to stand up and be heard. Perhaps the only alternative is a players’ only meeting, where a team leader stomps his feet, pulls his hair, bugs his eyes, cracks his knuckles, goes through the ceiling, gives a tongue lashing, shows who’s boss, etc. Perhaps that would help.

Any nominees? Is there a leader among these players? Who’s the boss here, anyway?

The Padres were surveyed this week and asked to name their team leader, but nobody seemed to know.

Most of the pitchers said Goose Gossage (“Who else but the ‘Grand (Bleeping) Pooh-Bah,” said pitcher Dave LaPoint), but the position players were torn between Graig Nettles, Steve Garvey, Garry Templeton, Tim Flannery and Tony Gwynn.

And Gwynn--most said--was the logical choice because he is probably the only one who could stand up in front of the room, tell everyone “You ain’t worth a penny” and have nobody say “You ain’t either.” He is their only All-Star.

Except he wants no part of this scheme.

Gwynn’s reaction: “I don’t think I should be the one to stand up and say, ‘We (stink).’ We know we (stink). You have to look within yourself and say to yourself, ‘Am I doing the best I possibly can?’ I’d say the majority of us would say no. And as far as the leader, I don’t think it’s me. Maybe I am and don’t know it. But I don’t think so.

“Here I am, I’m 26 years old. I ain’t been in this league but four years, five years. I’ve got no right calling a meeting, telling guys ‘So and so you’re not doing this’ and ‘So and so you’re not doing that.’ Even just to call a meeting to say, ‘Hey, we (stink), let’s try to do something about it!’ Hey, we know that already. It’s not gonna be something we haven’t said already.

“Maybe as I get older, I’ll start to feel more comfortable about being considered a leader, but I don’t know. It could be two, three, four years down the road. Right now, I don’t feel comfortable speaking to a group of people, period, whether it’s my teammates, a Kiwanis breakfast or a Rotary Club or the Madres or whatever. I don’t feel comfortable. Talking to reporters, that’s fine because it’s one on one. Talking to my own teammates one on one or to a group of four or so, I can talk to people that way. But get everyone in here and everything’s quiet and they want to hear what you’ve got to say, well, when you say something you better make sense. I just don’t feel comfortable that way, and I don’t know if I ever will.”

But something has to be done. This team is headed south for the summer.

“I guess my personal feeling is I’d like to see someone grab a bull by the horns and shake things up,” pitcher Dave Dravecky said. “I know words won’t change things, but I’m the type person who likes to get fired up. This is still a kids’ game, and there’s nothing wrong with enthusiasm. And that’s why I think it (a players’ meeting) would help from time to time. It certainly couldn’t hurt. But I don’t think we have a leader. I just don’t think so.”

Won’t anyone be a big shot?

Former Yankees Gossage and Nettles “have been through a lot of bull,” Templeton said. So a lot of guys think they’re among the team leaders.

Andy Hawkins said of Gossage: “We embody his spirit. We can’t help but look up to him. He’s one of the most caring people around and one of the hardest, too.”

But a team meeting?

“I ain’t ever called one before,” Gossage said. “It’s not up to me. We lead the league in meetings anyway (referring to Boros’ frequent get-togethers). Man, you try to lead by example. You go out and play hard, and that’s all you can do. If you ain’t playing hard, you’re cutting your own throat. It’ll get you sooner or later and probably sooner. You’re out of the game and wondering, ‘What the (bleep)? What went wrong?

“Over on the Yankees, we always had guys that led, but you watched them. No one ever called team meetings over there. It was just bust your (rear end). . . . You can talk until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t do nothing.”

Nettles is more prone to crack jokes than crack heads.

“I think the manager should be the leader of the team--no matter what team,” he said. “I’ve never gone for one player being the leader.”

But what about Templeton, the veteran shortstop?

Templeton said he could easily call a meeting, but . . .

“Who are the leaders on this team? Puff (Nettles) . . . or myself because I’m crazy,” Templeton said. “I would (call a meeting), but you’ve got to pick the right time for stuff like that. And if you do call a meeting, people will just air their frustrations and what’s been going on throughout the season. And they’ll probably clear their minds, but that’s about it. . . . It can be productive in a lot of ways or it could be counter-productive because somebody might disagree and then you get into arguments and then the meeting ends up being (bleep).

“The time will come, though. If anything is to be said or done, it’ll be pretty soon. I’m quite sure somebody will stand up and say something--whether it’s me or somebody else on the team. But right now, I’m not thinking about meetings; I’m thinking about getting some hits, driving in some (bleeping) runs and helping us win.”

Catcher Terry Kennedy did not think it was a role for him. He said he would be in trouble if he said, “Listen up, guys.”

“I could call a meeting personally and start ranting and raving, and they’d look and say, ‘Who’s this guy to call a meeting?’ ” Kennedy said. “These people know my shortcomings more than anybody. I’m a bitcher. At least I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I have a history as a bitcher, and that works against me.

“Shoot, Goose could call one, they’d listen and then go out and do their own thing. That’s how baseball players are. Baseball players are perfect examples of society. They’ll sit there and listen and digest and then go out and do whatever they want. Even thought this is a team sport, it’s really an individual sport. I mean, there’s so much beyond our control on the field--a bad call, bad weather, the other pitcher is Dwight Gooden. Man, never have a meeting before Dwight Gooden pitches.

“And the thing you got to be careful of is over-applying that football mentality in our sport. This is very different from any other sport because we play every day. And the emotionalism you use in football--you have all week to work up in a frenzy--doesn’t work here. It’s sort of a fatalism or defeatism that’s associated with baseball because you know you’re gonna fail seven times out of 10 when you’re the best hitter.

“This sport is not so cut and dried. . . . The rate of success is so much lower than any other sport. Football, if you were a quarterback and completed 30 out of 100, you wouldn’t have a starting job. In basketball, if you shot three out of 10 you wouldn’t be in the lineup. So there’s a lot beyond your control. Even when you’re the best, you’re failing seven times. So we get all fired up with a meeting and face a guy like Mike Scott. . . . well, that meeting’s gonna be even worse than if it never happened.”

Tim Flannery has been a Padre longer than anyone else, but that probably does not make him the team leader. Besides, he has this carefree “surfer image” of a fellow who thinks life is a beach.

“If Flann could stay serious for five minutes, he’d be believable,” Kennedy said. “But just when he gets everybody’s attention and gets to the knockout line, he’ll throw out a punch line instead.”

But he is the lead cheerleader on the bench, always saying: “Let’s drop a fin on them (a five-run inning)!” Or “Gimme some runs!” And Gwynn says: “This is getting embarrassing, guys.”

Flannery, like Gwynn, wants no part of the leadership role.

“Leader is not something you vote on,” he said. “I’m just me. Everyone has their own personality. If you’re a leader, you’re a leader. I don’t ask anybody about me. I just live my life. If people follow, great.”

Steve Garvey, who is said to have ambitions to run for the U.S. Senate, recalled one day he got up when he was a Dodger and told some guys off.

“I think we’d been struggling and feeling sorry for ourselves,” he said. “There may have been personal problems, minor things. Did it work? Not that day, but I think it did over the course of the next two weeks.

“It’s one of those intangible things that comes up. You say, ‘Oh the time is right.’ ”

What if the Garv went haywire and did it?

“Not a bit of good would happen,” teammate Jerry Royster said. “He’d have to say something we already knew.”

So nothing good would happen? Maybe not. When this team won a pennant in 1984, it didn’t have one leader, either.

“Well, we had four main leaders,” pitcher Ed Whitson said. “Goose, Nettles, Garvey and probably TK (Kennedy). But that was a year everything went right. Just like the Mets this year and the Tigers of ’84. You don’t need a leader when everything’s going good.”

Little did anyone know, but there have been private meetings this year. When the Padres fly, say, from Houston to Cincinnati, they land and then take a team-only bus to the hotel. Players say those bus rides are filled with shouting matches and obscenities, the most productive words around in baseball.

On one bus ride, Jerry Royster grabbed a microphone and shouted: “We’re on a quest! We’re going to the promised land! Can I get an Amen?”

And the team answered: “Amen!”

Templeton grabbed the microphone from Royster and said, “Forget the quest. We (stink)!”

Gwynn remembers that day: “And Tempy went down the team roster in alphabetical order and said what everyone had done our last home stand. He went right on down the line--’Bochy, you did a super job. You did this and did that. Tony Gwynn, you didn’t do (nothing). You didn’t hit, you didn’t field, you didn’t throw, you shouldn’t have shown up. Flannery, all you did was get on base. But you didn’t make anything happen. Goose, you didn’t even pitch, so you can’t even say nothing. You just went there for three days and didn’t do nothing. Kruk, you haven’t played. Bip, you really (stink), Bip.’

“He went right on down the line. It was great. Bus rides . . . that’s one place you can get everything off your chest. And every trip is the same way--somebody will start chirping and two guys start picking on him, and some guys start picking on the guys picking on him, and next thing you know you’ve got a full-blown rap session. Guys supposedly start out joking, but they’re really serious, and then guys who know they’re serious are getting serious with them. Never been any fights, but . . . “

And when Templeton got through ragging his teammates that day, you know what he did?

He said: “And I ain’t done nothin’ either. I’m the worst of all ya’ll.”