Padres Find a President in Freeman

SAN DIEGO —  Dick Freeman, an acting club president who acted like a club president, was appointed permanently to the position Tuesday by Padre owner Joan Kroc.

The Padres, Kroc said, searched nationally before deciding to go with the man who had been doing the job since Chub Feeney resigned in September after his notorious obscene gesture in front of a Fan Appreciation Night crowd.

“Frankly, he was a dark horse,” Kroc said Tuesday. “I never thought in six months he would be the president. In fact, I told him I didn’t think he was ready yet.”

And Freeman, 45, insisted all along he did not expect to get the job.

“I thought back early on after Chub left that the orientation and commitment were to an outsider,” he said Tuesday. “It seemed the way they were going. I didn’t really know what the reasons were.”

But the past six months have been among the most tranquil and productive the Padres have experienced. An organization long wracked by controversy sailed through the winter without a ripple and went to spring training with unabashed enthusiasm generated by the acquisition of free agent pitcher Bruce Hurst and a major trade for first baseman Jack Clark.

Consequently, Kroc’s perceptions of her interim president began to swing.

“We really searched,” she said. “We had two organizations looking for us. We found some fine, outstanding contenders for the job. The board of directors sat down, all of us, and went through the pros and cons and compared everyone to Dick. He ultimately won out, and it was a unanimous vote.”

The factor that weighed most heavily in Freeman’s favor was that he simply was doing the job.

“He was making presidential decisions,” Kroc said. “He was acting so much like a president. The way he conducted himself was very classy and solid. He is well-tempered for the job.”

The board met Tuesday morning, and Kroc called Freeman soon thereafter.

“We think you’re ready,” she told him. “Are you ready?”

The organizational man was ready to move up the ladder. In his eight years with the Padres, he had been a vice president of finance, a vice president of administration and finally executive vice president. That was how he was listed in the 1989 media guide, with no mention of the interim presidency.

Freeman, who had previously been in accounting and finance, will have to do some shuffling in the days and weeks to come. He has essentially been doing his own job, plus assuming the role of interim president and handling some of the chores Jack McKeon left behind when he moved from general manager to manager.

“There will certainly be some changes in terms of responsibility,” he said. “It’s not that I haven’t given them some thought over the last few months, just in case this happened, but I just found out this morning. I have to sit down and make some of these decisions.”

The most visible area will be the general manager’s job, which McKeon filled so well before becoming manager. It was obvious McKeon felt he could occupy both positions, given help in areas such as contractual negotiations.

“We all recognize that Jack has been here a lot longer than most managers,” Freeman said. “It would be a mistake not to make use of him in areas where he has functioned in the past.”

Obviously, this was a concession to the possibility that Freeman could structure the front office so that McKeon would continue to negotiate trades, with a new hire negotiating contracts.

“There’s a job there to be filled,” Freeman said. “The specifics of who will fill it and what the job description will be are things to decide in the next few weeks.”

Freeman said consultant Tal Smith, who has been working for the past few weeks with the front office, would not be a candidate for the as-yet unspecified position because he is not interested in a permanent role.

Freeman, whose title will be president and chief executive officer, comes to his position at a time when interest in the Padres is at its highest point since the National League championship 1984 season.

“I look at this as a confirmation of the success we have had as an organization,” he said. “Really, this is a vote of confidence in continuity. I feel that’s very important. One of the things I’m most pleased with over the last several years is that we’ve built a very solid organization. I feel very good about that.”

This was a man who studied business administration at the University of Iowa and went to work with no thought toward baseball as a career in any sense.

“I played ball,” he said, “but just as a kid. But I love it. I love to watch it, and the more I watch it, the more I appreciate it.”

He was working for a savings and loan when a friend told him the Padres were looking for a vice president of finance. He got the job in June of 1981.

By December of 1988, Freeman was at the winter meetings in Atlanta engaged in rather complex negotiations with Bruce Hurst’s agent. He was on the telephone off and on throughout the evening with Joan Kroc.

“We were both up all night,” she recalled.

Joan Kroc was beginning to notice. Dick Freeman was acting like a president.

Padre Notes

The Padres defeated the Cleveland Indians, 5-1, Tuesday in Tucson to improve their spring record to 7-4-1. While Randy Ready and Carmelo Martinez had two RBIs each--tying Martinez for the club lead with Marvell Wynne at eight--the game’s star was Mike Brumley. Finally snapping out of a spring-long slump, Brumley went three for four with a single, double and triple. He is hitting .357 for the spring and hasn’t committed an error since last Friday. Whether he has taken the lead over Gary Green (.091 average) in the backup shortstop race remains to be seen. “I’ve finally relaxed,” Brumley said. “I realized, there’s a whole lot of spring left, a lot of time to catch up. I was trying too hard to make a good impression right away. Now I think everything will go smoother. Things are also going smoother for Walt Terrell, who became the second consecutive Padre pitcher to go six innings, allowing one run on five hits for the victory. “I’m actually ahead of schedule,” Terrell said.