The Padres Are Losing Advantage at Home

I have some grave fears about the upcoming baseball season.

It has to do with the Padres forgetting what got them into the World Series. Don’t tell me about Tony Gwynn or Steve Garvey or Craig Lefferts. Don’t tell me about the 10th man.

I’m talking about The Home Pebble Advantage.

Much has been made of the work being done to improve the condition of the field at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Why?

The Padres turned their field into an ally, if I remember correctly. Through history, many conflicts have been settled by a geographical advantage. The Rebels might have won the Civil War if the Union hadn’t had the high ground at Gettysburg, for example.

For the Padres, their home field gave them that same sort of advantage. Let ‘em build a new scoreboard and renovate the stadium club and put chandeliers in the locker rooms, for all I care, but don’t tamper with the field.

If I’m Tim Flannery or Gwynn, I take the grounds crew in hand and lead them to the infield.

Flannery would escort his man to the vicinity of first base, where Leon Durham let a ground ball go through his legs in the climactic seventh inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. The Error allowed the tying run to score and prolonged the inning which also would prolong the Cubs’ 39 years of frustration.

“Look here,” Flannery would say. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” the groundskeeper would respond.

“ That is the problem,” Flannery would say, “Where is the pebble?”

“We took it out,” the groundskeeper would proudly proclaim. “It’s as smooth as a pool table.”

“Gasp,” Flannery would retort. “Do you know where we’d have been last year if this area was as smooth as a pool table? I would have been watching the World Series at a beer bar in Encinitas. Put the pebble back. Or, better yet, can you find a boulder?”

Gwynn, meanwhile, would be scraping his cleats in the neighborhood of second base. That was where his line drive hit the dirt and accelerated like a rocket past Chicago second baseman Ryne Sandberg in that same seventh inning. It went for a two-run double, breaking a tie and ultimately sending the Padres to their first World Series.

“This infield is as soft as a shag carpet,” Gwynn would explain.

“Sure is,” the groundskeeper would say. “We’ve been working hard on it all winter. We won’t have to listen to complaints about our infield being as hard as the parking lot.”

“Listen,” Gwynn would say with a sigh. “Get the steamrollers out here and save the water for washing down the parking lot after the tailgate parties. We want an infield Tom Watson couldn’t hit with a sand wedge and back up his ball.”

“But . . . “ the befuddled groundskeeper would utter.

“Don’t ‘but’ me,” Gwynn would say. “On this infield, Sandberg turns that ball into a double play. The game’s tied and we’re still playing, for all I know.”

I’ll tell you something about the 1984 postseason. It wouldn’t have been much of an experience for the Padres without that Home Pebble Advantage.

Even if they had survived against the Cubs with Durham’s error and Gwynn’s rocket past Sandberg, how many World Series games do you think they would have won without that rough-and-ready, rock-hard infield?

They would be been swept--four games to el zippo.

I know you’re going to tell me they won Game 2 by a 5-3 score when Kurt Bevacqua hit his dancing, prancing three-run homer. Some bad hop, you’re saying. Right off Bevacqua’s bat into the left-field stands.

However, I would like to remind you what brought Bevacqua to the plate. Terry Kennedy, batting just ahead of Bevacqua, hit a bounder toward Detroit second baseman Lou Whitaker with a runner on first and one out.

In anyone’s book and on any other infield, that was a double-play ball. End of inning. Relax, Kurt, you are leading off the next inning.

History records that Kennedy’s little bounder took a bad hop, and Whitaker muffed it. It went as a “San Diego Infield Hit”--and Bevacqua came to bat to hit his homer.

If I’m Kennedy and Bevacqua, I’m out there with the Flannery and Gwynn haranguing the grounds crew. If they can’t plant mines, they can at least get the rocks in the right places--and keep them there.

This is one case where a cliche has to be twisted a bit. In the case of the stadium’s infield, if it’s broke, don’t fix it.

Durham can attest to just how much impact that infield can have. When he took his contractual negotiations to arbitration, the ruthless Cubs had the audacity to note that his error had turned the game--and season--around.

Durham’s agent, Dick Moss, was aghast that the Cubs had brought up one error in an arbitration hearing considering the tapestry of a season.

“I didn’t think it was quite appropriate,” he said.

And the Cubs won, paying Durham $800,000 rather than the $1.1 million he had asked. As might be expected, Durham also was flabbergasted.

“I thought it was the worst thing they could have done,” he said. “I know I made a mistake, but I don’t think I cost the team the pennant.”

Durham was right. He just happened to be standing over the wrong pebble at the wrong time. I’m sure he wishes that he had asked Sandberg and Whitaker to testify on his behalf at his arbitration hearing.

“Hey,” they would have said, “you can beat the Padres and you can beat their fans, but you can’t beat that damn field.”

I hope the Padres are listening. If they want history to repeat, they better not forget their geography.