Spring Training / Padres : Most Players Are Pleased With New Playoff Format

Fans who came here to see the Angels-Padres game on Wednesday were most upset when the Padres boycotted batting practice. But, really, it wasn’t the players’ fault because they had been cornered by Don Fehr, executive director of the Players Assn.

Fehr updated the team on negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, negotiations that have gone slower than a little league fastball. Of course, he also told them that the league playoffs would definitely be expanded from five to seven games.

Most didn’t mind.

But one did.

Steve Garvey, the politician himself, says he is a traditionalist, the kind of person who’d like the NCAA to keep a shot clock out of its basketball tournament. Garvey says he’s old-fashioned.

“That’s me,” he said. “What can I say?

“I like the emphasis on the championship season,” Garvey said after the Padres lost to the Angels, 4-3. “This is just another step toward adding more teams into the playoffs, where obviously there will be more time involved. It’s dilution of a championship season.

“One of the real virtues of baseball is taking 162 games to find the best teams . . . Now, the playoffs will get longer, and then, before long, there’ll be mini-playoffs. Suddenly, teams below .500 will be in (the playoffs).”

In some ways, Garvey was jumping to conclusions here, since baseball executives aren’t talking about expanding the number of playoff teams. Overall, most people are pleased with this latest move, including Padre Manager Dick Williams.

Williams, even before the news had been announced Wednesday, talked of how it’s hard for defending pennant winners (such as the Padres) to repeat with such a short playoff format.

“You win the division, and then you have to win the league,” Williams said. “. . . Something goes haywire (in the playoffs), and you’re knocked out in three games. My first year with Oakland, we won 101 ballgames and got beat in three straight.”

Padre catcher Terry Kennedy, the team’s player representative, preferred not to comment on negotiations for the collective bargaining agreement, saying he would do so in a couple days. All these non-baseball issues have perturbed him recently, but he has only perturbed opposing pitchers on the field.

Before Wednesday’s game, Kennedy was hitting .321 and then proceeded to hit home run No. 4 against the Angels’ Craig Swan. It was an amazing shot, too, a ball that traveled in a straight line from home plate to somebody’s home 350 feet away in right field. He also lined a single.

This is all significant for one reason: Kennedy had a mediocre season last year, and critics were wondering if he could return to previous form.

Williams said before Wednesday’s game that reliever Tim Stoddard has fallen to last place on the pitching depth charts. This means Luis DeLeon and Greg Booker are seeded ahead of Stoddard, signed as a free agent in January.

And Williams specifically praised DeLeon, who has returned from elbow problems last season.

“That might be the most positive thing out of camp,” Williams said.

Booker had to scratch to make this year’s team, and that was more than enough for him to worry about. Nonetheless, he did have to hear the jokes from teammates, who think it’s neat that he’s General Manager Jack McKeon’s son-in-law.

“Hearing it from the players doesn’t bother me too much,” he said. “What gets old is when the writers keep asking me about it.”

Booker, who has a 1.80 ERA this spring, was the losing pitcher on Wednesday, although he gave up just one hit. Left fielder Jerry Davis dropped a fly ball (the wind probably caused it) hit by Darrell Miller in the seventh inning, and that proved to be the winning run. Brian Downing drove in Miller with a single to right.

Jack McKeon reads most letters that reach his desk, and a lot apparently do. Even as the Padres were winning the pennant last season, he received many negative letters, telling him to go out and get pitchers such as Detroit’s Jack Morris and Chicago’s Richard Dotson.

“But I started looking up those pitchers’ records, and our young pitchers compared to them in the early stages of their career,” McKeon said, meaning there’s much hope for Andy Hawkins and Dave Dravecky, two of the Padres’ younger pitchers.

Finally, center fielder Kevin McReynolds rejoined the team on Wednesday, after visiting a dentist in San Diego. He had injured his jaw after chewing bubble gum much too furiously on Tuesday, and the doctors fit him with a mouthpiece to relax the muscles in his jaw.

He can play today against the Angels.

But he can’t chew.