Don’t Judge Wiggins As Another Muncie--Yet

This is a tale of two teams who had running games, and lost them to something much more menacing than a broken ankle or a pulled hamstring or the erosion of time.

The Chargers had a running game, and his name was Chuck Muncie.

The Padres had a running game, and his name was Alan Wiggins.

Muncie is technically a Charger property, but owner Alex Spanos has said he will never again wear the uniform. Wiggins is still a Padre, but he may never again wear the uniform he left hanging in his locker at Dodger Stadium a week ago.

These were both men with nothing to fear but themselves.

Here we have a parallel between Chuck Muncie and Alan Wiggins. Folks, hereabouts are drawing a total parallel between these two men.

Let’s consider what we have, and then consider that there might be more. Or less.

Let’s start with Chuck Muncie.

Who else could stop Chuck Muncie? He was the perfect complement to Air Coryell. Let the opposition litter the field with nickel and dime defenses, and Muncie would run all over those defensive backs like they were fleas in a rug.

He was a man who had found his niche, and then he lost it. He had, on frustratingly frequent occasions, fumbled the football. But those were mild miscues compared to The Big Bobble.

Chuck Muncie fumbled his future.

The Big Guy became involved in drugs. It happened in the summer of 1982.

He went through rehabilitation and he came back. He needed the Chargers and the Chargers needed him. He had made his mistake, and he had learned.

Except he hadn’t.

Once again, in 1984, Muncie revisited the only tackler who could bring him down. Here was a 230-pound man who could run over a linebacker, and kept tripping over capsules or straws or some such paraphernalia.

Muncie played one game for the Chargers in 1984 and was expected to play in the next. He was very much expected to be on the team’s flight to Seattle, but he never showed up.

Out of patience, the Chargers dealt him to Miami. He failed the Dolphins’ drug test. He has since been under suspension by National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

Forget the suspension, Spanos has said. The Chargers are no longer desirous of Mr. Muncie’s services. Forget also that they could use him.

If Muncie never plays again, he can find both the culprit and the victim in the mirror.

The same can be said of Alan Wiggins.

Who else could stop Wiggins? He was the man who triggered the Padre offense. The offense could fly with Wiggins or die without him. When he was on the basepaths, he wouldn’t be any harder to catch if he was invisible.

Except invisible was what he literally became.

He too had a drug involvement--an arrest, in fact--in 1982. He was a rookie, but he really should have known better.

After the compulsory rehabilitation period, Wiggins came back and said he should have known better. He was determined to become a pillar in the community, and he worked with the San Diego Police Department’s drug and crime prevention program.

Wiggins, his teammates and the community were on a rather delicious high after the 1984 season. Nothing smuggled from the jungles of South America could induce a high quite like the joy of success.

And much of the Padres’ success was created by Wiggins, the man catchers couldn’t catch.

No one is yet sure how or why, but Wiggins has been cut down. He wasn’t stopped at second base, but rather on the way to the stadium in Los Angeles.

He simply did not show up, first for one game and then for another. Frankly, I think the Padres suspected foul play. After all, Wiggins had gone through the trauma of arrest and rehabilitation, and surely he knew better.

When he finally surfaced, he hadn’t really surfaced at all. He was once again in a rehabilitation center. I don’t know if he had been long-involved in a relapse or slipped quickly into a depression caused by either his .054 batting average or personal problems. I don’t think it has been 100% ascertained whether he had slipped under the influence of drugs or maybe needed help in staying away from them.

Chuck Muncie’s story wrote itself when he went to Miami and failed the drug test. He was undeniably involved once again with those demon substances.

Alan Wiggins’ story is thus far a story without an end. No one knows anything for sure other than the fact that he abandoned his team for two days without the courtesy of a telephone call, and that was enough of a faux pas. I suspect Dick Williams prefers that his players RSVP when they cannot make it to the ballpark.

In the past, the Padres’ hierarchy has made some rather uncompromising pronouncements about the repeated use of drugs by the athletes. In the aftermath of Wiggins’ disappearance, those sentiments were reinforced.

Wiggins’ career, at least with the Padres, was in jeopardy.

That may still be the case, but I detect a more moderate approach the last few days. Drugs or no drugs, Wiggins has rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Of course, those rights would have no bearing should the Padres decide to stand on principle and cut Wiggins loose. It would be the most principled of stands, because they would have to swallow his rather substantial salary for four years.

I think the attitude is now more “wait-and-see.” Certainly, Wiggins has made a mistake. I don’t think it is time to pass judgment until we find out what kind of mistake, and why. I may be naive in taking a temperate tact, but we’ve done quite well with a system based on innocence until guilt is proven.

The waiting may be close to being over. Ballard Smith said Friday he has come to a decision--and he will make it known more sooner than later. If we are to be enlightened through the Padre president, so be it.

Chuck Muncie’s final chapter with the Chargers--and perhaps in football--has been written. We have to read--or at least be told about--the remainder of the chapter Alan Wiggins is living today before we’ll know whether it will close the book on his days as a Padre.

As of this morning, perhaps only Ballard Smith knows for sure.