Virgil Now Says No to Padres : Fired Coach Thinks Williams Should Stay Away From Club, Too

Ozzie Virgil, fired as the San Diego Padres third-base coach three weeks ago and then begged by owner Joan Kroc to return to the team Tuesday, now says he wants nothing to do with the Padres and is convinced that Dick Williams should quit as manager.

But sources say that Williams already has quit as manager, as far back as the first week in November. Those sources say that Williams went around telling general managers and also members of the general public that he was fed up with the Padres.

Now, the question becomes: Has he changed his mind? Much will be learned Friday when Williams, who returns to San Diego today, meets with Kroc, team President Ballard Smith and possibly General Manager Jack McKeon on Friday.

One source has said: “It should be a shootout.”

But who’ll shoot whom? Kroc is angered by Smith, her son-in-law, partly because he, without her knowledge, gave Williams the option of quitting in exchange for a money settlement. Also, the two just don’t like each other right now, according to sources.

“I think this is so bitter between them that she (Kroc) is absolutely out to get Ballard,” one source said. “I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. That’s what scares me.”

Who else is mad at whom? Well, Virgil said Wednesday that he’s convinced that McKeon and Smith are conspiring to get Williams and that he’s certain he was fired in an effort to force Williams to quit. But didn’t Williams quit before Virgil was fired? Sources say that Williams spoke with McKeon on the telephone in early November, saying he wanted to quit. He said the same thing to Smith after Smith offered that settlement.

Williams then left on vacation (where he apparently told many people he was leaving the Padres), but Smith had scheduled another meeting with Williams just to give Williams a chance to change his mind. In the interim, there was no need to tell Kroc what was going on.

But for some unknown reason, probably because of busy schedules, their meeting never took place. In the meantime, McKeon called Virgil, Williams’ close friend, and told him he wouldn’t be re-signed. Why? Because Williams already had decided to quit and there was no need to keep Virgil.

Virgil, who sources say didn’t know Williams had already quit, thought he’d been fired to undermine Williams. He still does. He said that Williams didn’t talk about quitting until he heard Virgil was fired. So there are some conflicting stories here.

Finally, when Kroc found out Tuesday that she’d been kept in the dark, she became incensed with Smith and McKeon, ordered them to re-sign Virgil, said she was siding with Williams and said she was against any “buy-outs.” She later intimated that either Williams would return for the final year of his contract or he would have to quit without a buy-out. There would be no settlement, not with her money anyway, she said.

One source joked that Padre players, sick of Williams’ on-field act, would pitch in the money to buy him out. But that’s another story.

Anyway, sources say Kroc upset Smith and McKeon with her outburst.

“Why didn’t she, before she popped off (to the Associated Press), talk to Ballard and Jack,” the source said. “She didn’t need to give that spiel.”

And, suddenly, it looked as if Williams could possibly get the contract extension he’d been denied earlier. Maybe he’d stay.

So, clearly, the sides have been chosen for Friday’s “shootout.” It’s Kroc and Williams vs. Smith and McKeon.

“Either Ballard and Jack will go or Williams will go,” a source said.

Kroc, Williams, Smith and McKeon all declined comment Wednesday.

Only Virgil, reached on the telephone in Venezuela, was available for comment Wednesday, and, thus, his story is the clearest.

It follows:

Before Kroc begged him to come back, he had accepted a job as third-base coach with the San Francisco Giants. Kroc asked him if he could “get himself out of it,” and he said she’d have to call San Francisco herself.

Kroc asked McKeon to call for her, and Giant President Al Rosen, under the impression that Virgil wanted to stay in San Diego, agreed to release him.

“Somebody told Al a lie,” Virgil said.

Virgil says he really wanted to be with the Giants. He called Rosen and told him so, and Rosen told him: “If you don’t have a job with the Padres, you have a job with us.” Rosen would wait for Virgil, who simply wanted to talk to Williams one more time before definitely leaving the Padres.

And even if Williams stays in San Diego, Virgil will not.

“No way I’m going back,” Virgil said. “She (Kroc) asked me to get myself out of the Giant job, but I said I can’t. How would that look? I’m fired and then I come back? That’s not businessman like, I don’t think.

“I don’t want to go back to the Padres when someone (he meant McKeon) is stepping on somebody else’s (he meant Williams’) toes. Somebody will be mad at somebody. If Dick goes back, he’ll be mad at Jack or Jack will be mad at him. It won’t be a good situation. No way it’ll be a good situation with all this coming out.

“I’m looking forward to Dick not coming back. He should quit. He’ll be in a tough situation if he goes back with all those damn sharks around him. He’ll be in a damn fish bowl with sharks all around him.”

One of those supposed sharks (McKeon) wants Virgil to call him. McKeon needs to give him a new contract.

“He’s not going to get ahold of me,” Virgil said. “He’ll have to come to Venezuela to get me.”