McReynolds and Padres Make Final Pitches Today

So the hearing is here. Barring a miracle--progress--Kevin McReynolds will face off this morning against the Padres in an arbitration case that has been anticipated for more than a year.

They will rendezvous at the Sheraton La Reina, a hotel in Los Angeles, and they will argue for hours about how good Kevin McReynolds is, how much worth he has to the franchise and how much he is worth, period.

The Padres say $275,000.

McReynolds’ representatives say $450,000.

An arbitrator will decide who’s right.

Of course, the parties had until 9:30 this morning to decide for themselves, though that appeared unlikely Tuesday evening. In a final negotiating effort, McReynolds and his Chicago-based agent, Tom Selakovich, met with Padre General Manager Jack McKeon and President Ballard Smith at the Padre offices. They spoke for two hours. Then Selakovich, wearing a red golf sweater, emerged and left the place, followed by McReynolds, who wore his traditional blue jeans.

Neither would comment.

They drove to L.A.

Inside, McKeon did say: “We talked, and there was some movement, but nothing was settled. We’ll both think about it. We left it this way--If anybody has a change of their thoughts, get in touch. We’ll either settle it before the hearing or we’ll have the hearing.”

If they settle it at 9:15 this morning, it wouldn’t be a first. McKeon said he once had a hearing scheduled with former Padre Broderick Perkins, but settled 15 minutes before.

Which brings back another memory. In 1983, pitcher Tim Lollar took the Padres to arbitration, the first time a Padre player had actually gone through with it.

His agent: Tom Selakovich.

Anyway, on the morning after the hearing, Selakovich called McKeon to discuss a settlement, and McKeon said he’d get back to him. In the interim, the arbitrator ruled in Lollar’s favor, and when McKeon called Selakovich back to accept the settlement, Selakovich said: ‘We can’t settle. We already won!”

So there’s a little history to today’s confrontation. And here’s some more: Back in spring training of 1985, the Padres made what they thought was a gigantic offer to McReynolds, a 26-year-old budding superstar. A six-year, $4.5 million offer. But McReynolds was coming off of a big year (.278, 20 homers, 75 RBIs), and he and Selakovich, close friends and hunting partners, thought they could get more dollars if they waited until after 1985.

They were just so sure of his ability. Selakovich said the Padres wouldn’t trade McReynolds straight up for the Mets’ Darryl Strawberry.

The Padres refused comment on that one.

Then McReynolds had a mediocre 1985, misjudging several balls in center field, hitting .234 with 15 homers and 75 RBIs again. It wasn’t all that bad a year, considering he never really recovered from the wrist injury he suffered in the 1984 playoffs, but hadn’t Selakovich and the Padres expected more?

And besides Strawberry, Selakovich also had compared his client to:

Philadelphia’s Juan Samuel.

The Yankees’ Don Mattingly.

Still, the overriding theme here is not so much contract, but neglect. See, McReynolds hates his manager, Dick Williams. Right around the time of the baseball strike last season, McReynolds injured his heel. The strike lasted only a day, and upon return, San Diego had a new center fielder in the lineup--Miguel Dilone.

Dilone could run. On his first night, a doubleheader, he had five hits and three stolen bases.

He stayed in the lineup.

A few days later, a now-healthy McReynolds talked nasty things about Williams, saying: “He’s tried to play Mr. Macho (before). You know, ‘I run the team’ stuff. It’s a little game with him . . . If you’ve ever heard the word ‘frontrunner,’ that’s where he sits.”

McReynolds re-entered the lineup.

Says Selakovich now: “We want to finish up Kevin’s contract, but the minute the ink is dry on Feb. 6 (Thursday), then my next job is to start patching up that relationship.”

So he said he wants a spring training meeting with Williams, McReynolds, himself, McKeon and Smith.

Of course, four of the five met Tuesday, all but Williams.

“I’ll tell you right now,” Selakovich said this week, “if I have to move to San Diego, Kevin McReynolds will have a good relationship to play baseball so that his best talents can be brought out. Instead of fighting over this, let’s all sit down and become men again and work this problem out because I want Kevin to be happy enough to play for Dick Williams.

“It’s now my job (to get them together). I’ll interject what I have to say now because my ultimate dream is to have a happy client. . . . I know he’s happy playing in San Diego, and I know he’s happy with his teammates. So there’s only one other thing to correct.

“I tell you, I think Kevin’s at ease with everything in his life, except one thing, and that’s his relationship with his manager. Kevin McReynolds would run through a brick wall for Tom Selakovich, for Jack McKeon, for Jackie McReynolds (his wife), for (Padre pitcher) Greg Booker, for the people he loves. I have got to make it in a framework where Kevin will do that for Dick Williams, although he’ll probably never love him as a manager. He’s just got to respect Dick a little. . . . Kevin is not the type of player that can be motivated by threats. Kevin is the type of player that likes to work for his boss, to agree with his boss, to be proud of his boss. The way to make this go is to start over with Dick Williams.

“No one says we’ll be drinking buddies--first of all, Kevin’s not a drinker--but . . . my dream would be to sit down and buy Dick Williams and Kevin McReynolds and myself a steak dinner and have a friendly discussion. That would be one of my ultimate dreams of 1986.”

It’s not Williams’ ultimate dream to slap five with Selakovich, however. Here’s one of baseball’s most successful managers. Does he need this?

“I don’t know the man,” Williams said Monday. “Never met the man in my life. Agents and general managers are supposed to talk, I believe.”

But will he meet with him?

“I’d have to speak with Ballard and Jack. I don’t know what this meeting would be about. I really couldn’t say. . . . (But) I’d be glad to sit down with Kevin. Certainly. Heck, I hope he has a tremendous year. My gosh. But I don’t know the other man, and usually managers don’t deal with agents. General managers do.

“But I’d be happy to sit down with Kevin. In fact, I plan to sit down with Kevin, to get him to play to the potential we know he has or close to it because he has tremendous talent.”

If all this sounds twisted, here’s yet another twist: Jackie McReynolds, Kevin’s wife, adores Dick Williams’ wife, Norma.

Selakovich said Jackie is always promoting Dick, although Jackie denied that Tuesday.

“Uh, I don’t recall doing that (promoting Dick to Kevin) anytime recently,” she said. “I realize Dick is human and everything, but I can’t say I promote him because I don’t like the way he works. As a person, he’s probably really nice. But as far as the business side of him, I don’t like it at all. I think he’s a detriment. I really do. And I would tell him that to his face if he asked me. I’d say ‘Dick, I think you’re very nice, I love your wife, but go manage someplace else.

“He’s been nice to me on several occasions. He’s never really been rude to me. And that’s why it’s kind of hard for me. But when I see what he does to Kevin and the other players, too . . . You know, it’s not just Kevin. Kevin’s case was brought up a lot last year, but a lot of players feel like he does. I see it happen. I talk to their wives, and know how they feel when their husbands come home feeling like that. It really does affect you more than you think. If your boss at work always told you you were terrible and never talked to you, well, you start wondering ‘What can I do?’ And you get so eaten up with hate against that person that you can’t think about anything else when you go to work. No, I don’t try to tell Kevin that Dick’s a good guy, because I don’t think he is. Sorry.

Now, back to that contract. The Padre arbitration expert will be former New York Yankee and Houston Astro executive Tal Smith, while Selakovich will do most of the talking for McReynolds. The arbitrator, whose name has not been made public, will hear arguments today, sleep on it tonight and announce either Thursday or Friday what figure ($450,000 or $275,000) best suits the player.

Mostly, he’ll look at McReynolds’ 1985 season.

But, according to the collective bargaining agreement, there are other criteria, which follow:

Special qualities of leadership and public appeal.

Length and consistency of the players’ career contributions.

The player’s past compensation (McReynolds made $150,000 last year).

Comparative baseball salaries.

The recent performance record of the players’ team, including but not limited its league standing and attendence as an indication of public acceptance.

“We think we have a good case,” Selakovich said.

“We think we have a good case,” McKeon said.

It’s impossible to predict the outcome, but here are some thoughts. Selakovich has compared McReynolds, who is entering his third season, to Mattingly and Strawberry, so let’s really compare . . .

Mattingly, in his third year, had a base salary of $325,000, but with incentives, ended up making $455,000 that year. In the season prior to that, though, he won the American League batting crown, hitting .343 along with 23 homers and 110 RBIs.

McReynolds stats aren’t close.

But then, Strawberry, in his third year, earned $500,000, and in the season before, he hit only .251 with 26 homers and 97 RBIs.

McReynolds stats are sort of close.

So what do you do?