Williams Timed Quitting to Hurt Team, Garvey Says

Steve Garvey confirmed a published report Wednesday that quoted him as saying that former Padre manager Dick Williams quit on the first day of spring training “to inflict the most harm on our team.”

“Yeah, I basically said that, but it wasn’t with quite that ferociousness,” Garvey said. “I was philosophizing as to what may have happened, and I said I probably thought that Williams, a while ago, had made up his mind to quit. I can’t believe he made up his mind overnight.”

In Wednesday’s Los Angeles Daily News, Garvey had told Rick Talley: “‘The more I think about the timing of his quitting the madder I get. The whole thing smells of premeditation. Dick has known for a long time he wasn’t going to manage this season. But I think he deliberately misled the media and fans in order to inflict the most harm on our team. That’s the way he does things.

“Leaving like this, at the beginning of spring training, was his way of trying to burn the players. Ironically, though, it’s the best thing which could have happened to the Padres. You know those dark clouds which roll in from the ocean and dump rain, then blow away? Well, the cloud over the team has just blown away. Now there is sunshine.”