Roberts May Keep Padres From Being Too Honest

Blipping through the television channels one Sunday afternoon, I stumbled upon Bip.

He was hard to find, hidden behind Carmelo Martinez as he was. Leon (Bip) Roberts was at bat, and Martinez was the runner on second base.

I paused. Maybe I would get a chance to see if this kid could run like I had been hearing he could run.

And then the announcers explained that the bases were loaded. Not only was Martinez on second, but Terry Kennedy and Graig Nettles were also on base.

Forget it, I thought. With those guys on base, Roberts isn’t going anywhere. You ever tried to pass a logging truck on a mountain road?

I decided to watch anyway. And Bip ripped a drive to right-center field which rolled to the fence. All three runners lumbered home and Bip himself was thrown out trying for an inside-the-park grand slam. This was definitely a green light guy.

Bip Roberts is what the Padres need at the top of the batting order. They need someone to add some larceny to the lineup.

After all, the Padres had the most honest offense in baseball in 1985. And that was no way to repeat as champions of the National League.

Honest? That’s right. The Padres stole a mere 60 bases in 1985, down from 152 in their championship year. No one else in baseball was quite so trustworthy.

And it was not just the absence of Alan Wiggins.

The Padres were (and are) slow. One athlete cannot make his teammates any faster, and I don’t care whether we are talking about Alan Wiggins, Bip Roberts or Secretariat.

However, one athlete might be able to change the thinking of an entire team.

When Wiggins departed last spring, it was as if the Padres collectively decided that they no longer had a running game. If they had to advance more than one base, they should have packed lunches for the journey. They had guys thrown out at second trying to shrink a triple into a double.

Indeed, the Padres could not have run the bases any more timidly if they had been told the basepaths were mined.

Certainly, there have been other teams with similar philosophies, but such teams are generally muscle-bound aggregations which rely on the home run. These Padres sat back and waited for the big blow from a lineup which produced only one player, Martinez, who hit as many as 20 home runs. And Martinez hit only 21.

So the 1985 Padres, lacking power as they were, took themselves out of the race when they chose suppression to aggression.

And so it is encouraging to see that this fellow Bip Roberts has the local heroes thinking speed.

Of course, it is more than Roberts. He provides the speed, but a fellow named Steve Boros provides the philosophy.

Boros understands that speed is more than stolen bases. He explained this to the media the day he was hired as manager, and he has spent considerable time since explaining it to his players.

Speed is probably not the right word for what Boros has in mind. He is talking aggressiveness in advancing two bases on singles, three bases on doubles, one base on fly balls and other such behavior which might have been deemed frivolous a year ago.

Stolen bases, or attempted steals, illustrate the Padres’ lack of aggressiveness in 1985.

Consider, for example, that Steve Garvey, Terry Kennedy and Graig Nettles played 442 games among them last year and not one of them attempted to steal a base.

Now, if I’m reading your mind correctly, you are wondering if I spent a little too much time at a St. Patrick’s bash. You are thinking that guys who run like their feet are chained together should never be allowed to attempt a stolen base.

You are probably right. I am not suggesting that Boros should routinely turn these guys loose on the base paths. That is not the point.

I am saying that guys like Garvey, Kennedy and Nettles should get an occasional head start. With a full count, one out and Garvey on first, put on the hit and run. It’s not really an attempted steal, but rather an aggressive maneuver giving a slow runner the best of it in terms of getting an extra base or staying out of a double play. The risk is a strike out and a double play.

It is incredible that these three athletes, all of them slow afoot, could appear in 442 games and not once be thrown out even accidentally trying to steal second base. This was a very passive attack.

It was ironic that Dick Williams, one of the most aggressive of people, should direct such a mild-mannered offense--and also that Boros, one of the most mild-mannered of people, should demand such an aggressive offense.

But that is what is happening in Yuma.

Guys like Garvey, Nettles and Kennedy are not going to challenge Vince Coleman for the stolen base championship, but Boros will have them moving.

Indeed, Steve Boros will have the entire team on the move. Do you think that Kevin McReynolds, with his speed, will attempt all of four steals in 1986? That was all he attempted last year.

Bip Roberts will only be the outward manifestation of this inward change in philosophy.

If he can play, and he has done nothing yet to disprove this fondest of Jack McKeon’s hopes, folks will say: “See. That’s what the Padres needed. Speed at the top of the batting order.”

But they needed more than that. They needed greed, and an understanding that there cannot be success without failure.

They will surely run themselves out of a game or few, but that will be the price they will have to pay to run themselves into a pennant race.