Padres’ One-Run Wins Are Something to Beef About

Jeff Naumann thought it was only natural that a sportswriter should be calling him on the telephone. It was almost as if he had been anticipating the call, wondering why it took so long.

“Ah,” he said. “You want to talk about my softball team?”

Huh?

Not exactly. This call had to do with one-run wins and roast beef sandwiches.

It has been chronicled that the Padres opened the season with 10 consecutive one-run games, seven of them wins. Five of those seven wins came at home.

A lot of folks hereabouts are working very hard because of those one-run home wins.

And Jeff Naumann is one of them.

In addition to his duties as a softball czar, Naumann also is the manager of Arby’s restaurant in Clairemont. Understand now that Arby’s restaurants are giving away free roast beef sandwiches in exchange for ticket stubs from any one-run Padre win at home.

At about the time the Padres were high-fiving their way to the clubhouse after each of those one-run games in that remarkable succession of days, the good folks at the 14 Arby’s in the San Diego area were on the move.

They were moving their buns. Literally.

Stepping away from the stove and warming to the topic, Naumann shook his head in amazement: “We’re calling up everyone we know so we can put on extra people and we have about three times as many roasts ready to go. Sales are way up and customer counts are way up. It’s been great, but I’m glad the Padres are out of town . . . for a few days, at least.”

Naumann does not have an exact count on how many free roast beef sandwiches have been distributed, but the ticket stubs are piling up like a mini-Matterhorn. He knows the number exceeds 3,000.

Fred Loegel, the manager of the Rosecrans outlet, said the buns and beef have been moving there too.

“We went through a weekend’s worth of buns yesterday,” he said Friday, “and we’ve got a special order coming today. We’re giving away a tremendous number of sandwiches.”

It is not surprising that people should avail themselves of a chance to pick up a free roast beef sandwich in exchange for a ticket stub they would otherwise either throw away or use as a book mark. Not at all.

It is the Padres who have done the surprising. They have caused this citywide run on beef.

To put all this in perspective, consider that the Padres had 19 one-run wins at home for all of the 1985 season. They never had more than four one-run wins in any month.

These were the figures the Arby’s folks considered when they met with the Padres to discuss promotional possibilities. This would certainly be a nice little promotion which might cause a nice little burst of business every so often.

That was the idea.

However, the Padres went right out last Friday night and beat Cincinnati, 4-3, in their home opener. The crowd was 52,934.

Cattle were cowering from here to the Texas Panhandle.

The margin was again one run Saturday night, but Cincinnati was the winner. Those ticket stubs were as worthless as a lottery ticket with three pairs.

And then came the onslaught.

Four straight one-run games, and four straight Padre wins. The crowds were 23,546, 25,432, 24,424 and 30,403. In the course of the first six nights of the 1986 home season, a total of 156,739 fans had watched the Padres win five one-run games--and come away with 156,739 ticket stubs redeemable for roast beef sandwiches.

By this time, Arby’s outlets were paying close attention to what was happening down in Mission Valley.

“We have a Designated Game Listener,” Naumann said. “His job is to listen and keep us updated. We have to know if it gets to the seventh or eighth inning and the score’s tied or the Padres are ahead or behind by a run.”

Since the ticket stubs can be redeemed for a week, there is no great rush to get from the stadium to the nearest Arby’s. But it happens anyway.

By Wednesday night, Padre fans were getting paunchy and Naumann was getting punchy. Graig Nettles came up in the ninth with runners on first and second and the score tied.

“Don’t get a single,” Naumann sighed.

Nettles singled home the winning run and Naumann’s restaurant was soon jammed with folks asking: “Where’s the beef?”

Beef? Who has a beef? Not Arby’s.

“I’ve heard people say that the poor guy who dreamed this up is probably going to get fired,” Loegel said, “but he should take a 3-by-5 card, write ‘good job’ on it and stick it in his personnel file. His job is to get people in here, and we’re seeing people we’ve never seen before.”

Charlie Harmon is Arby’s vice president for the district. His assistant, Jean McGaw, said he would be difficult to contact Friday because he was so busy.

“This has been exciting . . . and it’s attracted a lot of publicity,” McGaw said, “but we’ve had a little bit of a problem keeping the product in the stores. We’ve just had to gear up.”

And so the veep himself was busy Friday. Moving buns.