MARVELL WYNNE : As One of All the Dude’s Youngsters, Padre Is Proof Inner City Can Produce Players

Just the other day in Chicago, Marvell Wynne claimed he once ran the 60-yard dash in 6.3 seconds. That’s Carl Lewis language. Teammate Garry Templeton overheard, spit, smirked and said: “You never been that fast, man.”

Said Wynne: “Well, you won’t see me do it now.”

“No way you ever did it before,” Templeton said. “Not 6.3. No way, man.”

Said Wynne: “You’re a fool, man.”

And Marvell Wynne has witnesses. In 1979, when he was 19 and living in Chicago, one of his high school coaches, who’s referred to simply as “Dude,” took him to a tryout camp sponsored by the Kansas City Royals. Wynne went because he had nothing better to do and because you always did what Dude said.

There were 200 kids at this camp--fat kids, skinny kids, uncoordinated kids--and it was pretty hard to pick out the wonderful kids. About halfway through, Dude--whose given name is Art Burns--asked Wynne to unload some baseball equipment from his car. About that moment, one of the Royals’ scouts, Art Stewart, said to Dude: “We don’t have anyone here who can run and throw.”

Dude looked at Marvell, looked at Stewart, looked back at Marvell and said: “Here’s your man.”

They got the stopwatch, and Wynne ran a 6.5 60-yard dash.

“One more time,” a wide-eyed Stewart said.

This time, he ran a 6.3.

Stewart, who is now the Royals’ scouting director, confirmed the story this week, saying in a telephone interview: “Uh, I think it was 6.3 and a half.”

Anyway, Stewart saw how fast Wynne ran and asked what position he played. He expected to hear him say “outfield,” but Wynne--quite a quiet kid back then--said: “Pitcher, sir.”

So they sent him out to the mound, and the kid was a lefty. His stuff was all right, but he was faster running from home to first than he was throwing from the mound to home. Dude told him to get in the outfield, so he did. Dude told him to throw his relays just like he threw his fastball, so Marvell did.

Stewart remained wide-eyed, and soon Wynne was wide-eyed, too, when the Royals offered him a contract as a pitcher.

Dude said to sign it, so he did.

Of 200 fat kids, skinny kids and uncoordinated kids, Wynne was the only wonderful kid, the only one who got a contract that day.

“It’s amazing,” he said, as Templeton listened in. “I don’t think anybody knows how I got started. Now, I’m up here in the big leagues. It’s amazing.”

Dude Burns, retired and now a part-time scout for the Royals, says there’s a million Marvell Wynnes out there--in Chicago alone.

“Listen, man,” Burns said in Chicago this week. “I got a baseball team called the Panthers, and people like Marvell and Kirby Puckett came from my team. Me and Marvell, we became buddy-buddies. That’s how he got out of here.

“See, in baseball, it’s nothing but seeing the ball, hitting the ball and wanting to hit the ball. Either want it or go home. Marvell, he wanted to play all the time. He was a quiet kid. He didn’t say nothing to nobody. You didn’t know he was there, but you knew him when he walked between those lines.

“But what a good kid. His mom and dad put him in my hands. We’d go get him and bring him to the ballpark. He was going to play football, but I talked him into playing baseball, and he’s one of those die-hards. He loved ball.

Added Burns: “But people think there are no baseball players in the city. Bull! That’s where the kids are. Everybody plays every sport. We had this kid, I think he played pro basketball or something. He was 7-4, a real big high school kid. When the speed guns came out, he could throw 105 m.p.h. See, he’s 7-4, so he’s halfway there. You know that rule in amateur baseball where a kid can’t pitch two days in a row? Well, that’s a rule here, anyway. And this kid is the one who made them put in the rule. He could throw every day.

“There’s so much talent here, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s the cold weather that’s our downfall. And here in Chicago, we don’t have a decent field to play on. I play on the best field in Chicago, and that’s why kids come with me. You would not believe the talent here. If you saw my team, you’d have a heart attack. They can run, hit, throw and think. Great attitudes. It’s ‘yes, sir’ and ‘thank you, sir.’ They’re all polite. And it’s not just blacks, but whites, too. And Puerto Ricans, too.”

Baseball scouts hold tryout camps just for this purpose, just because of what Burns said. You have all these pure athletes in a big city like Chicago, and they either play basketball or football. Sometimes, because of the weather, baseball is left out.

That’s where Art Stewart comes in. He runs these camps to find the pure athletes who can run and throw. That’s all he needs to know. If a kid can run and throw, the kid can learn to hit and learn to run under a fly ball.

“Chicago is a big metropolitan city where there are 360 high schools,” said Stewart, who was the Royals’ Midwest scout in 1979. “You could go out and see a high school game every day and still not get to see everybody. Because of the weather, they (baseball teams) don’t really get started until April 1. And they’re over May 20, and there are a bunch of rain-outs and snow-outs in between.

“What we do at these camps is hold the age limit from 16 to 22. Instead of hoping to find a Marvell Wynne, you gear it toward getting young sophomores and juniors to come out. See, that way, you have a good backlog of what to look for later, when they become seniors. Sure, you get kids who are overweight, you get the kids who are trying to fulfill a lifelong dream and just can’t play. But we’re realistic with them. We tell them if they want to stay in baseball, they can always become statisticians.

“The Marvell Wynnes are special. And I’m happy for him. You get more satisfaction with a kid like that than getting a player who’s well-known and is a No. 1 draft choice. Everyone knows him. But this--these tryout camps--gives you satisfaction.”

Padre General Manager Jack McKeon plans on running some tryouts this year.

“If we can get two (players) a year? Great!” he said. “We run ‘em in the 60, time them to first, check their arms, but the biggest thing we’re concerned about is the tools. If they can throw and run, they’ve got a chance.”

The story of Pittsburgh shortstop U. L. Washington comes to mind. He, too, was discovered by the Royals at a 400-kid tryout camp.

“There were guys with hard hats on and patches on and hair down to their shoulders,” Washington said. “Actually, they were pretty good athletes, but the Royals were looking for guys with speed and then they’d teach them the game. What do I mean by teach? You know, how to play hitters and how to hit and run. Man, when I was in high school, we didn’t have signs for a hit and run. A hit and run was when you were running and the guy at bat hit the ball.

“But I made it. I ran a 6.7 60, and later ran a 6.5. Marvell ran a 6.3? Wow!”

Dude Burns created a monster. Last week in Pittsburgh, Marvell Wynne made what he called “the best catch of my life” in center field. Pirate rookie Barry Bonds lifted one deep to left-center, and Wynne ran to the wall, leaped, extended his glove arm and caught it, his back banging hard against the wall.

The next day during batting practice, Bonds was calling the catch lucky, and Wynne--quiet no more--bragged: “Don’t bring it out there no more, Barry. Don’t bring it out there.”

Still, Wynne worked hard to get out there himself. The Royals brought him to the minors and told him to forget pitching. They made him a full-time outfielder, but later traded him to the Mets in a deal involving Juan Berenguer.

With the Mets, he reached Triple-A but languished there.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get up to the big leagues with the Mets,” Wynne said. “George Foster had just signed a contract, and me and (Darryl) Strawberry were on the same team (Tidewater). And the next call was going to be for him. Plus, they had Mookie Wilson in center. I knew my chances were slim.”

That October at the 1982 World Series, a writer named George McClendon, who covered Wynne’s Tidewater team, was chatting with a writer named Charlie Feeney, who covered the Pittsburgh Pirates. McClendon asked Feeney what the Pirates were going to do with their center fielder, Omar Moreno, who was a free agent. Feeney said they were going to tell him to get lost. McClendon said the Mets had this kid Marvell Wynne at Triple-A who was going nowhere. But he was pretty good. Feeney told the Pirates.

When Lee Mazzilli began slumping in 1983, the Pirates took a look at Wynne. They liked what they saw and traded for him.

He arrived in Pittsburgh, and Manager Chuck Tanner said: “You’re my center fielder.”

He got a hit in his first at-bat, started the rest of 1983 and all of 1984. In ‘84, he hit .266 in 156 games. If he had a problem, he was too skinny. Bip Roberts, who knew Wynne in Pittsburgh, said his legs weren’t much wider than baseball bats. Bruce Bochy, who played with him at Tidewater, said: “He looked like a POW.”

So Wynne lifted weights, went to winter ball in the Dominican Republic and got larger. But in 1985, he kept spraining his ankles and played in only 103 games.

With the emergence of Bonds in 1986, he was expendable. The Padres got him for a minor league pitcher, and Wynne won the job in center field. Currently, he’s batting .286 with 24 RBIs and eight steals.

According to Burns, Wynne hasn’t forgotten his roots. He said while the Padres were in Chicago, Wynne stopped by to see some of the young kids and to give out balls, bats, shoes and gloves.

“And he tells me if I need anything, just to call him,” Burns said. “He’s my boy.

“And we got a lot of young kids here just like him. Man, if we just had some decent ballfields here, our talent would be outrageous!”