One Team’s Family Becomes Another’s Fiasco

What we have here is not a tale of how the mighty have fallen, nor a parable about how the meek will inherit the turf.

Instead, what we have here is more a study in irony, or maybe a lesson once again that only the unpredictable is predictable. Change is forever.

Was it not long ago, a colleague asked, that the Chargers were run by an irascible individual who was constantly at odds with his athletes? And was it not during that same era that the Padres were enjoying their greatest success under the benevolent direction of a family which seemingly embraced all of the community in its arms and was embraced in return?

It is obvious now that roles have reversed themselves hereabouts.

Today’s perception is that the Chargers are about to return to the glory of just a few years back, excitement reaching a playoff-style fever pitch for Sunday’s season opener against Miami. The multitudes sing praises for owner Alex Spanos, who has so often opened his wallet in pursuit of this miracle he realizes only money can buy.

Indeed, the turf at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium once again is the land of the Chargers.

This has transpired not because the Padres have fallen to the nether regions of the National League West standings, but rather because of the way this pratfall has occurred.

The perception is that ownership is the villain of this piece, bickering first at the highest organizational levels and finally entering into conflict with the players themselves.

Irascibility has gone down the hall.

The Padres’ downward slide did not begin on the playing field. In fact, the players themselves had nothing to do with it.

It began with the fiasco of last winter, when the club president and general manager favored what appeared to be an orderly dismissal of the curmudgeonly manager. Belatedly, it seemed, the owner stepped in and over-ruled those she was paying to run the club, one of them her son-in-law.

This dirty laundry was spread around the landscape for quite some time. This dirty linen is still being dragged out of the hamper.

What this created was an impression--and remember that impressions and perceptions are usually much stronger than reality--that the fellows running the club were not really running the club at all.

Joan Kroc was.

Ms. Kroc is a wonderful woman, greatly concerned with what good her inherited riches can do for the world in which we live. She has turned charity into a profession.

However, she does not know baseball--or baseball people.

The manager she championed, Dick Williams, waited until the opening of spring training to extract his revenge for the treatment he was accorded during the off-season fiasco.

He quit. His message? Take that.

Joan Kroc, not realizing that the blood was on her back as well, kissed him farewell at what was a farce of a press conference. Poor Joan.

Now we come to what might be called the Padres’ Farwellian Summer of Morality. We shall not allow beer in the clubhouse, someone (I keep this general because I know not who runs this show.) declared, we shall not sign players to contracts longer than one year in duration, we shall not sign players who have ever been associated with sniffing or puffing controlled substances and we shall not tolerate harsh words from the clubhouse. Indeed, the fans themselves are sternly admonished to behave themselves each night.

Alas, one athlete in particular emerged as an ex-officio spokesman for the masses huddled in the NL West basement. His name is Rich Gossage, and he is a rough-hewn type who likely would have been a lumberjack or a longshoreman in another period. He is not one for the fine points of diplomacy or maybe even civil conversation.

He had things to say, and what he said was offensive.

Ballard Smith, the club president, suspended him. At least, Smith made the announcement. Maybe it was Kroc. Or maybe Dick Williams called Kroc and told her it was the thing to do.

Who knows?

Mr. Gossage may have been out of line, but the Padres’ front office seems to be perceived as the heavies in this case. That is heavy as in heavy-handed.

Weren’t all these people drinking champagne together in that same pre-Prohibition clubhouse two years ago? Weren’t they all swimming together, fully clothed, in Gossage’s pool two years ago?

How have they all come to occupy this same cesspool in the summer of 1986?

Meanwhile, down the hall, the white hat has passed to one Alex Spanos. Sure, he demands that the fellows in his front office adorn themselves with neckties, but he does not mandate it of his players and, for that matter, fans.

He perceives himself quite accurately as the owner of a sports franchise, and operates from an office rather than a makeshift pulpit. He abhors drugs, as should everyone, but he does not make blanket statements about trespasses being forever unforgiven.

When the time comes that the Chargers get to the Super Bowl, and this time will come, Alex Spanos will be hailed a hero. He too will drink champagne in the clubhouse, and maybe even find himself splashing about in Dan Fouts’ swimming pool.

The Chargers are like a family now, just like the Padres used to be. It must always be remembered that harmony within any family is either built or destroyed from the top.