Padres Go From Boros to Bowa in Hopes of Making Some Noise

Pee Wee became a big league manager Tuesday for the San Diego Padres.

Pee Wee--for those who didn’t hang around the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies--is Lawrence Robert Bowa. He was called the most obnoxious, loud-mouthed, hard-working, “disturbing” player. Almost daily, he’d walk up to the mountain that was teammate Greg Luzinski and say, “Hey, you fat hog! How many drinks you have last night? How many potato chips? Gonna run it off today?”

Luzinski would peer at this 5-foot 9-inch, Mickey Rooney-clone and say, “I don’t want to hurt you, wimp.” Their teammate, Pete Rose, would watch it all and laugh, and one day, he nicknamed Bowa, “Pee Wee.”

It stuck.

And now Bowa, 40, is a little general. Tuesday, the San Diego Padres named him the successor to Steve Boros, who--despite what is said--was replaced for being much too nice. Boros, 50, has been tossed out of only one big league game (for presenting an umpire with a video replay) and has been ejected just three times in his life.

Bowa beat that by the time he was 16. His language was so abusive at American Legion games that his mother would bring her lawn chair and sit out in right field so she wouldn’t have to hear. Once a Phillies scout came to watch Bowa play a college doubleheader, but Bowa was thrown out of both games.

So, whereas Boros tends to be timid, Bowa can get livid.

For a Padre team that seemed to yearn for a kick in the pants, this move is a fine one.

Shortstop Garry Templeton told one teammate: “He (Bowa) could be a jerk when he was playing, but he’ll be a good manager.”

And General Manager Jack McKeon said: “A guy’s got to have control, and he (Bowa) has got control. He’s not afraid to sit down and tell those guys what’s happening, not afraid to get on their butts. He’s not afraid to jump them, to bench them if they don’t hustle. That’s control.

“The veterans will love it, too. You don’t have to be a (bleep). You just have to take charge. I tell you, he’s a gutsy little sucker. The times I’ve talked with him, he’s not afraid to speak his piece.”

Who would have guessed?

He was cut from his high school team. Phillie scout Ed Bockman liked his true grit and recommended that he be signed. Bockman rented a projector, brought film of Bowa to the Phillies’ Paul Owens and showed the highlight reel on a bedsheet because he didn’t have a movie screen.

Bowa was signed, but there were no signs of life. When he was a 22-year-old minor leaguer, Phillie Manager Gene Mauch said: “I can see him, but I can’t hear him.” He taught himself to be a switch hitter in Triple-A. He made the major league roster. He made the all-star game. He won two Gold Gloves.

He was the first one to the ballpark every day. He has never missed an infield practice. If the batting coach gave him five minutes in the cage instead of seven, he’d scream. Tug McGraw called him a “disturber.” He went on a radio talk show one day in 1980 and portrayed the Veterans Stadium fans as closest thing to a lynch mob.

The Phillies traded him to Chicago. The fans hated him there because he was part of general manager Dallas Green’s new tradition, and they liked the old Cub tradition. He was booed for a full year before he finally exploded--he flipped off a fan. In 1984, the Cubs won their division and were greeted by thousands of fans at the airport. But Bowa wouldn’t get off the team bus.

“Aren’t you getting off?” teammate Gary Matthews asked.

“No way,” Bowa said.

In 1985, the Cubs brought up a young shortstop named Shawon Dunston. Bowa wasn’t playing and got mad. He had a subtle way of letting coaches know, too. When he’d be out of the lineup for a day or so, he’d walk down the runway and say to no one in particular (but for a coach to hear): “I guess I look tired” or “I guess the computer broke today.”

Don Zimmer, the Cub third base coach, called him “The most selfish player I’ve ever seen.”

His longtime friend John Vukovich, who grew up with Bowa in Sacramento, said Tuesday: “Growing up, nobody had ever given him a chance to play, and he felt everybody was against him. Yes, he had a chip on his shoulder. He fought everybody, but he ended up winning.”

The Mets picked him up at the end of 1985. He had lost his arm and his speed (that’s all he ever had), and he knew it. He decided to retire. The Mets offered him a $285,000 guaranteed contract to play in 1986, but he said no.

He wanted to manage.

He had his agent, Jack Sands, find out about every available Triple-A managing job. The Yankees’ job (in Columbus, Ohio) was open, but he didn’t want the Yankees and all the politics that go with them, he said.

Then there was the Padre job in Las Vegas.

McKeon interviewed him last November over lunch at the Innisbrook golf and tennis condo resort near Clearwater, Fla.

“When I left that meeting,” McKeon said Tuesday, “I was convinced he was a guy I wanted.”

McKeon liked Bowa’s attitude, which happened to be similar to McKeon’s himself. Bowa told McKeon that day: “I’ve been on teams where if you’re in a slump, the manager avoids you . . . As a manager, I want to get in a slumping guy’s head and get it straightened out right away. I wouldn’t want him to keep faltering.”

Understand that McKeon had just finished dealing with Dick Williams, who avoided his players in the manner Bowa suggested. McKeon was overjoyed and immediately gave Bowa the Triple-A job. He figured Bowa might be his major league manager in three or four years.

But Boros--and not all of it was his fault, McKeon says--couldn’t get the Padres going in 1986. The players were lackadaisical, for Boros never pushed them.

Meanwhile, Bowa was going crazy in Las Vegas, where the Stars won the league championship.

“To be honest, I think I came on a little too strong as far as kicking guys in the rear end,” he said Tuesday. “There’s a fine line there. Some guys need to be stroked; Some guys need to be kicked. I kicked everybody.

“And then I found out some guys were going the other way and weren’t progressing.”

These were tough times. Bowa, according to one Las Vegas player, had alienated the umpires so badly that the team never got the close calls. Also, Bowa was suspended for verbally abusing a female umpire.

But he toned it down in the second half of the season and taught his players intricate baseball secrets such as stealing a catcher’s signs. His players had to work hard, even in the mid-day 115-degree Las Vegas heat. If they were a minute late getting to the field, they were fined $25.

“I probably learned more than I ever have about myself and about baseball because of him,” said Triple-A pitcher Ed Wojna of Bowa. “He ran things professionally. We were so mentally prepared . . . If he can get the atmosphere and feeling we had in Las Vegas and bring it to the Padres, the team will be good.”

Boros, who currently is vacationing near Tahiti, will still work inside the organization. Jack Krol, last year’s third base coach, also has been offered a different job in the organization and said Tuesday night he’s not sure if he’ll accept.

Harry Dunlop will replace Krol at third base; Sandy Alomar returns as first base coach; Galen Cisco returns as pitching coach and Deacon Jones returns as batting coach. Greg Riddoch, who was the Padres’ minor league coordinator last season, also will join the staff.

How happy was Bowa Tuesday? He signed a one-year contract, but told McKeon he’s so confident he would’ve signed a “half-year contract.”

“We will give 100%,” Bowa said. “And the players who don’t want to give 100% just won’t play. It’s as simple as that. I’ve seen too many games . . . where a guy hits a pop fly, goes five steps down the line and makes a right turn and goes in the dugout. Well, he might do that once or twice, and that’s going to be it.

“Don’t expect me not to get thrown out of any games. Don’t expect me to be a choirboy, because I’ve never done that . . . The bottom line, gentlemen, is winning. I hate losing at scrabble with my wife. I tell you, I hate it.”

Same old Pee Wee.