HOMES IS WHERE HIS HEART ISN’T : Mitchell’s a Padre, but He Can’t Help Missing the Mets

Kevin Mitchell misses the world champion New York Mets. He misses setting their shoes on fire. He misses cutting the sleeves off their sport coats. He misses spitting beer on them. He misses hearing their nicknames. He misses Keith Hernandez. He misses Darryl Strawberry’s bald head.

The Mets traded him. He says they promised they wouldn’t. He’s a Padre now, which isn’t bad, because San Diego is his hometown. But, still, he misses Rusty Staub’s stomach.

He misses dressing up like Mr. T. And he misses those rally caps.

“I loved those guys,” said Mitchell, the Padres’ new third baseman. “That was the type of team where you’d come to the ballpark and be there all day, and when you’d leave, you’d miss them. You’d always want to hurry to get to the ballpark and be with them. I fit in. It was like one big family.

“I was close to everybody. I got so comfortable, it was like walking into your own house.”

He walked into the Padres’ spring training home at Yuma, the Ray Kroc Baseball Complex, and started perspiring.

“You know how cold it is here in Yuma?” Mitchell said. The temperature was in the 40s. “Well, I was so nervous I was sweating in my armpits.”

It seemed to him that the Padres were expecting a lot. He had played a lot of positions for the Mets, but he hadn’t been a third baseman in a while. He was probably the Padres’ new cleanup hitter too. He missed most of the first spring training workout on Wednesday because of bad weather. He had tried driving here on Tuesday night, but the mountain roads were closed because of snow. That made him even more edgy. When he finally arrived, he went to Manager Larry Bowa and said, “I’m sorry.”

So Bowa and Jack McKeon, the Padre general manager, pulled him aside on Thursday. McKeon told him, “Hey, I want you to feel like you’re among friends. I’ll be your friend--except when it comes to negotiating salaries.”

They both laughed.

Bowa saw the size of Mitchell’s arms and said, “You could do pullups on his arms, he’s so strong!”

Tony Gwynn, one of his new teammates, described how he and Mitchell played in a basketball game against Strawberry this winter.

“Strawberry’s coming down the lane, and Mitchell comes out of nowhere and blocks his shot. He was up there! He fly-swatted it to half court, ran, got the ball and went in for a layup. You look at his big body and say, ‘Come on. No way he can jump.’ But he got up there. Like a Barkley? Well, not that high.

“And he can hit (a baseball). He’s got power. He’s the first guy I’ve seen hit one backdoor over the right-center fence with the wind blowing to left field. Hmmmmmm.”

Sitting by himself, Mitchell said, “I’m beginning to like it here.”

But he still misses the Mets.

When Mitchell began his rookie season in New York last year, the other Mets thought he was weird. They would take a pair of scissors and snip up his expensive sneakers, and he would get angry. Because all rookies are supposed to be able to take abuse, the Mets thought he had a problem.

“I wouldn’t say nothing to nobody,” Mitchell recalled. “I was always quiet, and I couldn’t take their jokes.”

Bill Robinson, the hitting coach, thought Mitchell had a bad attitude. Why? Because anytime anyone said something, Mitchell got defensive.

“It’s just the way I was brought up,” Mitchell said. “Where I lived, I had to watch my back.”

He grew up in Southeast San Diego. He was in a gang. He didn’t graduate from high school. He was always in trouble.

Robinson straightened him out. “He was like my father,” Mitchell said.

Soon he was one of the guys. For example:

--The Rusty Staub incident. Mitchell and all the other players dressed up like Staub, a Met coach. They stuffed pillows underneath their shirts. And they wore red wigs. Then they walked out in front of the Shea Stadium crowd.

--Lighting shoes on fire. That was a common prank. Mitchell got teammate Tim Teufel during the National League playoffs.

--Cutting people’s clothes and shoes. But that worked both ways. “The starting pitchers used to get me,” Mitchell said. “Dwight (Gooden) or Ron Darling or (relief pitcher) Jesse Orosco or (reliever) Roger McDowell or HoJo (infielder Howard Johnson) or Tim Teufel. In a way I was anxious to get to the ballpark every day to see what they’d done to my locker.

“I had these shoes, which cost a lot of money. And I’d get my shoes cut up almost every day. But I’d get them back. I’d cut up their suits. I’d cut off their pants legs or their sleeves.” On $400 suits? “Yeah,” he said.

--Spitting beer. The Mets had just won the World Series, and although most players drink champagne or beer to celebrate, Mitchell spit his instead.

--The nicknames. Every player had one, and Mitchell’s was “World” because he played every position but pitcher and catcher. He even has “World” inscribed on his bath towels.

“I loved being the Mets’ utility guy,” he said. “Every day, it was a big thrill for me to see what I could do at that position. I just wish I’d gotten in to play catcher and to pitch. I’ve got a good screwball. I’m serious. I threw it today to one of the pitchers, and he almost missed it. It sunk. And I can play catcher. When Gary Carter got hurt last year, and (backup catcher) Ed Hearns was on the ground one day, I was loosening up to go in. I’d help out in the bullpen all the time.”

--His relationship with Hernandez. Mitchell says he will miss Hernandez the most. Hernandez would advise him on opposing pitchers. He would go into the clubhouse and watch Mitchell’s at-bat on TV so he could come back and tell Mitchell what he was doing wrong.

“I looked up to that guy so much,” Mitchell said. “He can lead me anywhere.”

--Strawberry’s bald head. Mitchell always said he was an an aspiring barber. One day, Strawberry told him, “Cut off all my hair!”

Mitchell said, “I cut it short, but he cut the rest off. I told his wife I didn’t do it. She was mad at him.

“Later, we were all sitting down and looking at Straw, and Dwight said, ‘I should do that, too.’ And I said, ‘Dwight, if you cut your hair like that, I’ll cut mine.’ We were going to do it the next day, but a newspaper heard about it and printed a picture of what our hair would look like short. And I had women calling my house, saying, ‘Please don’t do that.’ ”

--The rally caps. When the Mets trailed--and it didn’t happen often last season--Mitchell, Teufel and Johnson would turn their caps inside out for good luck. More often than not, Carter or Hernandez or Strawberry would hit a game-wining home run.

--Playing Mr. T. McDowell bought Mitchell a Mr. T cap. He put it on and looked as if he had a Mohawk haircut like Mr. T.

“I wore it in the dugout and out on the field,” Mitchell said. “My family back home saw me on TV and thought it was real.”

Mitchell’s family--especially his grandmother--is excited to have him home. Mitchell lives with his grandparents in San Diego and doesn’t want to get his own place.

“I will never leave my grandparents,” he said. “We’re too close. She wouldn’t want me to leave, because she’d have no one to watch for. I’m so close to my grandparents, it’s just unreal. One day, she’ll be gone. And it’s almost that time. She’s about 65 and looks young, but she’s got some aches and pains right now.”

He worries about her because they live in a tough part of town.

“It’s getting worse there now,” he said, “because of drugs. There’s people going around shooting people now. My friend, he just got killed the other day. They found him in his car yesterday morning. Drug related. You would have never thought he was into the stuff. He was always so quiet. And, one day, you find out he’s shot.”

New York is no picnic either, but he really misses it.

“I lived in the city,” Mitchell said. “I loved it there. You can walk around New York and get stuff free, man. That’s how it was. When you’re winning, the New York fans love you. I’d walk around and have dinner for free. People would pick up the tab. I loved it!”