THEY CALL HIM CAPTAIN : Garry Templeton Is Given a New Title, but He’s Been Playing the Role for Years

This is a season of changes for the Padres.

The club appears headed for a new owner, George Argyros. There’s a new manager, Larry Bowa. There’s also a new catcher, Benito Santiago; a new center fielder, Stan Jefferson; a new third baseman, Kevin Mitchell, and a new second baseman, Joey Cora.

There is a new captain, as well. His name is Garry Templeton.

Teammates have looked up to him for years, making it natural for Bowa to officially name him captain. Though Templeton modestly shrugs off the title, General Manager Jack McKeon thinks it was an overdue move.

“I see a lot of pride in his new role,” McKeon said. “He seems more outgoing. He’s young, but he’s been around a long time and he’s done a lot. The players have really accepted it well. After seeing what has transpired, maybe he should have been made captain earlier.”

Right fielder Tony Gwynn said Templeton has always gone out of his way to help him find ways to improve his performance.

“He helped me learn how to think about who’s going to be pitching on a given day, what he will throw you and how your pitcher will attack the other team’s hitters,” Gwynn said. “He’s got 10 years of knowledge of attacking pitchers and playing hitters, and he’s got a knack for helping out other players. He’s always had a big influence on me.”

First baseman Steve Garvey said Templeton shouldn’t change in his new role.

“He is going to be an excellent captain,” Garvey said. “I’m sure he was selected because of his attitude and work habits. There’s no need to do more than just be himself.”

Take it from the captain: He isn’t going to alter his personality or style.

“Being captain is an honor, but I don’t see a big change in my attitude or the way I perform,” he said. “I basically will do the same things I’ve been doing since I came here (in a 1982 trade with St. Louis for Ozzie Smith).

“I don’t think being captain is a big deal. What I want to do is keep everybody cheerful and happy. Some guys I may get on, some I’ll pat on the back. I just want to help us win again.”

Templeton, 31, brings more than a new title into his 11th National League season and sixth with the Padres.

He is determined to steal more bases, throw more accurately and, most important, hit close to .300.

“The way I feel now, I believe I can get back to the top of my game,” he said one morning before an exhibition game, adding that in the past he might have used his legs as an excuse for not trying as hard as he could. “But my legs have felt good except for a little stiffness on cold, windy days this spring.”

Templeton has been bothered by aching knees for years, and that has reduced his speed and his ability to get the so-called leg hits that helped him hit .322, .319 and .314 in three of his first four seasons. As a 21-year-old rookie with the Cardinals, he had 200 hits and was the youngest shortstop in modern baseball history to reach that figure.

“I think it will all come together for me again this year,” he said. “I’d like a good year and some good numbers. I think I could hit between .280 and .300 and drive in 60 or 70 runs.”

He wants to redeem himself for a poor season in 1986, when his batting average tumbled to .247, 35 points lower than the .282 he hit in 1985, when he was named the team’s most valuable player.

When the Padres traded catcher Terry Kennedy and center fielder Kevin McReynolds last winter, Templeton realized he had to be more of an offensive factor.

He hopes to match or improve on his career average of .284, figuring that the Padres will need his bat if they are to improve on last season’s 74-88 record.

“He just made up his mind to have a hell of a season, and he has been our most consistent performer this spring,” Gwynn said.

As part of his increased productivity, he wants to steal more bases. “I hope to show some people in the National League I can still run,” said Templeton, who stole 10 bases last season, less than a third of his career-high 34 in 1978.

“It’s hard to steal if you’re batting eighth,” he said, referring to his usual spot in the order last season. “You can’t steal after a two-out single with the pitcher up.”

Bowa will likely use Templeton in the second and seventh spots as well as eighth this season.

Moving up one position in the batting order would make a difference, according to Templeton.

“I might get a couple more pitches to hit every game if I hit seventh,” he said. “When I hit eighth, I swing at a lot of bad pitches--fastballs out of the strike zone--because I know I will only see one or two fastballs before they start with the off-speed junk or breaking balls.

“When you hit eighth, they fool around with you instead of giving you No. 1 (the fastball). They would be more apt to try to get me out with the fastball if I hit seventh.”

Although his overall batting average declined last season, his average with runners on base (.313) remained near his career average of .310.

Even hitting in the eighth position, he is such a dangerous batter with runners in scoring position that he has drawn more intentional walks over the past three seasons than any batter in baseball. He has received 68 intentional walks, 13 more than George Brett, his nearest competitor.

“They know I can still hit,” he said. “They still respect my ability with a bat. They don’t want me to drive in a run with a chink hit with the pitcher up next. It does get frustrating for me (to be walked), and I’ll enjoy the games when I’m hitting second or seventh.”

Templeton’s career average with runners on base is more than 40 points higher than with the bases empty. He has a ready explanation.

“I just bear down when somebody is on base,” he said. “I have to move the runners along or drive them in. I guess I slack up with no one on the bases, but I don’t know why, and I’m determined not to let it happen this year.”

Templeton is also determined to tune out those who dwell on his leg problems.

“I have listened to too many people saying that running was putting wear and tear on my legs,” he said. “Hey, my running helped get me to the major leagues.

“I did a lot of running over the winter. I ran the hills near my house, like Walter Payton does down in Mississippi. My legs got stronger than they did when I was lifting weights (in past off-seasons). I know I’m in better shape physically than I’ve been in a few years.”

He also expects to eliminate the inconsistency that marked his defense last year, when he made 15 errors in the first half of the season and only five in the second. He attributed many of the early errors to poor throws that bounced past Garvey.

“In the second half of the season, I concentrated on throwing better instead of nonchalanting it or lollypopping it to first,” he said. “I expect to cut down the errors this year. With such a young team, we need good defense and pitching to win, and we can’t permit any silly errors.”

Though he said the role of captain hasn’t altered his approach, his resolve to polish so many aspects of his game indicates a heightened awareness of his responsibilities. A new maturity, as well.

He has been many things to many people in his 10 major league seasons.

In his first couple of seasons, he showed so much speed and hitting ability, some said he could become the greatest shortstop in history, a can’t-miss Hall of Famer. He paid no attention to that talk.

A few years later, some of the luster was rubbed off a gilded career. A clash with Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog, and an obscene gesture he directed toward the St. Louis fans, led to his hospitalization for what doctors called a “minor chemical imbalance.”

He didn’t care for his final days in St. Louis any better than the effusive judgments that heralded his arrival.

“Things just piled up on my mind in St. Louis,” he said upon being traded to San Diego. “It just happened to explode one day. And it all might have flared up again if I had stayed in St. Louis.”

Traded to the Padres after the 1981 season, he was alternately hailed for his all-round play and criticized for his inability to emulate the defensive acrobatics of Smith, his predecessor.

Not until the 1984 playoffs and World Series, when he became the team’s spiritual leader, did San Diegans extend full acceptance.

The Padres had lost the first two games of the NL Championship Series to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. When they returned home for Game 3, the crowd at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium responded wildly to the sight of Templeton leaping from the dugout, waving his cap and leading cheers.

“I felt something deep inside me, yes, I did,” he said, explaining the spontaneous act that ignited the crowd and helped the Padres win three straight games and reach the World Series. “I felt I had to do something. Normally, I stay on the quiet side, but I knew I had to go with my natural instincts.”

Now there’s another role--captain.

He said the title won’t make much difference, because he has really been the de facto captain for several years now. Other players have followed his example, even if it wasn’t always comfortable for him to exert his influence verbally.

He has no concerns about adapting to another new manager, the third in less than two seasons.

“After all the bad times I had in St. Louis,” he said, “I think I have played for enough managers that it doesn’t matter anymore. You just accept each one for the way he is. I had such bad times with Whitey, I just said forget it. I just let it go. I just do my business, don’t start nothing, just play ball. After 10 years, if I can’t adjust to the manager, there’s something wrong with me, not the manager.”

And so it is with his past and the expectations that accompanied his introduction to the big leagues. His attitude then, as now, was to ignore those who forecasted greatness and those who criticized for perceived failures.

“I never paid any attention to what they said about me (in the early stages of his career),” he said. “I just didn’t see how anybody could judge me.”

Templeton saw fit to push himself to play with injuries.

“Later, I had the misfortune of hurting my knees and playing on bad legs,” he said. “I played too much with bad legs. I put pressure on myself to play hurt. I should have just got well. This is is the first year I feel I can get back to the level of being well and being what I used to be.”

He didn’t pretend to understand how today’s young stars, such as Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, have been affected by the attention they have received. But it was clear he didn’t envy them their fame.

“My attitude has always been, ‘Just let me be and let me play my game,’ ” he said. “I have always hated seeing talented young players being judged too early. My thought is, give them five years.

“But after a guy plays a year, they say, ‘He’s going to be the greatest ever.’ I always overlooked that stuff. I never wanted it to affect me one way or another.”