Chub Feeney to Be Padre President

Joan Kroc, Padre owner, thinks Charles (Chub) Feeney did a courageous thing Wednesday.

He agreed to become Padre president.

“I think it’s a compliment to the city of San Diego and to our young players that a man of his experience and love of the game would take this challenge,” Kroc said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia, where the National League owners were meeting and where Feeney, 65, accepted her offer to succeed Ballard Smith as club president and chief executive officer beginning Monday.

“It’s easy to step into a team that’s .500 or better,” Kroc said. “But it takes a lot of guts to do something like this.”

Running the Padres is hardly a tranquil job, for the team has the worst record in baseball and could break the all-time mark for most losses in a season (120) set by the 1962 New York Mets. On the other hand, Feeney, who retired last year as league president after 17 years, may not be on the job very long.

Kroc said Feeney has guaranteed her that he will stay through this season. But after that?

“The team is off the market,” said Kroc, who previously had put the team up for sale. “And Chub and I have agreed we’ll give everything we’ve got in the 1987 season. Assuming we get along and, philosophically, we’re on the same page . . . Put it this way, I want him to have options (in 1988).

“If Chub is happy with the job and we can get some things turned around, I would hope he’ll consider staying on.”

Feeney promised Wednesday that he will not make immediate changes. Asked about the status of General Manager Jack McKeon, Feeney told the Associated Press: “I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to Jack. . . .

“The team is better than it has shown,” Feeney said. “We have a lot of young players, and they may be in over their heads. . . . That (a turnaround) is hard to do. Miracles are hard to come by.”

Said McKeon: “I think he is a well-qualified man. He’s a good choice and has a world of experience. He’s a highly respected baseball official.”

Here in Houston, the news did not elicit much reaction. Right fielder Tony Gwynn, for instance, didn’t want to comment because he hardly knows Feeney.

Manager Larry Bowa said: “Can he hit 30 homers?”

Then he said: “Let me tell you, I knew him when he was president of the National League because I wrote him about 20 checks of mine. He wrote me a letter once, saying: ‘One more outburst like that, I’ll be forced to suspend you.’ Then I pushed (umpire) Jim Quick. Well, no, I didn’t push him; butted him with my chest. I was suspended three days by Chub and fined about $750. He got a lot of my money, boy. I was always writing, ‘Pay to the order of Chub Feeney.’ ”

In 1984, it was Feeney who suspended former Padre manager Dick Williams for 10 games after a beanball war in Atlanta. But other Padres have more fond impressions. Shortstop Garry Templeton was in trouble in 1981 when he made obscene gestures to the crowd in St. Louis. Feeney called him and told him about league policy and also asked what he could do for him.

“I think this was a good move,” Templeton said Wednesday. “I know Chub from the past. He’s a good man, and I think the Padres made a good move.”

Reliever Goose Gossage, who feuded periodically with outgoing president Smith, said: “It (baseball) has been his whole life. Obviously, they feel he’s a good man for the job. I know Chub just through some All-Star games and seeing him at banquets. Seems like a good man.”

Kroc says that from the beginning, Feeney was her No. 1 choice to replace Smith, who is going to pursue private business interests. And she also says she’s “sort of a born-again owner.”

“I want to see this thing through,” Kroc said.