Question Is: Now What Happens to Trader Jack?

When the Padres held a news conference at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Tuesday to introduce Chub Feeney as their new president, something was missing from the picture.

Jack McKeon.

True, McKeon, the vice president in charge of baseball operations, doesn’t figure to share a microphone with the owner, Joan Kroc, and the new president. So he stood unobtrusively in the back of the room. When the conference had ended, he was gone.

“I figured it was his press conference,” McKeon said later. “Besides, I had two calls I had to get to.”

Understandable, and probably diplomatic.

However, this is Trader Jack McKeon. This is a high-profile wheeler-dealer. This is a man who puffs contentedly on his cigar and relishes his role as the mover and shaker when it comes to player personnel.

You wanna make a deal with the Padres?

You call Jack McKeon, whose gravelly voice does not betray his roots in South Amboy, N.J. You get this guy who has a bachelor of arts from Elon (N.C.) College, but a doctorate in dugouts.

What you also get, in Jack McKeon, is a guy who has been the top baseball man in the Padre organization for all of his seven years in San Diego. Others have known more about business and law and marketing, but no one has surpassed his knowledge of the game itself.

And baseball just happens to be what this game is all about.

Enter Charles S. (Chub) Feeney, for 40 years a baseball man himself. Feeney was president of the National League for 17 years, but that’s no problem. Most league presidents (and commissioners, for that matter) don’t know the difference between a curve ball or a slider. The crux of this situation is that Feeney’s background includes 24 years with the New York and then San Francisco Giants as vice president and general manager.

What is it, you ask, that a vice president and general manager does?

Exactly what Jack McKeon does. He evaluates personnel and shuffles personnel, either up and down from the minor leagues or in and out with other clubs. A vice president in charge of baseball operations is a vice president and general manager.

Do the Padres find themselves with one race car and two drivers?

Is there not the potential for conflict here?

“I hope not,” Kroc said. “I would think they can work together. I didn’t bring Chub in to cause conflict. This is one team, one organization.”

That, Joan, is exactly what creates potential for conflict.

Kroc’s intentions are to chart a smooth path. Conflict and controversy are unsettling to her, and she would do nothing to impose such turbulence on her organization. Her decision of last November to sell the franchise was caused in part by the fact that she had wearied of being a central figure in a string of disruptive episodes. Her decision to keep the club and become a central figure in a baseball renaissance hereabouts was made with the idea that she can be a force in charting a smooth course.

Maybe it will happen the way she envisions.

Feeney, for one, foresees no problems.

“Jack and I will do a joint evaluation of the club’s situation,” he said. “I need help, and I’ll get a lot of input from Jack. He’s been doing this and working with this. It isn’t going to be a one-man show.”

But this--the baseball end--has been a one-man show. The late Ray Kroc, then Joan Kroc, and departing president Ballard Smith, all had input, but. . .

No one called the Krocs or Ballard Smith when they wanted to talk shop with the Padres, not when it had to do with player personnel. McKeon knew best, and they knew it.

So what will it be like now? Who will Cincinnati call to find out if the Padres are interested in Eric Davis?

Jack McKeon, for one, does not really know what his role will be.

“I haven’t had a chance to sit down and see what he (Feeney) has on his mind,” McKeon said. “Until then, I just don’t know. I don’t see any problems, but I’ve still got to sit down and see what I’ll be doing.”

But what if Feeney is to be the front man and Trader Jack is going to ride along in the back seat?

“I can’t answer that,” McKeon said. “I have two more years on my contract, and I’m a loyal employee. I’ll do what he wants me to do. He’s the boss.”

Is McKeon concerned about his potential role?

“Not really,” he said. “As I say, we have to sit down and talk.”

McKeon is a loyal employee. No question about that. However, his answers were guarded and maybe a little terse. He will sit down today and have that talk with Chub Feeney, his new boss. He will want to hear that Jack McKeon’s role is undiminished, that Trader Jack lives and deals.

If that is not what Trader Jack McKeon hears, I suspect he will be on the telephone to the other clubs looking to make a deal.

For himself.