Losing His New York State of Mind : Stanley Jefferson Is Learning to Leave Last Season, Last Team Behind

Without a moment of hesitation, nor concern for its lack of macho appearance, Stanley Jefferson defensively clutched his right hand to his side.

The move was one of those defensive reflexes most of us develop in grade school or from having an older brother.

Instinctively, he knew that teammate Chris Brown was lurking nearby. This had become a clubhouse game of sorts, Jefferson looking over his shoulder and Brown trying to launch sneaky pokes at Jefferson’s ribs.

“I can feel him coming,” said Jefferson, breaking into his natural Eddie Murphy sound alike laugh. “He is hitting me so often, I’m jumpy.”

Such clubhouse activities are as much a part of baseball as the bat and ball, but no one poked fun at Jefferson a year ago. Anyone who did would have received a cold reception.

Baseball wasn’t fun for Jefferson, and neither were his teammates’ barbs.

Jefferson was a rookie center fielder on a new team, a last-place team and a team far from his hometown of New York. Much was expected from him when he came over from the Mets in an eight-player, off-season deal that sent outfielder Kevin McReynolds to New York. He was to be the leadoff hitter the Padres had sought since the trade of Alan Wiggins in June 1985 and a defensive center fielder to match any in the National League.

Instead, they got a homesick player who never fully overcame a series of early season ankle and shoulder injuries, who got in a celebrated clubhouse tussle with Manager Larry Bowa in May and who constantly found himself depressed about his new surroundings and his personally disappointing play.

Jefferson played in only 116 games last season, batted a professional-low .230 and struck out 92 times in 422 at-bats.

“I was in sour state toward the end of last year,” Jefferson said. “I wasn’t happy with the way I was playing or how I was feeling physically. I was just glad when the season was over.”

Jefferson returned after the season to New York with his wife, Carmelita, and two daughters, Tiffany (2), and newborn Brittany Genai. He thought hard about what had gone wrong in his first season with the Padres. He decided to rededicate himself to the game and the team.

He spent hours working in the batting cage. He kept in contact with Bowa by telephone, informing him of his progress. He even showed up in Yuma for spring training well before most of the other Padres.

“I’d been in the cold all winter,” Jefferson said. “I had to get into the sunshine a little bit.”

Jefferson could not resist breaking into that Eddie Murphy-style laugh of his again. To those who endured his clubhouse pouting of a year ago, that laugh is welcome. Learning to laugh again might be Jefferson’s best off-season accomplishment.

“I have a rule in this game that if you can’t laugh at yourself, then you don’t belong because you aren’t going to make it,” said Tony Gwynn, the Padres’ two-time National League batting champion. “Stanley had a tough time laughing at himself last year. Guys would rag him, do what guys do, and sometimes he didn’t take it that well.

“Now he feels a little more comfortable in the room. Guys still rag him, but he’s ‘A Huh, Huh, Huh.’ Even if isn’t real; it’s ‘A Huh, Huh.’ He is trying.”

Watching Jefferson in the clubhouse this week, it is difficult to grasp how he could have been considered a moody loner. Before one morning workout, he sat in front of his locker, laughing with batting coach Amos Otis and several teammates. Later that day, Jefferson reached on top of his locker and offered a can of macaroons to pitcher Greg Booker and Gwynn.

Neither had eaten one of these small cake-like cookies before. At first, they made fun of its taste and Jefferson’s affinity for it. But after an exhibition game that night, when Jefferson was in the shower, Gwynn reached for the cookie can, took one for himself and gave another to Booker.

“Last year, I was feeling out everybody,” Jefferson said. “Now that I know everybody, it is a lot easier. I feel more comfortable and confident this year.”

The difference is not just in the clubhouse. Jefferson is having a strong training camp. A switch-hitter, he is batting .353 and had a seven-game hitting streak broken Wednesday when he went 0 for 5 against Oakland. He also has stolen 8 bases in 12 attempts, though he has been caught on his past 3 attempts. But maybe most important, he has struck out only 6 times in 51 at-bats. And his on-base percentage is .414 after finishing last season at .296, anemically low for a leadoff hitter.

“He was fighting within himself last year,” said Otis, the Padres’ roving minor league hitting instructor. “It started out right here in spring training with injuries. He was battling injuries off and on before he even left here. The pressure of playing every day might have gotten to him a little bit. Through the year, he worked hard to get back, but time just ran out on him.

“He has been patient this year. His whole game is different than last year. This year, he showed up to play. He came in with the right idea of what he had to do. He is putting the ball in play, taking pitches, walking, faking the bunts, keeping the ball on the ground. He is our ideal leadoff man now.”

That has been a position of instability since Wiggins was traded to Baltimore. The Padres tried Bip Roberts there for a while, even used Gwynn on occasion until Jefferson arrived.

“We don’t have to have a Vince Coleman or a Ricky Henderson or a Tim Raines-type leadoff hitter, but we have to have someone who, when he gets on base, can make things happen,” Gwynn said. “Look back to ‘84, and the guy who got us started was Wiggy. He would get on, steal a base and score a run without getting a base hit.”

That is why improving Jefferson’s on-base percentage is so important. The batting principle behind the effort is to cut down on his swing.

“I’m working on making contact,” Jefferson said. “I want to see the ball, stay back and drive it.”

The result of the shorter swing should be fewer strikeouts. Jefferson was tied for third on the team in strikeouts despite being sixth in at-bats.

The strikeouts did more than hamstring the Padre offense, they added to Jefferson’s frustration.

“I never walked back to the dugout as much as last year,” Jefferson said. “It didn’t bother me a little. It bothered me a lot.”

Jefferson had never experienced anything like last season, when he had only five more hits (97) than strikeouts (92).

“It takes a different kind of individual to hurt on the inside and not let it show on the outside,” Gwynn said. “It was chewing him up on the inside, and Stanley had a tough time showing it wasn’t bothering him on the outside.

“He would go up to the plate, make an out, throw his helmet, sit down and not say anything to anybody. This is a game you’ve got to talk about. If you’ve got something wrong, you have to talk it over.”

The problem for Jefferson was that he felt he had no one in which to confide. Jefferson was born in New York, grew up in the Bronx, was drafted in the first round of the 1983 June draft by the Mets and had spent four seasons in their minor league system. He even got a September call-up during the Mets’ 1986 World Series drive.

For a New Yorker who grew up with a view of the lights of Shea Stadium 10 miles away out the window of his family’s 26th-floor apartment in the Bronx, playing with Mets was the perfect career. But with Len Dykstra and Mookie Wilson in center, there was no room for Jefferson.

The Mets told him they would try to trade him. Jefferson said that was fine with him. So they sent him to the Padres, who needed a center fielder and a leadoff hitter. It all sounded good, until Jefferson had to adapt to a new city, a new team and a new manager.

He went from an organization that had just won the World Series to one that got off to a 12-42 start.

“One day he was playing for the home team,” Otis said, “and the next day the home team was 3,000 miles away.”

“All I know,” Jefferson said, “is that between the organizations, they do a lot of things differently. It takes a little bit of getting used to. I’m used to it now, but when I first got here and saw the way things are done, it wasn’t the same.”

Jefferson declined to be specific about the differences and did not offer criticism of the Padres. All he would add was, “The clubs are different, just put it that way.”

His isolation was not as complete during spring training last year because he could still hang around with some of the other players who came over with him from the Mets. But when camp broke, outfielder Shawn Abner headed to the Padres’ triple-A team in Las Vegas, and two months later third baseman Kevin Mitchell was traded to San Francisco, leaving Jefferson ex-Met-less.

“Last year, when things went bad, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have anybody to talk to,” Jefferson said. “I always approached the game to have fun. But the trade was a little unsettling. I had a new management that I wanted to impress. The pressure got to me.”

He finally snapped one night after a loss in Pittsburgh when Bowa mistakenly singled him out in the clubhouse for not taking extra batting practice. Jefferson charged Bowa and had to be restrained by several teammates, who pushed Jefferson out of the clubhouse and into the dugout.

The incident turned out to be a miscommunication as Jefferson, without Bowa’s knowledge, had not been told by Deacon Jones, former hitting coach, to take the extra batting practice.

It is a past misunderstanding that does not cloud Bowa’s view of Jefferson’s future.

“He can’t play much better than he has this spring,” Bowa said. “The year of experience has helped him a lot.”

So has his more relaxed relationship with his teammates. Jefferson remains rather quiet--you won’t find his voice rising above the clubhouse chatter. But you will find him doing more than glumly sitting in front of his locker as he did at times last season when things were bad.

“I’m having fun again,” Jefferson said. “I took myself too seriously last year. This time I’m more at ease. There’s more of a family feeling this year.”

Still, some old family roots die hard. Jefferson’s spring training roommate is none other than Shawn Abner, his old Met teammate and fellow trade partner.