Bowa May Be in Last Days : Club Sources Say Current Trip Is Critical

One year and seven months after being named Padre manager, Larry Bowa may be in his final week.

Club sources have said that if Bowa does not turn the club around during this trip--a nine-game Eastern swing ending next Wednesday in Philadelphia--he will be fired. It is assumed that such a firing would take place next Thursday, an off day before the Padres begin a 13-game home stand.

“I have no comment. I have made a decision not to answer any Larry Bowa questions,” Padre President Chub Feeney said Wednesday. “I’ll just say we have not set a timetable for anything. We have no parameters for anything.”

Said Padre General Manager Jack McKeon: “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

Bowa has heard the rumor and obviously has felt the effects. He has spent increasingly more pregame time alone, in his office or at the end of the bench, and not always by choice. Although the light is still in his eyes, the color is increasingly disappearing from his face, the edge from his voice.

He has heard the rumor and, weary of fighting somebody or something ever since he became manager Oct. 28, 1986, he has become resigned to it.

“There ain’t nothing I can do about it. I’ve done all I can with this team,” Bowa said with a shrug before Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to Montreal. “What’s disturbing is to read it when I’ve been honest with everybody. I’d like them to be honest with me. I’ve been in (Feeney’s and McKeon’s) office a couple of times lately, and nothing much has been said about it. I wish if they had something to say, they would tell me.”

The players also have heard the rumor. There have been loud whispers in the clubhouse and sideways glances into Bowa’s office. Weary of either disliking or defending Bowa, the players also have become resigned.

“Guys are talking about it. Some guys might be even counting the games,” team captain Garry Templeton said. “But we can’t worry about it. It’s not our job to worry about it. We have enough to worry about.”

Said pitcher Andy Hawkins: “It shouldn’t matter. We’ve got to play whether he is on the field or not.”

Said another player: “We all just wish if they were going to do something, do it now, before the season is shot.”

And just what is the task immediately facing Bowa? What constitutes turning the club around? It certainly isn’t something such as Tuesday night’s game, the trip opener, when the Padres blew four leads in the final five innings of a 7-6 loss to the Expos in 13 innings.

Afterward, several players questioned Bowa’s substitutions (13 of 14 position players played) and quick hook with relievers (he used seven pitchers). If at the end of his career here you can point to one game that signified a loss of confidence in the clubhouse, Tuesday’s would be it.

“I slept well after that game,” Bowa said. “There isn’t anything I would do different.”

After they finish this series today, the Padres must face baseball’s best--the New York Mets--in Shea Stadium this weekend, and that will not make things any easier. They will finish the trip with three games in front of the booing masses in Philadelphia.

Realistically, a good trip for this team would be 3-6, and that certainly won’t turn it around. After all, they entered the trip 15-27 this season, and 80-122 (.396) since Bowa took over.

“I can’t let this affect the way I manage on the field,” Bowa said. “I had a player come in the other day and ask me what is going on, and what have I done wrong? It’s a distraction, but I can’t let it get to me. I have to keep managing the way I always have.”

If Bowa is dismissed, it would be the end of a stormy affair in which he never thought he had the players, and management never thought Bowa had the patience.

Bowa’s biggest problem last season was his clubhouse temper. This season he has mellowed, but he is now being criticized for his on-field use of the bullpen and the youngsters.

“I’m doing the best with what I’ve got here, that’s all I can tell you,” Bowa said. “You get people who don’t respond, who have trouble rising to the occasion, it doesn’t matter who is managing.

“They are always talking about re-evaluating the manager. How about re-evaluating the players? We have players who we thought could play--I emphasize we-- and they can’t play. They don’t want to play. When it’s like that . . . you can’t change spots on a leopard.”

At least one notable Padre agrees that changing the manager isn’t always the answer.

Tim Flannery, who has played for six Padre managers in parts of 10 big-league seasons, said: “Players have come up and talked to me about the situation, and I’ve told them the grass is not always greener. They all think a new manager will change everything. Well, I’ve learned long ago it’s not always the manager. If you aren’t going to like one manager, you aren’t going to like the next one.

“It is the players’ job to get along with the manager. If that means staying away from him, then stay away. There’s no perfect manager out there, and until you get that through your mind, you’re in trouble.”

Concurred Bowa: “True, last year I did some stuff I should not have done. But this year, I’ve been good. Still, they didn’t like Dick Williams. They didn’t like Steve Boros. And so they didn’t like Larry Bowa. They don’t like discipline. Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.”