Padres Beat Up Reds After Preliminary Bout

Message to those who spent Monday night watching the circus from Atlantic City:

Wrong fight.

We switch you to Riverfront Stadium, visiting clubhouse, 5:30 p.m. For those innocents still under the impression that following the Padres can be accomplished by simply watching baseball games, check this out: Third baseman Chris Brown, who some teammates consider a joke, couldn’t take one and “sucker punched” teammate Marvell Wynne with a right jab to the face, bloodying Wynne’s nose and nearly closing his left eye.

Both players were immediately removed from the ensuing game against the Cincinnati Reds, last-minute replacements Tim Flannery and Shane Mack combined to go 5 for 9 with 4 RBIs, and the Padres whipped the Reds, 9-2.

The Padres are 6-6 on this trip, have moved to within one game of the fourth-place Reds, and in the past four days have endured a verbal war between pitcher Eric Show and Manager Jack McKeon, a general clubhouse scolding by McKeon, and now this.

If playing winning baseball was any more fun, they couldn’t stand it.

“Two guys, a misunderstanding, the case is closed,” said McKeon of the fight, which came before his team completed its first month under him with its 17th victory in 30 games. “This kind of thing happens every day in the big leagues. It’s history.”

Not quite. Four hours after the fight and Wynne was still seething, not to mention swelling.

“We were just messing around and he caught me with my hands down and hit me in the face, a cheap shot,” Wynne said slowly. “I decided it wasn’t the time and place to get revenge. I’ll let it be for right now.”

He paused.

“For right now.”

On the other side of the clubhouse, Brown, with his bruised right hand covered in a sock, was unwilling to even use the word, “fight.”

“It was an altercation, not a fight, and as far as I’m concerned it’s over with,” Brown said quietly.

Before explaining how it started, we offer this tale of the tape:

Wynne is the most popular player on the team. Brown is the least popular.

Wynne, before he became the kind of hitter who now leads the team in homers (8) and is tied for the lead in RBIs (27), was respected largely for his ability to keep the clubhouse loose and laughing. As a part-time outfielder, he had also developed a reputation for being ready to play whenever, wherever.

Brown, who came to the Padres last July 4 from the San Francisco Giants, had developed a reputation for not wanting to play. Brown, who before the season vowed to play in “150-160” games, is on a pace to play only 93. And his nagging injuries have not been considered serious enough to put him on the disabled list once.

Thus it happened Monday night, shortly before batting practice, that Wynne was joking with Brown about a variety of those things.

“I stuck my face in his locker to say something, and he told me to get my head out of his face,” Wynne recalled. “I did, and he sucker punched me. I guess it’s something he’s proud of.”

Wynne lunged back at Brown but was surrounded by teammates, as was Brown, who was pulled to the other side of the clubhouse.

At that point, announcer Jerry Coleman walked outside McKeon’s office, where he was sitting with a writer, and motioned to him, saying: “Jack, you better get out here.”

McKeon walked out and found six players huddled around Wynne, with Wynne trying to break loose to chase down Brown, all the while shouting, “Let me get him, let me get him.”

“No you’re not,” McKeon said, hustling over and intervening.

McKeon returned to his office shaking his head. “Every day a new adventure,” he said.

While Wynne was calming down, Brown was escorted by several players out of the clubhouse and sat at the far end of the dugout with his head on his right fist and stared ahead. Even when good friend Eric Davis of the Reds shouted over to him, he remained motionless.

McKeon later came out and ushered Brown inside his office for a meeting with the manager and Wynne. Afterward, Wynne was taken to a nearby hospital for X-rays while Brown was benched.

“I didn’t wanted anybody nervous or anything out there,” McKeon said.

Wynne returned to the park in the second inning and, despite the swollen eye, replaced Keith Moreland in left field in the eighth and batted in the ninth, striking out.

“I wanted to start the game, but I had to get the X-rays, and they took too long,” Wynne said. “I want you to know, this isn’t going to keep me down, I still played anyway.

“I went out there while the other guy (Brown), he probably hurt his hand and he couldn’t go out there. At least I’m making an effort.”

With Brown unwilling to give an explanation, Wynne was asked about Brown’s possible reason for the punch.

“I think he was trying to take out his frustrations on me because of the bad year he’s having,” he said, which would make sense considering Brown is hitting .250 with 2 homers and 9 RBIs and had just been ejected from Sunday’s game in Atlanta for arguing with home plate umpire Tom Hallion over a called third strike.

“Maybe he relieved himself,” Wynne said of Brown’s punch. “But I don’t think it did him any good. I think it just made it worse.”

When asked about the fight again, Brown shrugged and repeated: “It’s cleared up with me.”

When asked what will happen if it’s not cleared up, McKeon said, “Case closed, we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

Will the Padres finally do something about this quiet tension that exists between Brown and his teammates?

“Hey, you like to see everybody get along with each other, but some guys just don’t, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Tony Gwynn, adding that he gets along fine with Brown. “I’m mean, what can you do?”

Maybe winning will help, which is what the Padres certainly did Monday. Oh yes, there was a game later, wasn’t there?

It turned out much cleaner than the fight, as Dennis Rasmussen held his old team to two runs on six hits in seven innings in winning his fourth consecutive game in four Padre starts. The Padres knocked out 14 hits and their 9 runs--7 in the second inning--tied a season high.

Rasmussen got all the help he needed from McKeon, who outfoxed the Reds just by examining their lineup card. It happened in the Cincinnati first, after the Reds put runners on first and second with one out and Davis at the plate.

Turns out, because of a late scratch of stiff-necked Kal Daniels, the first three hitters in the Reds’ batting order had changed, and while everyone in the stadium knew the change, the umpires were never officially informed.

You guessed it. McKeon protested, the Reds were called for batting out of order and suddenly given two outs with Davis not allowed to hit. Nick Esasky ended the inning with a grounder, and Rasmussen was never so troubled again.

“Hey, you have to use everything,” said McKeon, who also proved this by using Flannery.

At least in one way, the fight made for one of the most heart-warming stories this season. With the benching of Brown, the Padres brought in Flannery, who was fresh from three consecutive strikeouts in three pinch-hit attempts.

Before the game, Flannery had talked of finally accepting his role as a pinch-hitter, and his fate as a 30-year-old in the last year of his contract.

What happens? Suddenly thrown into the game, Flannery goes 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs, his biggest day of the season.

“Cancel the retirement,” he said afterward, smiling. “I’ve learned to play every game like the last game.”