Padre Notebook : If Moreland Departs, He’ll Miss Teammates, but Not This Ballpark

Like many others in San Diego recently, he has heard the talk. The rumors sprung from a Detroit publication in the form of a list of players the Tigers were reportedly pursuing to complete their pennant-drive roster.

He looked twice at the list, because his name was on it.

“It’s been the same every place I’ve played,” Keith Moreland said Saturday. “I’m always the first name in a rumor. I’m always the one being traded. It seems like every year, like Carmelo Martinez, I’m supposedly gone.”

As with every rumor, there are a couple of ways to look at this one.

No. 1, is it true?

No. 2, does the struggling, often-booed first baseman want it to be true?

The answers to both are ambiguous.

“Yes, we’ve talked to the Tigers, but nothing serious,” said Jack McKeon, the Padre manager and general manager. “Right now, I don’t see any trades being made. But that’s just for right now.”

The prospects of a deal are enough to make Moreland, well, shrug.

“If I learned one thing in Chicago (Cubs), it’s that no matter what you do in this game, you are just a commodity,” Moreland said. “I’ve come here, I’ve given it my best, and if they tell me to go somewhere else, I’ll give it my best there.”

Translated: Part of Moreland wants to stay, while another part of him doesn’t care.

Moreland said he loves his 23 teammates and the atmosphere that has enveloped the winning clubhouse. But he said there are other things about playing in San Diego he said he could do without.

“Playing in San Diego is not the paradise everybody thinks it is,” Moreland said. “I’ve had some fun here, but I’m not elated or anything. I’m not being mean, and I’m not ripping anybody, but things here are, well, just different.”

As in?

“I don’t think the baseball intelligence of the fans is all that good,” he said. “The makeup of the fans is not what it is in other places, say, Los Angeles, where they have intelligent fans who are always backing them, and always packing the stadium.

“Not to be mean, but the San Diego fans just don’t know baseball. All they see is the one bad pitch, or the one time a guy doesn’t get a hit in a clutch situation. They don’t look at the big picture.”

Moreland said he couldn’t put his finger on an accurate description of the Padre fans. It’s just that he had more fun in Chicago and Philadelphia.

“No question, I had a lot more fun playing there,” Moreland said.

Looking around the Padre clubhouse Saturday, he emphasized his problems weren’t with his teammates.

“It’s not the atmosphere in this room, it’s the atmosphere in the ballpark,” he said. “In any other town, if you are one game under .500, everybody would be talking about what a good team we could be. But in San Diego, nobody is talking. It’s not like the old-time baseball markets I’ve played in.”

But Moreland agrees he is not having the kind of year he is used to having either.

“I’ve been terrible, I’ll be the first to admit it,” he said. “I haven’t done the job.”

Suffering from a sore left shoulder--injured in the first spring training game--the man acquired this winter to provide the team with power has not had a home run in his past 261 at-bats. In what must rank as one of the strangest stats in the National League, a man who had 27 homers last season has just 3, or 2 more than pitcher Mark Davis. He also was hitting .267, 16 percentage points below his career average.

His chief redeeming baseball quality has been his 54 runs batted in, which puts him on a pace for the 70 RBIs he has averaged in eight full big league seasons. And his quiet leadership hasn’t weakened, either.

But put it all together, and it will still turn out to be perhaps the worst baseball year of his life. Not only does this make it tough for him to stomach things, it also makes it tough for the Padres to trade him, particularly with that team-high $1.25 million salary guaranteed for next season.

“I only know I won’t think about a trade until Jack walks up and says you’re traded,” Moreland said. “Until then I’ll keep doing my best, day by day.”

If he stays, Moreland said, he is resigned to the fact that happiness will come from one source only.

“And if I stay, and we get the job done, I know that it will be because of 24 guys in the clubhouse, and nobody else,” Moreland said. “The front office people, the fans, they can’t go between the lines. If we get over .500 and become a winning team, it will be because of us.”

Truth Be Told Dept: When Manager Jack McKeon moved Tony Gwynn from right to center field last week without giving him a choice, the man with the two Gold Gloves hardly uttered a peep. Gwynn smiled and said he would gladly accept anything the team asked.

But you really didn’t think that was all of it, did you? Friday night, Gwynn admitted that his feelings on the change--which spurred the Padres to four victories in their next five games--initially weren’t so pleasant.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I was shocked by the move,’ Gwynn said. “First thing I thought was, we’ve already got two center fielders in Marvell Wynne and Stanley Jefferson. I wasn’t mad, but I just could not understand it.

“All I could think of was, they are setting us up for something this winter. We must be hoping to pick up a big hitter to play right field.”

As usual, give Gwynn high marks for perception. As much as McKeon enjoys having Carmelo Martinez and John Kruk in the game at the same time, he longs for a power-hitting outfielder--a Dale Murphy type--and will look hard for one this winter. He wants Gwynn to be prepared to play center field in case someone like Murphy plays right.

Yes, Atlanta will trade Murphy for the right pieces. But he is just one part of McKeon’s long wish list.

“That’s all I can figure, that this is just a move to set up another move,” Gwynn said.

In the meantime, Gwynn is walking around with his usual 12 extra pounds gained during the season. But now he wonders what people will say now that he is a center fielder.

“I’ve already been called ‘chubby’ once on a national television sports program, and I know everybody will think that I am carrying too much weight for a center fielder,” said Gwynn, who weighs 211. “But I gain every season--it’s one of the wonders of baseball--and it hasn’t affected me yet. So I’m not going to worry about it.”