Kruk Out to Prove Himself : Knee Surgery Casts a Long Shadow Over Right Fielder’s Year

The Padres’ first spring practice was just an hour old, there was still water on the grass and fog over the mountains, when John Kruk officially began his comeback.

“Hey Kruk,” shouted a man standing behind the chain-link fence that surrounds one practice field. “The CIA is following you.”

Kruk responded with an obscenity.

Last season’s publicized FBI tail of Kruk during an investigation of a former house guest of his was not funny now. Not much else was, either. The Padres’ scheduled starting right fielder muttered another expletive and limped back into the batting cage.

That’s right, limped. The right knee injury Kruk suffered while jogging at home in West Virginia last month contains more serious ramifications than first acknowledged by the Padres. Less than a month after arthroscopic surgery, Kruk hasn’t run hard yet. He hasn’t completely planted his right foot to throw yet. He says he could play right now, but other members of the organization aren’t convinced yet.

As spring training opened with 33 players and four hours worth of Jack McKeon-style work and fun, some members of the projected National League West contenders weren’t fooled. Sure, it was great to see new guys Bruce Hurst and Walt Terrell. And wasn’t it something that while only the pitchers and catchers were supposed to report, 11 of the 19 position players showed up anyway, three days early?

But the story now, and perhaps for the rest of the spring, was in the player who appeared in a knee wrap and scowl. In a camp that will include almost no competition for jobs, there will be one fight: John Kruk vs. John Kruk’s knee.

He injured it in late January and suddenly underwent arthroscopic surgery in San Diego, with doctors shaving some of the cartilage. The Padres quietly made an announcement and officials predicted it would be no big deal. He was, after all, John Kruk, and during parts of last season he played on a shoulder that was as strong as an index finger. He would be fine.

But he’s not fine. The knee has caused him to report to camp about 10 pounds overweight. It caused him to be the last man in line as trainer Dick Dent led the Padres through an early-morning jog covering several fields. For the first time in a career of hidden injuries and bullet-biting, it caused the rest of the team to see that one of their main characters was truly hurting.

“Kruk can hide a lot of things, but he can’t hide this,” Tony Gwynn said. “If he doesn’t work that knee hard this spring, he ain’t going to be ready.”

“He can be ready opening day,” Dent said. “But he really has to rehabilitate it.”

McKeon already has said that Kruk might miss the opening exhibition game--”The only thing we want to do is get him ready for the real season,” the manager said. “This will require much effort from him.”

Working in the Padres favor is that Kruk says he’s ready for the challenge. Fighting ready.

Take that guy who heckled Kruk about the FBI investigation of a former friend who allegedly robbed banks after living in Kruk’s home. Worrying about the investigation, says Kruk, didn’t help his game last summer as he fell to a professional-low .241 average with nine homers and 44 RBIs after hitting .313 with 20 homers and 91 RBIs in 1987.

Being jeered about this investigation Sunday didn’t help his mood.

“This guy, yelling out like that . . . give me a break,” Kruk said. “He drove three hours (from San Diego) and that’s all he could think of to say to me? That’s his best line?

“If fans want to bring that up this year, I don’t care, there’s nothing I can do about it, the hell with them.”

Now, uh, about that knee.

“It’s going to be fine,” Kruk said. “After the kind of year I had, it has to be fine. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just about fine now.”

Whatever, he will undergo about an hour of rehabilitation daily in the trainer’s room with Dent, who worries that the hard Yuma ground will hamper Kruk’s efforts to make his comeback solely on the field. He reported early to camp just for that reason. He will work weights and strength machines and be pushed.

“Everyone is going to be pushing him,” Gwynn said. “The trainers will push him. Jack (McKeon) will push him. And you know I will push him.”

About the only thing the rehab won’t include is jogging.

“I swear, that’s how I hurt it,” Kruk said. “I was running on some snowy ground one day and it started aching, so I quit. Then the next day I ran for about an hour and it hurt again, so I quit. And then the next day I couldn’t get out of bed.”

He phoned the Padres, who flew him to San Diego for an examination. The surgery immediately followed, happening as only it can happen to the unassuming Kruk.

“I’m in the doctor’s office and I have some tests and then he comes out and asks me what I’m doing this afternoon,” Kruk recounted. “I told him, ‘Well, uh, nothing.’ He tells me, ‘Fine, we’re going to operate.’ ”

Not exactly the inquiring patient, Kruk doesn’t remember much after that.

“I don’t know how long the operation took, and I don’t know what they did,” he said. “Hey, I was asleep.”

His 1989 season was awakened with a start Sunday. The Padres only hope the fire remains.

“Everybody is talking about the new players, well, we really need Johnny Kruk,” Gwynn said. “He and this knee are serious business.”

Padre Notes

The only no-show at camp was pitcher Eric Show, whose wife Cara Mia phoned the Padres and told them that he was sick and would be here in a couple of days. The Padres figured something was wrong when Show missed his physical examination Saturday. Although the Players’ Association contract does not obligate Show to report until March 1, Manager Jack McKeon would like to see him as soon as possible. It’s not that his starting role in in jeopardy, it’s just that McKeon wants to put him on a schedule as soon as possible. Although McKeon won’t announce it yet, Show is the obvious pick as the opening day starter, April 3 in San Diego against San Francisco. He is coming off the best season of his career (16-11, 3.26 ERA) and has been with the Padres his entire eight-year big-league career. “We need to take a good look at him here and get him set up on a schedule as soon as possible,” McKeon said. . . . McKeon opened camp with a typical McKeon speech. “He introduced the coaches, told us to give 100 percent, and that was it,” Tony Gwynn said. “Took all of 3 minutes. It was awesome.” . . . The four-hour workout was longer than McKeon had predicted for his workouts: “I can’t help it,” he said. “The guys are having so much fun, they don’t want to leave.” . . . In his first appearance in a Padre uniform, Bruce Hurst was also having fun--attempting to hit. Except for the 1986 World Series, he has not batted since high school. “It’s too much fun,” he said with a smile. “I had better learn to bunt.”