Padres Lose Davis; Royals Get Relief With Top Salary : Baseball: Kansas City’s four-year, $13-million contract is lure enough to sign relief pitcher when Padres give up and sign Lefferts.

It was two weeks ago when the package of Kansas City chamber of commerce pamphlets, real-estate brochures and media guides arrived in Mark Davis’ mailbox at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Davis opened the package, knowing that the Kansas City Royals were one of the teams bidding for his free-agent services, but instead of studying, or even reading the material, he simply tossed it aside.

“I figured I was going to stay in San Diego anyway,” Davis said, “so why did I need that stuff for.”

Well, guess just who has been studying every demographic statistic in the greater Kansas City area these past 24 hours?

Yep, at 1 p.m. (PST) Monday, Davis received the largest annual salary in baseball history when he signed a four-year, $13 million contract with Kansas City at Royals Stadium.

Oh, maybe he’s still disillusioned he didn’t wind up staying in San Diego, but it could have been a whole lot worse than playing for the Royals, considered one of the powers of the American League.

“I remember picking up the Phoenix paper one morning and seeing the Padres weren’t interested, and then a couple of paragraphs later saying the Kansas City Royals weren’t interested,” said Candy Davis, Davis’ wife.

“I told Mark, ‘Well, this is great. It looks like we’re going to end up playing in Japan.

“I tend to overreact at things like that.”

Yet, it was the Padres who might have overreacted when Davis’ agents, Randy and Alan Hendricks, rejected their four-year, $12 million contract on Tuesday. They went out and found a replacement, free-agent Craig Lefferts of the San Francisco Giants, who saved 20 games last season.

Meanwhile the Royals, who had listed Davis as their No. 1 off-season priority, also announced that they had dropped out of the Davis sweepstakes.

“When I found out that they rejected the Padres’ offer and weren’t going to sign with anyone unless they got a five-year guaranteed offer,” Royal General Manager John Schuerholz said, “I said, ‘Well, we’re out of it, too.’ ”

So the Royals went out and spent $6 million on starter Storm Davis, spent another $2 million re-signing free-agent second baseman Frank White and center fielder Willie Wilson, and started making their spring-training plans when the phone rang Friday morning in Schuerholz’s office.

It was Randy Hendricks, asking if the Royals were still interested in Davis.

“Not at that price,” Schuerholz said.

Hendricks: “How about for less years and less money.”

Schuerholz: “I’m listening.”

The Hendricks’ brothers, who just so happen to be from Kansas City, and Schuerholz opened serious negotiations and at 6 p.m. Sunday, Davis was told to pack his bags. He was going to Kansas City.

Davis took a flight to Kansas City on Monday morning, and by the afternoon, was wearing a Royals cap.

He also had his signature on the richest contract per season in the history of the sport.

Davis will receive a $1.5 million signing bonus, $1.75 million in 1990 and $3.25 million in 1991, 1992, and 1993. He also has award incentives in his contract that could pay him another $550,000 a season: $100,000 for the Cy Young award, $100,000 for the Rolaids Award; $100,000 for the American League Most Valuable Player award; $100,000 for World Series MVP award; $50,000 for MVP of the Playoffs; $50,000 for the all-star team; $25,000 for the Gold Glove award; and $25,000 for making the post-season all-star team.

“It really is amazing the kind of money that’s coming out now, isn’t it,” said Candy Davis, laughing. “You’d think he discovered the cure for cancer, or something.”

It indeed is a lot of money, but then again, Davis accepted only the fifth-best offer. He was offered five-year guaranteed contracts for more money per season by the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies. And there were four-year offers from the Angels, Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, and, of course, the Padres, for whom he just so happened to save 44 games last season while winning the Cy Young award.

“These were spirited negotiations,” Randy Hendricks said, “but let the record show that San Diego were the ones who didn’t want to sign Mark, not the other way around.”

The Padres made their fourth and final offer to Davis on Friday night for $12 million over four years. They waited for a response, and when Randy Hendricks said Tuesday that they were rejecting the offer, Padre owner Joan Kroc became incensed, and told Manager Jack McKeon to find another reliever.

“The night the Padres offered four years for $12 million,” Hendricks said, “we asked for four years at $14 million. So it’s inaccurate to say we never made a four-year offer to the Padres.

“Really, we weren’t surprised when they went out and signed Lefferts, but we were surprised they never came to us and said, ‘This is our final offer. This is it. If you don’t take it, we’re going to make other arrangements.

“We never were told that, or else Mark might be wearing a Padre uniform today.

“I wish the Padres the very best, and I hope Craig Lefferts does the job for them this year, but I think everyone knows that San Diego is where Mark wanted to play.”

Said Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn: “There’s a lot of us that don’t feel real good right now. Deep in my mind, I was hoping everything would turn out all right, and he’d sign with us.

“We’re going to miss him very much because there’s nobody like him. You just don’t find that kind of reliever with that kind of stuff, and you certainly don’t see those overpowering relievers in the American League.

“He’ll be just as successful over there as he was here. You’ll see. He’ll be in the All-Star Game for the next four years.”

Davis becomes the first big free-agent signing in the Royals’ 20-year history. They’ve gone after the big stars such as Catfish Hunter, Pete Rose, Tommy John and Rick Sutcliffe, but always wound up just hiking the bidding for someone else.

This time, after a four-year hiatus of not attempting to lure high-priced free agents, they got the man who they believe will bring another World Series title to America’s heartland.

“We won a lot of division titles and a few championships with Dan Quisenberry as our stopper,” Schuerholz said, “and we came to the realization that we had to have someone in that role to return to championship caliber. We had to make some moves. With the A’s and Angels in our division, we couldn’t afford to mark time.

“This has become the age of acquisitions in baseball, not scouting and development. And I think we just got the biggest acquisition.”

The availability of Davis in the first place already has cost Tony Siegle his job as Padre vice president/personnel, and President Dick Freeman’s status also is shaky. Freeman had the opportunity to sign Davis to a two-year extension for $2.8 million this spring and Davis admitted he would have settled for $2.4 million.

Freeman refused, and eight months later, the decision has developed into one of the biggest blunders in Padre history.

“I can’t believe the fans in San Diego would be real happy right now,” Hendricks said. “There’s a certain amount of regret on the part of Mark, but what was a disappointment, has become a feeling of euphoria.”

Said Davis: “I’m very excited to be here, and I’m not just saying that. And it’s just not because of the money. It’s a great organization with a great commitment to win.

“The organization was high on my list right from the beginning. When I talked to the Royals, and they were in position trying to woo me, they talked about family and family-type situations instead of money. That’s what really impressed me.”

Candy Davis, however, had other reasons to believe why her husband chose the Royals:

“I think Mark thinks the best part to all this is, is that now he gets to rub elbows with Bo Jackson.”