Will McKeon Hang It Up? : Padres: He hints he may quit managing after this season. : For Page C15

It was weeks, even months, before anyone had the courage to propose the idea to Jack McKeon. There were long debates among them, wondering if it should even be mentioned.

But dammit, McKeon’s friends concluded, something had to be said.

He will be 60 in November. The fatigue caused by last year’s pennant race was revealed in his face. It’s time to take it easier than the rest of the world, not prove you’ve got more energy than a teen-ager.

McKeon’s closest friends have told him to at least consider their proposal, even pleading at times. He promised he would but probably won’t come to a decision until the season ends.

This might be McKeon’s last season as manager of the Padres.

The game plan is pure Hollywood, his friends admit, but if you’re going to go out, why not go in style?

McKeon leads the Padres to National League West Division title, and through the playoffs into the World Series . . . McKeon becomes drenched by champagne as manager of the World Series champions . . . McKeon walks on the White House lawn with George and Barbara . . . McKeon does the Burbank gig with Johnny one night, Pat the next, David on a late night, and finishes with Arsenio . . . and when he gets a free moment, McKeon announces to the world that he’s trading in his baseball uniform for a coat and tie.

Instead of being Manager McKeon, he becomes known simply as Trader Jack.

“I don’t want to give people the indication that I’m going to do that,” McKeon said, “but sure, it’s been talked about. And I’ve thought about it. We’re just going to have to wait and see until the season’s over. I’d have to talk to (Padre owner) Mrs. Kroc. I’d also have to talk to my players.

“I would have hated for someone to have told me at the end of the ’88 season that I was going to have to go back upstairs. Just like now, I’d hate to have someone decide for me what I’m going to do.

“Sometimes, you have to make your own decision, and at some point this year, I will.”

McKeon’s decision, his friends say, likely will hinge on the Padres’ success. If they win the division, McKeon will go upstairs and assume a full-time role as general manager. If the Padres have a winning season but come up short, McKeon likely will also retire as manager. If the Padres have a mediocre season and are not in contention, McKeon likely would have to be persuaded to leave his manager’s job.

“I’m aware of what’s going on,” Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn said, “but I think that it’s a pretty well-kept secret. No one really talks about it. I don’t think it will even be brought up until toward the end of the season, or if Jack announces something.

“But it’s my impression Jack wants to go back upstairs, and it’d sure be easier for him to do that if we won this thing. But even if we don’t win the division, I think he could still leave knowing he turned us around and did everything he could.

“Everybody knows he’s a general manager first, and the manager job was a challenge for him. Everybody said he couldn’t do it. They said he’d mess up and get fired.

“Now, look at him. He’s got the best winning percentage of any manager in our franchise. He’s the most popular manager we’ve ever had here. And everyone totally respects the man.

“I’d kind of hate to see him go as manager, but I’d feel a whole lot worse if we lost him as general manager. He’s made this whole thing happen.”

And to think that just two years ago McKeon came oh so close to leaving, letting some other poor soul deal with this mess.

It was the fall of 1987 that the Baltimore Orioles made the telephone call. They needed a general manager. McKeon was just what they were looking for.

Padre President Chub Feeney readily gave the Orioles permission to interview McKeon. Why not? Feeney and McKeon had their differences anyway, and this would be the easy route for everyone involved.

McKeon took a flight to Baltimore and interviewed with Oriole owner Edward Bennett Williams. He still doesn’t know to this day if he necessarily would have taken the job if offered, but no decision was needed when the Orioles hired Roland Hemond.

The next job offer came May 28, 1988. It was from Feeney. He was firing Larry Bowa. He asked McKeon to step in.

The logic was basic. Feeney wanted McKeon out of the organization anyway, sources said, and once he failed as manager, the task would be much more simple.

Surprise. McKeon took a 16-30 club and went 67-48 for a third-place finish. McKeon stayed. Feeney went.

McKeon’s career .563 winning percentage (156-121) dwarfs the previous 11 Padre managers, and his record since assuming the job matches Davey Johnson of the New York Mets for the best in the National League.

“Jack thinks this year will be our season, the one to put us over the top,” Padre first baseman Jack Clark said, “and there’s no reason we shouldn’t. If we do, we can all thank that man. Really, he’s already done his job by putting this club together, now we have to do our’s.

“There’s a lot of guys in here who want to win just for him. He’s different from most managers I played for. A lot of these managers have to be the stars of the team. They think a team wins or loses just because of them. They have to be the focus of attention.

“Jack enjoys winning as much as we do, but when we win, you never hear him saying it’s because of him. He dishes out the credit. He makes you want to play for him. He was so patient with me, I know I sure owe him.

“But as much as I like him as a manager, I like him even more as a friend.”

Just what is the perception of this 5-foot-9, 210-pound man--the one called Little Bo-Bo and Bulldog during his playing days--in the game of baseball?

“He gave me a call Thursday night,” said Hugh Alexander, Chicago Cubs advance scout, “and I was right in the middle of dinner. If it had been anyone, anyone else in the world, I would have told him what I was doing and have him call back.

“But I didn’t tell Jack a thing. I started talking to him, and we must have been on the phone for 30 to 40 minutes. When I was through, my food was ice cold. It was terrible.

“But you know what, I’d rather eat cold food any day rather than miss the chance to talk to Jack McKeon.

“That’s what I think of the man.”

His friendships in this game run as wide and deep as the alleys in an outfield. There are no casual friends, just close ones. All he requires are two things: loyalty and the love of baseball.

It is why Bill Beck, his closest friend, now is his assistant as vice president of baseball operations. It is why Amos Otis, one of his former players in Kansas City who was in desperate need of a job, was hired in 1986 and now is the Padre batting coach.

“I’m not going to surround myself with cut-throats and people who are in power struggles,” McKeon said. “I want good, top-quality guys, which I have. Maybe I give some of these guys the breaks they needed.

“But if you can’t take care of guys who you believe in, what kind of guy are you?”

Dick Hager, the Padres’ advance scout, has known McKeon for the past 28 years. “That’s the kind of man Jack is,” he said. “He doesn’t even bother wasting his time with people who don’t want to talk baseball. Really, all he cares about is baseball. He hardly plays golf. He doesn’t play tennis. All he does is think and talk baseball.”

Of course, those restrictions have a tendency to lead to a lot of silence in the home.

“I don’t care what time of year it is or what time of day it is,” said his wife, Carol, “he’s always talking baseball. He probably talks more to Bill Beck than he does me. In fact, I know he does.

“I remember Jack was managing a game in Greensboro the night (daughter) Kristi was born, and he got to the hospital at 12 that night. The day I had Kelly (son), he was off at the ballpark. I was only in labor for 40 minutes. So the doctor calls him at the park to tell him we had a son. You know what he was doing? He was sitting in the owners’ box, predicting what inning the baby would be born.

“But I knew what I was getting into when I married him. We were supposed to have our first date after a game, and did you know that he got into a fight during the game? There was another time when I was in the stands when he was managing at Omaha, and the next thing I knew, the pitcher was laying on the ground. Jack had knocked him out with one punch.

“Thank God he’s much calmer now. But really, I think I take these games harder than he does. When we have a bad game, or he has a bad game, I’ll want to talk about it when he gets home. But he won’t talk about it. He leaves it at the stadium.

“Of course, in those cases, he’ll stay at the ballpark for three or four hours, too.”

Said McKeon: “The only times I really get upset is when I screw up. When I second-guess myself for leaving a pitcher in too long or not pinch-hitting for a guy. That’s when I can get nasty. I take it out on you guys (reporters), but really, it’s a carry-over.”

The only times McKeon will consistently vent his anger or frustration with reporters is when he’s second-guessed after games. When someone asks him why he didn’t pinch-hit so-and-so, or do this or that, his favorite response is, “Geez, the next time you guys come up with an idea like that, give me a call in the dugout. Let me know. I’ll do something different.”

There was an incident once when a baseball writer in Atlanta criticized McKeon’s moves in a game, and the next night, the phone rang in the press box. It was McKeon. He was asking what his next move should be.

“It was the last time the guy ever second-guessed me,” McKeon said.

McKeon’s personality also tolerates little negative coverage of his team. If anyone is criticized in a manner that McKeon believes is unjust, whether it’s a player or the groundskeeper, they must answer to McKeon.

“He’s always been that way,” Carol McKeon said, “he just hates to hear anything negative. I remember when he’d call home from the road and ask how the kids are, and I’d tell him what they were doing wrong or if they did something bad.

“Well, he didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to hear anything like that. He just wanted to hear positive news.”

Now, with what McKeon believes is the most talented team in the franchise’s history, he’s ready to reap the rewards of almost 10 years of duty since joining the organization in 1980 as an assistant general manager.

The greatest thrill of his career, he said, was when he managed the triple-A Omaha Royals to the American Assn. championship in 1969. Winning the National League West this season, he confesses, would top it.

“You know, I hear people say I want to win to satisfy my ego,” McKeon said. “Whoever says that, whoever says I’m managing for my ego, is nuts. I don’t have anything to prove. What do I have to prove?

“But I do want to win. I want to win maybe more than I’ve ever wanted to win.

“And once we win, then we’ll sit down and decide what’s in store for the future.”

Padre Notes

Padre starter pitcher Andy Benes has developed tendinitis in his right shoulder and will test it today to determine if further anti-inflammatory shots are needed. Benes felt pain in his shoulder earlier in the week, and has been excused from throwing batting practice the past few days. He is scheduled to pitch batting practice today and then will be given two days off before his scheduled start Wednesday against the Angels. “I think it’s getting a little better,” Benes said. “It was just real sore, that’s all.” Benes also experienced tendinitis last June when he pitched for the Padres’ double-A team, causing him to sit out 15 days between starts. . . . Padre reliever Craig Lefferts is suffering from a pulled quadriceps muscle but is scheduled to pitch Tuesday against the Angels. . . . Union chief Don Fehr, who addressed the Padres Saturday, said that the Padres and the 25 other big-league clubs could pay as much as $9.6 million apiece in collusion damages. The decision in the collusion hearing is expected this summer. Fehr told the Padre players that those who have been in the big leagues for the past four years can expect licensing checks of about $80,000 next month. He briefed them on the past negotiations and reminded them that there’s a three-year re-opener clause in the basic agreement that would allow the players and owners to terminate the agreement in January 1993. “It’s a shame it got to the point of a crisis,” he said, “it was so completely unnecessary. We didn’t get the final six issues done until the last 48 hours. They leaked all their strategy to the press and kept playing all these little games. You’re not supposed to have a lockout until you’ve exhausted all your possibilities. We got notice of their first lockout before we even got their first proposal.”