Pagliarulo Helping Padres Look Alive

The man looks like an old news reel. He belongs in back-and-white on your TV screen, not living color. His uniform looks as if he pulled it from the bottom of his duffel bag.

Even off the field, he’s like the “before” picture in a GQ spread. In the days of Neon Deion, Rolex watches and leather pants, this guy wears a Timex, casual trousers and pullover shirts.

Padre third baseman Mike Pagliarulo, wiping the perspiration off his forehead and pulling off his stained uniform Wednesday night, laughed and said, “Look at me, I’m a mess. But, hey, baby, I love it. This is me.”

Pagliarulo kick-started the Padres on their way to an 8-3 laugher over the Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium. He drove in the first two runs and was instrumental in the fourth inning, in which the Padres sent a season-high 11 men to the plate, getting six hits and five runs.

Oh, baby, times are good again. He’s back to being an everyday player. He’s batting .294. He has been solid in the field.

When first baseman Jack Clark went down with a herniated disc May 6, it was Pagliarulo who stepped from the bench and into the lineup. He has batted .324 since Clark’s injury, driving in nine runs.

“He’s been a big part of the reason why we’re winning,” Padre Manager Jack McKeon. “He’s your consummate team player. All the guy wants to do is win.”

But when Pagliarulo steps to the plate tonight against the Atlanta Braves, the first of a 13-game home stand at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, what he expects to hear are boos. Lots of boos.

You see, Pagliarulo happened to be the guy who first dared to mention that the Padres had some internal problems. He said there was some selfish behavior he didn’t like, and although he didn’t mention any names, it was Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn who came out as the culprit.

The innuendo and accusations festered in the clubhouse for two days until the Padres gathered last Friday in New York for a team meeting. McKeon talked for about 10 minutes and then let the players take over, leaving the room.

And, oh, how they took over.

Let’s see, we had Clark, Garry Templeton, Fred Lynn and Pagliarulo ripping Gwynn; we had Gwynn standing up for himself and lashing right back; we had Templeton and Clark blasting away at pitcher Eric Show, and we had Pagliarulo criticizing catcher Benito Santiago.

It’s little wonder that Jack Clark’s last words to his teammates before the door opened were: “This stuff stays in here. I don’t want any of this crap getting out.”

The bashing was not what you would call good public relations, but then again, when you win five of the past six games and are playing your best baseball of the season, who cares if you don’t leave the clubhouse each day with your arm around your teammate’s shoulders.

“I know there were some hurt feelings,” Pagliarulo said, “and I know a lot of guys didn’t like what was being said about them. But, hey, you don’t have to be best friends with guys to still play good on the field.

“If guys don’t like me for what I said, hey, buddy, get in line. This is where I want to play. And this is where I belong.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to play for a mediocre team. I want to play on a winner. And I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make it a winner.

“You can ask any manager I played for, any coach or any teammate. I’m a team player. I’m not selfish. I don’t stab people in the back. All I want to do is win.

“If the fans want to boo me, go ahead. I can take it. It’s not going to affect my game. Hey, I played in New York. I can take it.”

Said Templeton, the Padre captain: “Maybe it won’t bother him if the fans boo, but it’s going to bother us. It’s not right. Maybe it’s unfortunate the way it happened, but look what happened. What he did brought the team together. We’re more together now than we’ve been all season.”

Said Gwynn: “I’m not going to sit here and say how I was glad the way it all came out, but there’s no doubt the meeting had an effect. Since the meeting, we’ve played pretty darn well, so you can come to your own conclusions.”

Take a look. Since the meeting, the Padres have won five of six games. And since being shellacked, 11-0, Saturday night by the Mets, they have outscored the opposition, 25-12.

The winning streak has enabled the Padres (23-22) to rise above .500 for the first time since April 27, and it’s the first time since their road trip to San Francisco April 13-15 that they’ve won three consecutive road games.

Funny what a little fireside chat can do for a team.

“We’ve come a long way in the past week,” said Clark, who along with Templeton was responsible for the players-only portion of the meeting. “I’m not saying everything’s perfect yet. We’re still going to have a few more meetings to get things ironed out, but this is a start.

“It was a thing where we got tired of looking up at Cincinnati (which has a nine-game lead over the Padres) and hearing about them. We can’t catch Cincinnati unless we take care of our problems first, and that’s what we did.”

Most impressive about the streak, Clark said, is the fact that the Padres were able to shrug off that 11-0 defeat and play the next three games as if nothing had happened. In the past, a loss that lopsided might have lingered for days. This time, it was forgotten when they left the ballpark.

“We’re a team again,” Clark said. “That’s what the meeting was all about, exposing all of the individual stuff that was going on again. I mean, there was a lot of bad stuff going on. When guys were stealing bases, we’d actually step out of the catcher’s way to give him a better chance of throwing someone out.

“No matter what you do statistically, you’re a loser if you don’t win. People don’t understand that. You can win all the individual honors you want, but if your team doesn’t win, you’re a loser.”

If anything, Clark said, Pagliarulo should be lauded for his fortitude. Sure, maybe he was just a part-time player until Clark’s injury. And, yes, he never has hit higher than .240 in any of his five seasons. But . . .

“He cares,” Clark said. “If he didn’t give a damn about this team, he would have just kept quiet, but he’s not like that. He’s a leader. I can’t believe people are going to get on him because he cares. Tell me. What the hell is wrong with that?

“When you have a guy winning batting titles and a guy like me making $2 million and Joe Carter making $3 million, we’re the guys to blame. Don’t blame a guy who’s fighting for his life, who’s fighting not to drive a truck next year. Leave him alone.

“Think about it, if he never said anything, we wouldn’t be winning.”

Padre Notes

Andy Benes (5-4), who yielded seven hits and three earned runs in 6 1/3 innings, had difficulty believe he was the winning pitcher Wednesday. “When I got done warming up in the bullpen, Bernie (Mark Parent) asked me, ‘You good and loose?’ I said, ‘Hey, that’s all I have tonight. I’m not kidding.’ ” Benes promptly went out and retired 18 of 28 batters he faced, with the only real damage from bases-empty homers by Ricky Jordan and Von Hayes. But for the first time in 20 big-league starts, he failed to strike out a single batter. “That’s the first time I can remember where I don’t think I could throw it by a guy.” . . . Padre first baseman Jerald Clark had his first four-hit game of his major league career. Clark, who has been heavily scouted by the New York Yankees lately, never had had even three in any of his previous 39 big-league games. . . . Padre reliever Greg Harris, who had been hampered by a bruised elbow caused by the brawl Sunday in New York, pitched 2 2/3 hitless innings for his second save.