Dobson Gradually Recovers From Club’s Managerial Snub

The subject is still painful, and even today, six weeks later, it causes him to wince, grab a smoke and suck down some coffee before he speaks.

Pat Dobson, Padre pitching coach, is no longer bitter. His animosity toward the organization’s front office has slowly evaporated. But he’d be lying, he says, if he said there is no lingering resentment.

In fact, if the Padres had chosen someone from outside the organization to manage the club in 1991 instead of Greg Riddoch, Dobson said Saturday, he would have left the Padres.

He has a two-year contract that extends through the 1991 season, but he said it wouldn’t have stopped him from walking away from his $75,000 yearly salary and just sitting out for a year.

“If they had brought in an outside guy,” Dobson said, “I would have left. I couldn’t have possibly stayed. There’s just no way I could come back after having it happen again.”

Dobson, considered by many baseball executives to be the finest pitching coach in the National League, can accept being passed over once for the Padre managerial job. But if it happens again, he’s gone.

He wasn’t as upset over losing out to Greg Riddoch as he was about the way the hiring process was handled. Dobson says he was not given the consideration of an interview or even notified when the job opened at the All-Star break.

He says the first time he knew Jack McKeon was leaving the job was when Bill Beck, McKeon’s front-office assistant, told the team before a morning workout on July 11 that there would be a meeting at 9 in the clubhouse.

“You know, it didn’t even hit me at the time what was going on,” Dobson said. “But then I saw Jack (McKeon), and I knew he was supposed to be at the All-Star game. I saw Greg (Riddoch), and I knew he was planning to just meet the team in Pittsburgh.

“Then it dawned on me what was happening.”

McKeon was going out.

Riddoch was coming in.

Dobson was staying put.

“Sure, I was upset,” Dobson said. “It probably took me most of that (ensuing 11-day) road trip to get over it.

“The thing that upset me is that I had told people I wanted to do the job, everyone knew that. But when they hired Greg, I didn’t even get a gratis phone call. Hey, I’m not saying they had to give me reasons why they didn’t hire me, or even interview me, but I thought I at least deserved the consideration of a courtesy phone call and told what was going on. To me, that was just protocol, and it wasn’t even used.

“That’s why if they didn’t hire Greg back, I didn’t want to be back, either. Getting passed over once, fine, I can live with that. But being passed over twice, I would have had to leave, knowing this wasn’t going to be the land of opportunity for me.”

Dobson, 48, still wants to manage in the big leagues some day. He isn’t managing the Ft. Myers Sun Sox in the Seniors League just to hang around the fellas.

But now, for the first time this season, Dobson is content. He has become Riddoch’s right-hand man in the dugout and is being given all responsibilities regarding pitchers, with the exception of deciding when it’s time to remove one from the game. In essence, Riddoch has made him sort of an assistant manager without the title.

And the way Dobson has orchestrated his pitching staff these past few weeks, it’s little wonder the Padres have won 21 of 32 games, with earned runs becoming as rare as dollar-a-gallon gas.

In this stretch, Padre pitchers have yielded three or fewer earned runs in 22 starts. And in the past 15 games, they’ve put up outrageous numbers: four shutouts . . . four games in which they’ve allowed one run . . . three games in which they’ve allowed two runs . . . six home runs (five with the bases empty) . . . a 1.85 ERA.

If you don’t think Dobson is getting every last drop of talent out of his pitching staff, take a look at his personnel: Seven pitchers are castoffs from other clubs.

--Ed Whitson, discarded four years ago by the New York Yankees, owns the lowest ERA in the National League, yielding just one run in his past 27 1/3 innings. His ERA since Dobson joined the staff in 1988 has plummeted from 4.73 to 3.77 to 2.66 to 2.41 this season. Dobson Doing: He made sure Whitson no longer tried to blow his fastball past everybody and had him rely on his control instead.

--Craig Lefferts, allowed to leave the San Francisco Giants without a fight, has already attained a career-high 21 saves. Since the All-Star break, he has yielded two runs in 20 2/3 innings (0.87), converting 10 of 11 save opportunities. Dobson Doing: He limited Lefferts to just one inning whenever possible, minimizing the strain on his shoulder.

--Derek Lilliquist, given up by Atlanta six weeks ago, now has pitched 14 consecutive shutout innings. Dobson Doing: Lilliquist’s delivery was so bad that he was suffering back problems. Dobson made a simple adjustment, and presto.

--Rich Rodriguez, who bounced around six years in the New York Mets’ minor league system, has allowed just five baserunners without a run in his past six outings. Dobson Doing: He eliminated Rodriguez’s high leg-kick.

--Calvin Schiraldi, he was traded away three years ago by the Boston Red Sox and abandoned a year ago by the Chicago Cubs, is pitching the best he has since his rookie season in 1986, allowing a 3.64 ERA in his four starts. Dobson Doing: Schiraldi could never be effective as a reliever, so Dobson insisted on making him a starter.

--Dennis Rasmussen, 2-6 with a 5.75 ERA when the Cincinnati Reds gave up on him in 1988, has gone 32-27 since coming to the Padres, although he is 8-13 this season. Dobson Doing: He stressed the importance of inducing ground balls and forgetting about the strikeouts.

--Atlee Hammaker, released last week by the Giants despite having another guaranteed year on his contract. Dobson Doing: Stay tuned.

“Having Pat Dobson here was one of the biggest reasons I came,” said Hammaker, who also had offers from the Dodgers and Mets. “I mean, I had just heard so much about the guy. Everybody raves about him, and you can see the effect he’s had.”

Before Dobson’s arrival, Rollie Fingers (1977 and 1978) had been the only Padre reliever with more than 26 saves in a season; Mark Davis had 28 in 1988 and 44 in 1989, and Lefferts is now on a pace to save 28 games, with an opportunity to get at least 30.

Before Dobson’s arrival, the Padres never had three consecutive years in which a pitcher threw at least 230 innings; Eric Show pitched 234 2/3 in 1988, Bruce Hurst 244 2/3 last season, and Whitson is on a pace for 242.

Since 1976, no two Padre starters had combined for six shutouts in a season: Bruce Hurst and Ed Whitson have five between them.

Get the picture on why Hammaker chose the Padres, when he could be in the middle of a pennant stretch with someone else?

Yes, the man does know pitching. Anyone in the game can tell you that. Perhaps even more of a testimony to him, the Padres have not even had a single arm injury to a pitcher that has required time on the disabled list.

The question that now looms is whether anyone believes he can manage a major league team, joining Roger Craig of San Francisco to give the major leagues two managers who are former major league pitchers.

“I don’t know what it is,” Dobson said, “I think there’s a stigma that pitchers can’t be managers, that they don’t know how to run the offense. I can’t understand that. They say pitching is 75% of the game, don’t they? Well, I certainly know how a pitching staff is used, and I know I can run an offense.

“There’s no doubt in mind I can be a manager. I know I can do it. Now, it’s just whether I’ll get the opportunity.

“For now, I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to help out Greg the best I can, and I’m going to honor this two-year contract.

“But I won’t sign another two-year deal. I want to keep my options open this time.”