James Hasn’t Forgotten : Baseball: Former Padre can’t get over trade to Indians.

Chris James stood by the Cleveland Indians’ batting cage Wednesday, telling himself to stop. Please don’t let it happen, he kept saying. He was only punishing himself, thinking this way.

It was no use. As hard as he tried, he kept peeking over his shoulder, glancing at the Padre bench, trying to fight his emotions.

“You know, I thought it was over,” James said, “I thought I had gotten over this. But God, after seeing them again, and talking to them, it makes it worse. It was like seeing your brothers again.

“I mean, I wanted to be over there so damn bad last year I didn’t know how to act. I still think of them, and I still get so damn mad thinking about that day I was traded.

“If I could have gotten on a plane, I would have strangled (Jack) McKeon before he had a chance to make that trade. My whole family was upset. My dad, I swear, was going to get on that plane and kill Jack.

“I ain’t kidding.”

It happened Dec. 6, 1989. James had heard rumors the previous 48 hours that he was going to be traded, and he was frantic. He paced inside the the house. He yelled at his family. And he desperately tried to call McKeon, the general manager, attempting to stop the trade talks.

“I tried to call Jack three times,” James said, “but he never called back. When be finally called and told me I was traded, I said, ‘How can you do this? How the hell can you break us up? We were going to win that SOB. We were going to win it all.’

“I told Jack, ‘You might as well send me to Saigon instead of Cleveland.’ ”

James knew he was only wasting his time. The deal was done. The Padres had Joe Carter, the slugger they coveted. The Indians had James, catcher Sandy Alomar and third baseman Carlos Baerga.

“You know something,” James said, “I still don’t understand it to this day. When you have something like we had, playing baseball the second half of the season like we did, you don’t try to make a 90-degree turnaround for one guy. You don’t disrupt a team like that.

“That’s what I don’t understand, and when I see Jack McKeon, I’m going to ask him about it.”

The Padres were a team, after all, that finished only three games behind the San Francisco Giants in 1989. They won 26 of their final 33 games, and came within an Eric Davis double of being able to play the Giants for the National League West title the final three games of the season.

“We had so much confidence in ourselves,” James said. “They knew that if they had three more games with us, their (butts) were done. We had them.

“That was a damn good team. I mean, even after the trade, I just knew they were going to win it. It was a World Series team. There was no doubt in my mind.

“Then I watched what happened to them, and my God, I couldn’t believe it.”

The Padres were floundering by the end of April . . . The Jack Clark-Tony Gwynn feud was steamrolling by May. . . . There were new owners by June . . . a new manager by July . . . rumors of a new regime in August . . . and virtually an entire new front office by the end of the season.

“You look at the team now,” James said, “and I don’t even recognize them. It’s make you sad. I mean, they’re still tearing that team apart.”

As upset as James was during the time he was traded, he was equally as perplexed when he learned about the Padres’ latest trade. What? Carter and second baseman Roberto Alomar to Toronto for first baseman Fred McGriff and shortstop Tony Fernandez?

If they didn’t want Carter, James asked, then why did they trade for him in the first place?

This trade, however, was the responsibility of Joe McIlvaine, not Jack McKeon.

“Hey, did he ever play baseball?” said James, rolling his eyes. “That’s scary the man’s got that kind of control of the team. Wow! Why would you trade Robbie Alomar? He’s going to be the premier second baseman in baseball. How do you explain that one?

“The game’s just not about talent. You’ve got to consider what goes on in the clubhouse. That’s a big thing.

“I mean, when I got over here to Cleveland, they thought I was psychotic. One day when I was really teed off and was tearing up the clubhouse, (Manager) John McNamara said, ‘Damn, Chris, you’re going to tear the stadium down.’

“They’re so used to losing here, they didn’t know how to accept me.”

It was James’ demeanor, however, that helped make the Padres. They played as a team, and won and lost as a team. The open animosity and hostility that became so prevalent last year didn’t emerge until James was gone.

“I can’t believe how much we miss him,” Padre pitcher Dennis Rasmussen said. “He’s just such an intense guy who had a lot of fire. He wouldn’t let anybody go through the motions, no matter who you were. Jack Clark, Tony Gwynn, he wasn’t afraid to get on anybody.

“We miss the intensity, and to tell you the truth, we’ve never been able to replace it.”

Said Padre Manager Greg Riddoch: “The thing I liked about Chris is that if somebody didn’t bust their butt, a coach or manager didn’t have to do anything because Chris was right there greeting them on the top step.”

But it’s too late now. James, who batted .299 with 70 RBIs last season, is gone. So is Sandy Alomar, the 1990 American League rookie of the year. So is Baerga, who’s expected to be the Indians’ starting third baseman this season. And so is center fielder Alex Cole, the guy who was traded in midseason last year--and hit .300 and stole 40 bases in 63 games for the Indians.

Ironic, isn’t it? At a time the Padres still are searching for a center fielder, left fielder and third baseman, they only had to look across the field Wednesday and see them all in the Indians’ starting lineup.

“What can you do?” McIlvaine said. “What can you do? You can’t look back.”

It’ll long be debated what would have happened if not for the Carter trade. When catcher Benito Santiago broke his arm in June, the Padres would have had Alomar as a replacement. Instead of experimenting with third basemen all season, they could have settled on Baerga. Rather than looking for a regular left fielder, they could have had James.

Maybe everything would have been different if James had been around. Maybe they would have been winning. And maybe, just maybe, the Padre clubhouse rift and frequent episodes of Gwynn-bashing never would have occurred.

“All I know is that none of that stuff went on when I was over there,” James said. “I couldn’t believe the stuff I was reading and hearing. I’ve never been in a clubhouse where that stuff happened.

“To me, Tony and Jack were both leaders, just different type of leaders. Tony led by example. Jack was the vocal one.

“I really don’t know if I could have done anything about it. Who knows? But surely, something could have been done to stop it.”

Said Rasmussen: “I guess the saddest thing about the whole situation is that we’ll never know. We’ll never know.

“And that’s a shame.”