Black Becomes a Big Deal : Baseball: $10-million contract puts Giant pitcher in the spotlight.

He knows he is being watched closely this spring.

When he walks across the field, fans nudge each other. That’s him, they whisper. He’s the guy. When he steps onto the mound, all eyes are on him.

He can feel this, and he knows it comes with the territory. When you sign a four-year contract for $10 million, you catch people’s attention.

When you make all of this marquee money and your nine-year career record is a not-so-spectacular 83-82, you raise people’s eyebrows.

But Bud Black isn’t hemming and hawing. The man who signed with San Francisco on Nov. 9 for what seemed like the price of the Golden Gate Bridge simply blends into a Giant clubhouse filled with Kevin Mitchell and Will Clark. He is looking forward to a new league and a new season, and he goes about his business, as best as he can, away from the spotlight.

“Yeah, I’m sure some people are surprised,” he says of his contract. “But like I said 1,000 times, it was the timing of the contract more than anything that made it stick out. If I had signed the the same week as (Danny) Jackson, (Zane) Smith, (Tom) Browning, (Mike) Boddicker, (Matt) Young and (Kevin) Gross, I just would have gone right in there.”

Actually, those six pitchers signed over the span of a few weeks. Still, Black’s general point remains intact--he signed nearly two weeks ahead of the other pitchers, so his contract got the attention.

So here he is, in spring training with a new team and, until he shut down the Padres on six hits and a run in 4 1/3 innings Tuesday, he had yielded 21 hits and 12 runs in 14 2/3 innings. And even more noticeable were the five home runs he had allowed. Four came in three innings against the Padres last week.

Black isn’t worried.

“Overall, I feel OK,” he said. “My arm feels fine. I’m getting the ball over the plate. My main concern is getting my mechanics in order for the latter part of spring training.

“I’m throwing the ball where I want to, and that’s what I strive for. So far, I’ve been successful.”

Black, 33, was never one to worry anyway. Not at San Diego State, where he lettered in 1978 and 1979, and not in the majors.

“He always had the strange ability to take a situation and make you more confident than you were,” said Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn, who played on Black’s SDSU team in 1979. “There would be times when he was on the mound at SDSU, in a tight situation, and he would look at the dugout and go like this . . .”

Gwynn rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I’m happy for him. Here’s a guy who has bounced around a little but persevered and came out good.”

San Francisco is Black’s fourth major league stop, and when he signed in November, it became his third stop in three months. He was traded from Cleveland to Toronto Sept. 17, when the Blue Jays were looking for pitching help down the stretch drive.

He was granted free agency after the season, and said 13 teams contacted him. He made a short list of teams he was interested in--the West Coast clubs, Kansas City, Toronto and Cleveland.

“I knew a couple teams on the West Coast weren’t going to get involved with me,” he said. “The Padres, Angels, Seattle . . .

“And with the A’s and Dodgers, it never got to the point of money.”

It didn’t take him long to sign with the Giants.

“The way they aggressively pursued me, and the things they had to offer,” he said. “It worked out.”

What was the attraction? Black is a left-handed pitcher, a breed coveted by every major league team. And Black has worked more than 200 innings in each of the past two seasons, so it’s easier to understand why he was in the position to write his own meal ticket last winter.

“I like that (Cleveland manager) John McNamara told me Black takes the ball every four or five days and gives you 200 innings,” San Francisco Manager Roger Craig said.

The San Francisco pitching staff finished 10th in the National League last season with a 4.08 earned-run average. The Giants were looking for dependability and durability. And Black has won 25 games over the past two seasons.

“He’s a good control pitcher,” Craig said. “He has an excellent changeup, a good knowledge of how to pitch hitters and a good pickoff move. With our offense and defense, I don’t see why he shouldn’t win 14 or 15 games.”

And one other thing--Craig isn’t paying much attention to Black’s rocky spring.

“Arizona is the toughest place in the world to judge pitchers,” Craig said. “Curveball pitchers don’t have their curveball. Sinker ball pitchers don’t have their sinker balls.

“In the (Pacific Coast League), all of the pitchers’ ERAs are 4.00 or over. He hasn’t had a great spring, but he knows how to pitch and he’s in good shape.”

Said pitching coach Norm Sherry: “You look at Bud Black and you know he’s going to keep you in games.”

Black has pitched in the playoffs and World Series for Kansas City, and he has won his share of games for bad Cleveland teams.

Maybe he is on a first-name basis with mediocrity. He is one game above .500 for his career, and the major league teams he has pitched for have combined to finish 739-739.

But he has given an honest day’s work for a few bucks, and now he has signed for more than a few bucks. He bought a house in Encinitas over the winter, so now he lives and works on the West Coast, and life is good.

“He’s paid his dues, no question about that,” said Gwynn, who this year will face his old SDSU teammate for the first time in a regular-season game. “He got a deal a lot of people say maybe he didn’t deserve. Maybe he did. Let’s see what he can do before we bury him.

“Ten million for four years is a good deal. I hope he’s worth every penny of it.

“Except against the Padres.”