Road Has Been a Hit Thus Far For the Padres

Take this message down and get it to Greg Riddoch in Cincinnati . . . and get it there fast.

There’s no time to waste. Use one of those trash, excuse me, fax machines. No time to waste on overnight mail. Mark it, “Please post in every locker.”

The message . . .

PLEASE . . . DON’T COME HOME!!!!

That’s right. All caps with exclamation points. This message cannot go unheeded.

The Padres should be the Harlem Globetrotters of the National League. They should pack their trunks in April and come home in October. They do much better as nomads than they do as homebodies.

Tuesday night’s defeat in Cincinnati gave them a road record of 22-15. This stands in sharp contrast to their 15-20 record at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, supposedly the comfort zone in which they should thrive.

“Road, sweet road,” said Adam Peterson, Monday night’s winning pitcher.

That is not the way this is supposed to work. Conventional wisdom has it that a baseball team can enjoy success by playing .500 ball on the road and then fattening its win column in the familiar confines of home.

Forget conventional wisdom with these guys.

If they had played all of their games thus far on the road, given what they have done, they would have a 43-29 record and trail the first-place Dodgers by mere percentage points. Playing all of their games at home, given the way they have played at home, and they would be 31-41 and just barely out of last place.

So why come home?

Home cooking? These guys need antacids for dessert. It has not tasted that good. Give them a hotel coffee shop and 24-hour room service and they turn into the 1927 Yankees. At home, they play more like the 1962 Mets.

Move over Waylon and Willie and the Boys, these guys are the real Highwaymen. Maybe John Madden will let them use his bus. Maybe Doc Mattei, the traveling secretary, should be the MVP . . . most valuable person. Maybe he should be the manager.

Those new white uniforms trimmed in navy blue and orange sure are pretty, but they don’t work. Toss ‘em. Give them to St. Vincent de Paul or Disabled American Vets or Salvation Army. Either take a tax write-off or write off the season. Put the Padres in those uniforms and they are more like clown costumes, something the Three Stooges should wear.

And, hey, I know the players will complain about missing their families, but I’m not going to buy that complaint. Not for a minute. These guys make more money than a $30 million lottery winner.

These guys can afford to take the wife and kids along, just so they don’t get into the tourist routine. They should lollygag around their rooms like they always do, reading comic books and the Wall Street Journal.

I know I could afford to take the whole family on the road for six months if I made a million bucks a year. I could take spouses and grandchildren as well. Of course, I think I’d skip Atlanta and Cincinnati and Houston and go instead to places like Tahiti, Puerto Vallarta, Nice and Daytona Beach. Just a matter of personal taste.

Fans will have to adapt, too, but that should be easy. Wouldn’t they rather watch victories on television than losses in person? These are prime-time players who respond to television lights. They turn live theater into farce.

And there’s no reason why fans still cannot get their perks. So what if the Padres would be in Los Angeles on July 4 rather than home, as the antiquated schedule indicates. Let the fans show up at the stadium, watch the game on the scoreboard and then settle back for the fireworks show. That works.

Concert doubleheaders? Same deal.

The Padres simply cannot come home if they are going to make a run at winning the National League West. If they can play the remainder of the schedule on the road, and play like they have been playing on the road, they would finish with 93 victories.

They only won 92 games in 1984, and you know what kind of a year that was.

Keep these guys on the road, and we’re talking postseason baseball. We’re talking the National League Championship Series and maybe even the World Series.

Understand, however, that you will need airplane tickets as well as game tickets for both the NLCS and the World Series. None of the games would be played here in San Diego. Perish the thought. It wouldn’t make sense to tamper with a good thing, such as not coming home.

Look for the Padres, those itinerant workers, to catch the Dodgers in the NL West, sweep in Pittsburgh for the NL pennant and then sweep in Oakland (yes, the A’s will be there) for the world championship.

Get your airplane tickets now.

Now, about that message . . .

There’s not a moment to spare. The schedule says the Padres are supposed to open a home stand Friday against San Francisco, but that cannot happen. Rip those baggage tags off the luggage. SAN will not do. Replace them with SFO.

See you guys in October.