Bilardello Still Reading Between the Signs : Baseball: Padre catcher’s career has been a series of short stints here and there. Bilardello hopes to stay here awhile.

It should have sent a red-flag warning. Distress sirens should have bellowed. Flares should have been fired into the night.

It was the omen telling Dann Bilardello to forget about a baseball career.

He ignored the presage. Fourteen years and 15 teams later, Bilardello finds himself in one of the most bizarre baseball careers.

Who else has played professionally since 1978, been in six organizations, has 916 major league at-bats and still doesn’t have a baseball card?

What other major league player can afford only one car--a Ford station wagon--for his family.

What major league player goes to arbitration, and comes away with a salary that will pay him $16,000 over the major-league minimum?

This guy, depending on Benito Santiago, could be the Padres’ starting catcher?

“When people think of baseball stars,” Bilardello said, “I don’t think too many people will mention my name. For that matter, I’m not sure if too many people know my name.”

Bilardello, 32, should have realized his career would be wacky the moment he was drafted in 1978--the third round of the January draft by Seattle.

“So I’m waiting for the Mariners to call,” Bilardello said, “and January goes by. Then February. March. It’s the end of April, and I still haven’t heard one word from them.

“Finally, I just picked up the phone and called the Mariners myself. I said, ‘Hi, I’m Dann Bilardello. You remember me? You drafted me in the third round?

“They said, ‘Oh yeah. Hey, do you want to go to rookie ball? We can’t pay you a bonus, but we’ll pay you $500 a month.”

Click.

Say hello to the real-life version of Crash Davis, the fictionalized star in “Bull Durham.”

Bilardello, who has spent 14 years in professional baseball, only once has played an entire season in the majors. His career includes stops in Lethbridge, Lodi, Clinton, San Antonio, Wichita, Vancouver, Omaha and Buffalo. You name it and Bilardello has played there.

Not exactly your Club Med spots.

“No, Bilardello said, “but when you’re in the big leagues, no matter where you are, it’s paradise.”

The winter jobs all seem to run together after awhile. Let’s see now . . . he was a shoe salesman, high school referee, cleanup worker on a construction crew and even put in the sprinkler system at the Kansas City Royals’ spring-training site at Boardwalk and Baseball in Florida.

“Hey, I’m not embarrassed about working those off-season jobs,” Bilardello said. “I don’t care what people think. I’m trying to make a decent living just like everyone else.”

Bilardello has quite a different perspective than many of his peers. While most veterans arrive each spring, needing only to prepare for the season, Bilardello is struggling for his livelihood.

If he makes the Padres’ big-league roster this year, he’ll earn more money than ever in his life--$125,000. It’s only pocket change to the average player. For Bilardello, it means putting food on the table and making car and house payments.

“When people find out you’re a baseball player,” Bilardello said, “they immediately think that you’re making $2 million a year, have a couple of Mercedes in the driveway, and have it made for life.

“They meet me, and they’re in shock.”

Bilardello, who ascended from the Dodger organization and was acquired by the Padres as a free agent before the 1991 season, never had it easy. The only year in his career he was an everyday player was in 1983 with the Cincinnati Reds. Now, it feels like another lifetime.

It was during that year, however, when Bilardello commanded respect. He may have been just a rookie, but he demonstrated in in a hurry how he wanted to be treated in life.

Just ask Johnny Bench, Hall of Fame catcher.

“I went to Bench one day and asked him to sign some baseball cards for my cousin,” Bilardello said. “He grabbed the cards out of my hands, kind of snarled, and said, ‘Now, who are these for?’

“So I just grabbed the cards back, and said, ‘Forget it. I don’t want your autograph.’ I don’t care you are, you don’t treat people like that.

“Ever since then, he treated me with respect. You know, I even get Christmas cards from him now. They could just be computer printouts, as far as I know, but at least I get them.”

Still, Bilardello finds it difficult to get respect as a player. When your career batting average is .207, you don’t point toward your numbers.

“He realizes he’s never going to hit .350,” teammate Larry Andersen said. “I’m not talking about a season, but even a week. But the way he is, it actually means more to him to catch a shutout than get four hits in a game.

“That’s why you’ve got so many guys in here pulling for him. Guys like Dann don’t take anything for granted because they’ve worked for everything they’ve gotten. There’s always that pressure, that constant pressure of trying to prove yourself year after year.

“Rooting for Dann is like rooting for the underdog.

“But at the same time, it’s not somebody you put your money on.”

The Padres, proving just that, offered Bilardello a contract for $125,000. The minimum salary for major league players is $109,000.

For the first time in his career, Bilardello filed for salary arbitration, seeking $235,000. The Padres didn’t even bother negotiating until the day before the hearing. They offered to settle the case for about $185,000. Bilardello refused.

Bilardello also lost, receiving the smallest arbitration award in the past six years.

“I think I broke some kind of record for the shortest arbitration hearing,” Bilardello said. “They ran out of things to say about me.”

Bilardello shrugged off the defeat, and refuses to second-guess himself for not settling. There are more important issues now. Like beating out Tom Lampkin for the backup catcher’s job.

He will rely on his defensive skills. He’s considered one of the finest game-calling catchers in baseball. The Padre pitching staff yielded a 2.54 ERA when Bilardello was behind the plate last year, the lowest in the National League.

But Bilardello is is being promised nothing.

Once again.

Bilardello started crying when left for spring training. It was the first time he cried in front of his children. He won’t see them for at least two months, and it’s getting more painful to make family sacrifices.

No wonder there have been numerous times in his career he offered to quit this crazy game. Three times he informed his family he was quitting. Three times, he returned.

“This game can tear you apart,” Bilardello said. “I’ve gone home crying at night. Not because I’m not a millionaire. Not because I don’t have a two-year contract. Just because I want to do well.

“I don’t know how my wife (Tish) puts up with me. She’s got to be a saint.”

There have been plenty of embarrassing times. There are many games he doesn’t even care to remember. There are games people won’t let him forget.

Like the time in Atlanta last year when he forgot how many outs there were in the inning, was forced at third, and cost teammate Tony Gwynn a base hit. Bilardello joked about it afterward, predicting Gwynn will now lose the batting title by a single hit.

“We all laughed about it,” Bilardello said, “but that was when Tony was leading the league by about 60 points. He went into a slump the rest of the season, and it wasn’t funny anymore.”

The batting race came down to the final weekend between Terry Pendleton of Atlanta, Hal Morris of Cincinnati and Gwynn, sidelined with a knee injury. Bilardello was hoping that everyone had forgotten about his blunder.

“So I’m sitting in front of my locker, reading the sports section, and this ESPN announcer starts talking about the batting race,” Bilardello said. “He says Pendleton’s batting .319, Morris is at .316, Gwynn is at .317, but if . . .’

“I’m thinking, there’s no way he’s going to say this . . . ‘but if not for Dann Bilardello’s baserunning blunder in Atlanta.’

“Come on, he didn’t say that, did he?”

Gwynn wound up losing the batting title by a couple of hits, rendering Bilardello’s miscue meaningless, but Bilardello’s friends never forgot. They sent him a plaque with Gwynn’s baseball card, penciling in the words out of Gwynn’s mouth: “Thanks Dann.”

“You know something,” Bilardello said, “Tony never said a word about it. I apologized, and he told me to not even think twice about it. I’ll never forget how he was so courteous and respectful of my feelings.

“I mean, everyone knows he’s a great player, but he’s one of the greatest persons I ever met.”

No one really knows what lies in store for Bilardello this season. He could make the team as Santiago’s backup. He could be back in the minor leagues again. Or if Santiago’s traded, he could even find himself as the Padres’ everyday catcher.

Who knows, maybe even then he’d even get a baseball card?

“It’s not like I’d paste them on my ceiling to look at them at night,” Bilardello said, “but it’d sure be nice to have one this season. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because they have to say something about the player on the back of each card, and they don’t know what to say about me.

“You know what, I think I’ll give them a call and tell them know about my high school football stats.”