Santiago Shedding No Tears : Baseball: The catcher is ready to move on after this season.

Benito Santiago’s eyes begin to flutter. He closes them, inhales, exhales slowly and visualizes the future.

They’ll be sorry. Once he leaves, they’ll find out what they’re missing. Then, they’ll wish they had treated him differently.

Santiago opens his eyes, gently rubs his goatee and smiles. This is his dream. The Padres can’t ruin it this time.

Santiago, perhaps the most talented catcher in the game, will be a free agent at the end of the season. He’ll listen to the Padres if they feel like talking, but knows it likely will be a waste of time.

“You know they won’t pay me,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

Santiago has been in the Padre organization since he was 17. They brought him into this country to play baseball. Now, he’ll be making more money than he ever knew existed in Puerto Rico.

He’ll be playing next season for the Dodgers. Or the Angels. Or the New York Mets. Did anyone say the Miami Marlins?

“I feel sad because this is my last season in San Diego,” Santiago said. “It’s not my choice, it’s their choice. They could have signed me. I’ve given them every chance. Instead, I always have to go to arbitration.

“No more. Those days are over. I want to play for a team that wants me, a team that respects me. A team that treats me fairly.

“Man, that’s going to be a nice feeling.”

Santiago, a three-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner, will be one of the most attractive free agents this winter. There have been at least two teams who privately say Santiago will be their top priority. In the Los Angeles area, there are two teams who’ll be searching for help with the expected departures of Dodger Mike Scioscia and Angel Lance Parrish.

The skinny kid who was picking tomatoes and washing cars back home less than 10 years ago, Benito Rivera Santiago is going to be a very rich man.

Just how prepared is he for the financial windfall? Santiago took out a $10 million insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London, completing the blood work Tuesday.

“I know I can almost set my family up for life just from the money I’m making now,” said Santiago, who won an arbitration award of $3.3 million. “In my country, if you make $5,000 a year, you’re a rich man. But what am I, stupid?

“You think I let the Padres sign me for nothing? Come on, I’m not Tony Gwynn, who loves San Diego so much he’ll stay here for anything. If the New York Mets offered Tony Gwynn $25 million, or $12 million to stay in San Diego, I know Tony would stay in San Diego.

“I love San Diego. What city is better to live in the whole country than San Diego? But what am I going to do?

“The (Padre) owners say they don’t have the money. I don’t believe them. I think they just won’t spend it. Believe me, if they keep doing that, and lose me, we could be like the Houston Astros. We could be like a triple-A team.

“You have to spend money to make money, and we don’t do that. It’s crazy. It’s even like that with the football team (San Diego Chargers). It’s the best city in the country, and they screw it up.”

The Padres had a chance to sign Santiago to a four-year deal for $17.5 million only a year ago. Santiago and his agent, Scott Boras, said they likely would have even settled for about $15 million. The Padres turned them down, and now can’t afford to pay the price.

It will cost at least $25 million, maybe $30 million, Boras predicts, to lure Santiago in the free-agent market. The Padres aren’t even expected to participate.

“We didn’t want to be irresponsible and set the benchmark for catcher’s salaries,” said Joe McIlvaine, Padre general manager, “and we refuse to do it now. We have fiscal responsibilities too. If we had given Benny that contract last year, we would have given him $1.5 million more than Will Clark.

“Who would you rather have? Come on, there’s no comparison,” McIlvaine said. “We’re not talking Johnny Bench here.”

The question no longer is whether the Padres will retain Santiago once he becomes a free agent, but rather how long will he be with the team before they attempt to trade him?

“We haven’t got one offer, not one single offer for Benny,” McIlvaine said. “What does that tell you?”

Said Santiago: “It tells me they’re looking for excuses. They don’t want fans to be upset when I leave. They’re going to say he wasn’t that good anyway.

“It’s crazy. I give San Diego everything. I give them Gold Gloves. I give them All-Star games. I give them Silver Slugger Awards. I give them 34-game hitting streak.

“But my whole life there, I feel like I’ve been going against the traffic.”

The catcher with the golden arm is on the road out.

“Maybe the road will go to Los Angeles, no?” Santiago said. “The Dodgers need a catcher, and I would prefer to stay in the National League. If not them, maybe the Angels, it’d be nice to stay in California. I love New York. Miami could be fun, too, because it’s the closest city to Puerto Rico.”

Shades of Bobby Bonilla, keeping every available option open?

“Look where it got him,” Santiago said. “That’s why after this, I talk about nothing but baseball. I don’t want people to say, ‘Listen to Benny, he’s talking . . . again. What’s he doing? I don’t talk about free agency until after the season ends. I want to have a good attitude.

“Look what it did for Bonilla. He smiles a lot, and gets $29 million. He has trouble at every position he goes, but because he smiles, people give him lots of money. Barry Bonds is a better player, but he won’t get more than Bonilla because of what people think of him.

“I want people to think I have good attitude, too.”

Santiago walks into his bedroom, and brings back a handful of fan mail. He proudly shows letters revealing his popularity. The nasty letters--the ones that call him greedy--are ripped into a million pieces.

Santiago understands the fans’ plight. He was given away by his mother at three months, and grew up in Puerto Rico. He’s well aware of poverty.

“His neighborhood was the worst,” Boras said. “I was there for 10 days, and was scared to death.”

Said Santiago: “Most of my friends are either dead or in jail. One of my best friends was shot in the stomach. My cousin, the one I always was with, is in jail for the rest of his life. He killed four people.”

When Santiago left home and signed with the Padres at the age of 17, he wondered if it might be more difficult to survive in this country. He found himself playing in Reno, Nev., the Padres’ former Class A affiliate, for $456 a month. Rent was $400 a month.

“I don’t have any money to eat,” Santiago said. “I have no TV, no furniture, nothing. I went into the street to find (couch cushions) in the garbage. That’s my mattress for six months.”

No need to tell Santiago about life’s everyday problems. He and his wife, Blanca, are legally separated. He lives in Del Mar, and will move to La Jolla before the start of the season. His wife and two children live in Chula Vista.

No need to remind him of racism. He receives nasty letters simply because he is not white. He might live in San Diego, a racially diverse city, but at times he wonders how much worse it could be to live in Birmingham, Ala.

“I get treated better in other cities than my own,” Santiago said. “I remember we were on the last day of a trip last year, and I said, ‘Oh no,’ I got to go to San Diego. I got to battle with the fans again.”

Santiago never has been fully accepted in San Diego. Boras believes it stems from episodes when Santiago joined the Padres and feuded with his manager and a few teammates. Santiago doesn’t know what to believe.

“Benny was a much different person back then,” Boras said. “He resisted authority, and did not respond to management’s desires. But if you were back in Puerto, and saw the way the police harassed Benny, you’d understand.

“A lot of Benito’s cousins, and friends, associated with undesirables. There were a lot of drugs around. So basically it was guilt by association.

“But no one’s ever given him a chance.”

Considering Santiago is the only National League catcher in the last four years to hit 15 homers and drive in 75 runs in a season--which he’s accomplished twice--you wonder Padre fans still treat him as if he’s the second coming of Bill Fahey.

“I can’t explain it,” Santiago said. “In life, it seems like most people have trouble remembering things.

“In San Diego, they have trouble forgetting things.”

It started in 1987, when Santiago finished the season with a 34-game hitting streak, batted .300, and was a unanimous choice for the National League Rookie of the Year. What is remembered? Santiago criticizing the pitching staff.

His offense slipped dramatically the following year, but he began to dazzle fans by throwing from his knees, winning his first Gold Glove. What is remembered? Santiago walking out of spring-training camp for a few hours in a contract dispute.

In 1989, Santiago was selected to his first All-Star game, and won another Gold Glove. What is remembered? The team closed-door meeting in which Santiago screamed obscenities in the face of Jack McKeon, his former manager.

Santiago was having perhaps his finest offensive season in 1990--batting .317 with nine homers and 33 RBIs--when he suffered a fractured forearm by an errant pitch thrown by San Francisco Giant reliever Jeff Brantley. What is remembered? Pitcher Bruce Hurst asking for a trade after a game against Philadelphia because of Santiago’s pitch selection.

Last year, Santiago had his best season since his rookie year, batting .267 with 17 homers and a career-high 87 RBIs. What is remembered? Santiago firing a helmet toward the dugout that caromed off the wall and knocked Padre Manager Greg Riddoch silly.

“I think if Tony Gwynn had thrown the helmet,” Boras said, “it would have been viewed as an accident at the inception and not as an act of aggression.”

Santiago apologized for all his indiscretions. He’s sorry he made life difficult for those around him. It’s why two years ago he began seeing a psychologist, attempting to control his aggression.

“You don’t have to be crazy to see one,” he said. “I just open up my head to this person, open my mind. It’s helped me.

“I was young and immature, anyway. I’m only 26. Everybody makes mistakes. But I don’t get in trouble in the streets. I don’t get in fights. Why can’t people forgive me?”

Said McKeon: “I think the trouble all these years is that Benny’s been the scapegoat. Everybody always pointed the finger at him. Every time the pitcher had a bad game, it was always Benny’s fault.

“You can’t be popular if your own people run you down.”

Even today, Santiago finds himself being abused for his game-calling skills. He may have the finest arm in the game, but a few pitchers complain about his pitch selection and the way he sets a target behind the plate.

“It’s one of the main reasons I quit,” said former Padre pitching coach Pat Dobson, “I had enough of Benny. I couldn’t do my job. I wanted Benny to at least look over to the bench for pitches, and he refused to do so. I complained to Jack and Greg, asking them to back me up, but they didn’t want to upset Benny.

“I decided I wasn’t going to put up with that anymore. The job didn’t pay me enough. It wasn’t worth it.”

Santiago acknowledges that his relationship with Dobson was strained. He complained that Dobson always spoke to the pitchers, and never to him. It reached a point where McKeon ordered the coaches to quit fueling the criticism.

“I got sick of it,” McKeon said. “The pitchers have the ball in their hand last. If you don’t like what he calls, throw something else. Throw it where the hell you want.”

The Padres’ pitching staff has ranked among the top six in the league the past three years. Depending on to whom you talk, Santiago’s catching skills have either improved, or remained stagnant. Padre veteran Ed Whitson says they have improved dramatically. Others are not so sure. Those in the Padre management refuse to even comment publicly.

“I don’t understand these complaints,” Whitson said. “To me, he’s the finest catcher in the game. Without a doubt. No comparison.

“I mean, the first time I ever saw him, I said, ‘We’ve got another Johnny Bench here.’

“The more I saw him, I realized, “What am I talking about? Bench’s arm doesn’t even compare with Benny’s.”

Santiago’s value may be best revealed in the fact that opponents have attempted 45% fewer stolen bases against the Padres in his last three full seasons than the National League average. Perhaps even more important is his durability. He was behind the plate in 151 games last season, the 13th-highest total in major league history. The last time anyone caught more games was Gary Carter when he caught 153 games for the Montreal Expos in 1982.

“It’s fun to watch teams come in here, and totally change their running game,” Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn said. “Vince Coleman comes to town, and he won’t even run because of Benny. There’s not a catcher in the league that can do what he does.

“The sad part is that I don’t think people will realize just what he’s done and what he means to this team until he’s gone.”

Santiago walked off the plane in Puerto Rico last month, saw his adopted father, and began crying. He had just won his $3.3 million arbitration award, the largest ever provided to a catcher, and it finally hit home.

“I used to think if I make $5,000--maybe $10,000--I’d be a rich man,” Santiago said. “Now, I get $3.3 million, and it feels like all the money in the world. It feels like $100 million.

“But it won’t change me. Benito Santiago never will change. Even when my friends barely have any money in their pocket, they say, ‘Benny, let me buy you a beer. I’ll get your beer.’ My friends in Puerto Rico treat me the same.

“I’m still going to wash my own car, just like I did growing up. I washed so many cars I couldn’t wait to wash my own. I could pay $200 for someone to wash my car, or buy the best car in the world, but I don’t do that.”

Santiago plans to buy his sister a house and refurbish his parents’ home with his first check in April. He already has donated money for a playing field and a van to youth baseball in Puerto Rico. Now, he’s trying to convince his 69-year-old father to quit carpentry work and his side job of being an airport shuttle service driver.

“He says he still wants to drive people from airport,” Santiago said. “I say, ‘Please just do it for free. Don’t fight anybody. Don’t fight for one penny. If they don’t play you, let it go.’

“But he doesn’t listen.”

Santiago insists money isn’t important--only pride. If he is the best catcher, he wants to be paid accordingly. The Padres have yet to agree the past three years, with each year’s salary dispute needing to be resolved in arbitration.

“I ask for good money last year,” Santiago said, “and they say, ‘Have a good year, and we’ll give you money.’ I have a good year, and I still have to go to arbitration.

“They didn’t give me a raise. The arbitrator gave me raise.”

The Padres, who offered Santiago $2.5 million in arbitration, say Santiago’s victory may be turn out to be well worth the $800,000 difference.

Riddoch and the coaching staff already have noticed a drastic change in behavior. Santiago has requested extra batting practice each of the last four days. He’s setting up behind the plate, even providing a target to pitchers instead of letting his glove hang toward the ground. He actually agreed to sit in the pitcher meetings this year, to study hitters’ tendencies. And yes, he is chatting amicably with his manager.

“Greg Riddoch and I get along great,” Santiago said. “He treats me good. He respects me.”

Said Riddoch: “It sounds strange, but when I got hit in the head with the helmet last year might have been a blessing in disguise. It’s like it brought us closer.”

The Padres still are awaiting to see if his disposition and on-field improvements carry over into the season. So far, Santiago has responded to everything they’ve wanted.

“I’ve been through a lot, man,” he said. “If I was just an average player, they would have run me out of here long time ago. But I think this could be my best year.

“I don’t give 100% this season. I give 200%.”

Said Boras: “Now we’re going to have a chance to see the person, and the talent, perform together rather than battling one another.

“It could be something to watch.”