PADRE UPDATE : NOTEBOOK / BOB NIGHTENGALE : Azocar Finally Reports to Camp, but It Was the Wait, Not the War

Padre outfielder Oscar Azocar finally arrived to camp Sunday--before the Padres’ doubleheader loss to the Angels, 7-2 and 5-2--and much to the surprise of his teammates, he was alive and well.

“I came into the clubhouse, and I think my teammates thought I was a ghost,” Azocar said. “They thought I was dead or something. It was almost like they were upset I didn’t come in with any bullet holes.”

There had been speculation by General Manager Joe McIlvaine that Azocar was engulfed in a sea of political unrest in Venezuela. Someone told him the embassy had been bombed, and tanks and soldiers were blocking anyone from attempting to obtain a visa.

“Where did that stuff come from?” Azocar said. “The military tried to take over Feb. 4, but it was over the next day. I’ve just been sitting around waiting for my visa. It was supposed to be there Feb. 22, but I only got it last week.

“It was the Padres’ fault, not mine.”

The Padres actually sent the visa Feb. 25, but for an unknown reason, it didn’t arrive in Venezuela until March 6.

“There’s been a problem with visas since Day 1 in baseball,” McIlvaine said. “At least he’s here.”

By the way, who spread those rumors about the embassy being bombed, anyway?

“I read something about it somewhere,” McIlvaine said. “I know someone told me that.”

And baseball executives wonder how wild trade rumors get started among reporters.

The Angels’ Shawn Abner, the man whom Padre fans loved to berate, made his spring debut against his former teammates by hitting a home run off starter Bruce Hurst.

“Bruce is my buddy; he told me he just threw it over the plate for me,” Abner said. “I hope he gives me a lot more of those, because I’d love to make this team.”

Randy Myers made his Padre debut by allowing a leadoff triple to Jose Gonzalez, and then retiring the next six batters he faced. He also began in spectacular fashion by throwing his first warm-up pitch over the head of catcher Benito Santiago, just to grab the fans’ attention.

“What do you mean, did I do it on purpose,” Myers asked, incredulously. “It was a new mound, I slipped.”

Myers, holding back his smile, was then asked whether he gave up the leadoff triple just for the sake of a challenge.

Manager Greg Riddoch answered for him: “Randy told me he played slow-pitch softball all winter and forgot we weren’t using a rover.”

Outfielder Jerald Clark continues to impress, hitting the Padres’ first homer of the spring. “I’m pretty relaxed this spring,” he said, “but I can’t totally chill out. Let’s just say it’s controlled aggression.” Said Riddoch: “You can just see the difference. He’s reached a new plateau. He has the confidence now. He believes in himself, and he knows we believe in him.” . . . The Padres pulled off one of the strangest pickoffs in their history Sunday when they caught Gonzalez in a rundown that was scored 1-3-4-6-2-7. Clark, the left fielder, backed up the play and finally made the putout. “I think that was the first time in my life I’ve seen an outfielder make the putout on a pickoff,” McIlvaine said. . . . Padre shortstop Jose Valentin had a tough first game. He went 0 for 4 and made three errors. . . . The Padres have failed to score more than two runs in any of their three spring-training games, averaging 5.3 hits a game. . . . Outfielder Thomas Howard is expected to rejoin the team Tuesday in Phoenix after spending the past week with his wife and new baby.