1992 ALL-STAR GAME : Gossage’s Forgettable Outing in ’78 Was Garvey’s Highlight : All-Star game: First baseman got key hit in battle of future Padres.

The first All-Star game played at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium boiled down to a duel of future Padres, and Steve Garvey won a clear-cut decision over Goose Gossage.

Gossage can’t recall the details, but they are still fresh in Garvey’s mind, and why not? Because of a key confrontation in the eighth inning, Garvey wound up as the most valuable player and Gossage as the goat of the National League’s 7-3 victory over the American League on July 11, 1978.

“I’ll never forget it,” said Garvey, 43, who was then with the Dodgers and now is in the television production business in Brentwood. “I’m looking at the MVP trophy right now, and it still looks great.”

Actually, this wasn’t a new experience for Garvey, who was to play his last five seasons (1983-87) with the Padres. He also was the MVP in 1974, when he won the starting first-base job as a write-in.

Nor was the triple that sent Gossage reeling the only contribution by Garvey to the seventh of the National League’s 11 consecutive All-Star victories. In the third inning, he had hit a two-run single off Jim Palmer, now in the Hall of Fame, completing a three-run rally that wiped out a 3-0 lead built by the American Leaguers at the expense of Vida Blue.

Garvey did all this with 22 stitches in his chin, the result of being hit by a pickoff throw three nights earlier. “I don’t hit with my chin,” he said after the game.

Of his big triple, Garvey recalled, “They brought in Gossage (to start the eighth) and I hit one about a foot from the top of the wall in right field. Then we got lucky with a wild pitch, and that was it.”

In reality, it was only the beginning of a nightmare for Gossage, who was then with the New York Yankees and was to be a Padre from 1984 to ’87.

Dave Concepcion followed with a walk, and Dave Winfield of the Padres brought the biggest cheer of the night from the hometown crowd of 51,549 with a single that Chet Lemon misplayed in center. Lemon’s error put the runners on second and third, and to add to the San Diego motif, Bob Boone, a graduate of Crawford High School, put the game away with a two-run line single through the middle of the drawn-in infield.

Boone, who was a catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, took second base on an infield out and scored the final run on a looping single by the Dodgers’ Davey Lopes.

In contrast to the Padres’ five-man delegation to the 1992 All-Star game to be played here Tuesday night, they had only two representatives in the 1978 game. Joining Winfield was Rollie Fingers, and he preserved the 3-3 tie by shutting out the American Leaguers in the sixth and seventh innings.

“Pitching those two innings in front of the home fans was very exciting,” said Fingers, 45, who lives in San Diego.

Gossage, 41, now with the Oakland Athletics, laughed when asked about his forgettable performance.

“Did I lose it?” he said. “I don’t even remember those things. I know I screwed it up, that’s all. I don’t remember how. It was a home run, I think.”

Actually, it would have been a home run if Garvey had hit it today. Since then, the inner fence around the outfield has been moved in.

“I hardly remember any of my All-Star games,” said Gossage, who has pitched in six of them. “I guess it’s a case of when bad things happen to you, you don’t want to remember them. You just want to bury your head in the sand.”

Gossage also had been ineffective three years earlier in Milwaukee, giving up a two-run tie-breaking single to Bill Madlock in the ninth inning.

This was the second of four All-Star appearances for Boone, now managing the Tacoma triple-A club for the A’s after a 19-year major-league career in which he set a record for games caught.

Boone, 44, was asked if getting the clinching hit in his hometown had given him his biggest All-Star thrill.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably the biggest one for me was my first, in Philadelphia in ’76. And in ‘79, I was voted in as a starter and got a base hit.

“It was great having my family and friends there, though. Quite a few were there. I know my access to tickets was limited, but I got most of what I needed, and my dad was working on them, too. I don’t really recall if we got enough.”

Boone’s father, Ray, now a scout for the Boston Red Sox, was a major-league infielder from 1948 through 1960. A son, Bret, is a star second baseman for Seattle’s triple-A club at Calgary and a virtual cinch to make the Boones the first three-generation family in major-league history. Another son, Aaron, recently completed a big freshman season as USC’s third baseman.

During the National League’s 11-game All-Star winning streak, it was said that its players took the game more seriously than the American Leaguers. Having been on both sides, Boone was asked if this was true.

“I thought so when I was in the National League,” he said. “Pete Rose always had a way of setting the intensity level. We definitely were playing to win.

“But I played for the American League in ‘83, the year we broke the streak, and we were certainly determined that time. That made me 4-0 in All-Star Games.”

Padre broadcaster Rick Monday started in right field for the National League in 1978. With the Dodgers at the time, he went hitless in two at-bats. Ten years earlier, he had played for the AL as a member of the A’s.

“I noticed a big difference when I went into the National League clubhouse the day before the game,” said Monday, 46. “There was a feeling of, ‘Hello, how are you, let’s get the pleasantries over with, because tomorrow we’re going to kick somebody’s butt.’ The guys had fire in their eyes.

“When I played for the American League, everybody was competitive, but in a more casual way. It wasn’t the same.”

Monday had never played right field before--he had always been a center fielder--but Manager Tom Lasorda of the Dodgers and the National League didn’t want George Foster to have to cope with the sun field at twilight time.

“Tommy called me over and told me why,” Monday said. “He said, ‘I’m putting you in right field because you’ve played in Chicago (Wrigley Field) and you know how to handle the sun. He said, ‘Just get everything you can take.’

“I told (second baseman) Joe Morgan about it, and we figured we’d each need a radar gun to find the ball in the sun. We were right. There were balls that neither of us saw.”

Monday told of an amusing incident with Rose before the game.

“Two weeks before, Pete and I were close to a fight in Cincinnati,” Monday said. “In the clubhouse here, he sent little Petey over to me to sign some baseballs. Petey said, ‘My dad wants these balls signed if you’re not mad at him anymore.’ Pete was sitting over there laughing.”

What stands out in Monday’s mind about the All-Star game is the thrill of being chosen to play.

“You hear people saying they’d rather have three days off,” he said. “That’s baloney. You want to be with the best.”