Their Dues Aren’t Paid : Replacement Players May Be Getting Called Up, but They’re Also Getting the Cold Shoulder From Veterans

Last spring, San Diego Padre management asked a minor leaguer, Archi Cianfrocco, to become a replacement player.

No thought was required for Cianfrocco.

He needed only flashbacks of his fire-suited father, Angelo, standing in front of a blazing furnace for the last 36 years, dodging flying molten droplets of copper.

Then he said, “No.”

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t.

Today, Archi Cianfrocco (Ark-ey Sin-frocco) is a major leaguer.

Meanwhile, his friend and former teammate in the Pacific Coast League, Ira Smith, remains in the minors despite a .400 batting average going into the weekend.

There’s another sharp difference between them.

Smith played in replacement games.

“People have asked me what factors I mulled over before making my decision, but I really didn’t have to make a decision,” said Cianfrocco, who had a grand slam and six runs batted in Friday night against Atlanta. “I just never would have done it [cross the picket line].”

“I never discussed it with my father. He knew I wouldn’t.”

Cianfrocco’s father, Angelo Anthony Cianfrocco, is a steel-driving man. For the last 36 years, he has been reducing copper and brass scrap to ingots. And getting burned.

In the Cianfrocco household, “Live Better/Work Union” isn’t just a bumper sticker.

He mans a furnace at Revere Copper Products in Rome, N.Y., founded in 1801 by Paul Revere.

“I think Archi comes from a different kind of culture than a lot of those guys who crossed the picket lines,” Angelo Cianfrocco, 56, said.

“Rome, N.Y., is a very heavy Italian, pro-union area. That’s the culture Archi grew up in. He knows better. He knows that after strikes are settled, people have long memories.

“We had a long strike here in ’82 and some people still haven’t buried the hatchet.”

In the Padres’ clubhouse the other night, Archi, 28, talked about his father’s scars, exterior and interior.

“My father has little white scars all over his neck and shoulders, and his hands and forearms,” Cianfrocco said.

“He wears fireproof suits, but the molten metal still spits out on him and sometimes a drop gets through the seams.

“He’s a very hard-working man. All those years putting food on our table, coming home all dirty, sweaty, his face black with soot. He did a great job raising a family because he was a strong union man, and I’ll never forget that.

“He was on strike many times, once for six months. When I was 8, we had a very lean Christmas. I remember long periods, in those years when my mom wasn’t working, that my two sisters and I ate a lot of beans and cabbage.”

So while Cianfrocco eats much better now on the major league per diem, it’s beans and cabbage for Smith, his old Las Vegas Star teammate.

Smith was batting over .400 when Padre General Manager Randy Smith considered calling him up last week to fill in for injured outfielder Bip Roberts.

Then he decided to ask his veteran players how they felt. The reaction was predictable.

No one wants to talk about it, but after the closed-door meeting with veterans, it was Cianfrocco who got the call, not Smith.

Not that Cianfrocco didn’t earn it. He was hitting .308, with a recent 19-for-32 streak.

Randy Smith insists it was he, not his veteran players, who made the call.

“A lot more has been made out of a five-minute discussion than should have been,” he said.

“We talked it out. Chemistry is a factor on a team, and the last thing I wanted is what happened at San Francisco. But I made the decision, not the players.”

At San Francisco, replacement player Joel Chimelis was called up in June when Matt Williams broke a bone in his foot.

Two days later, after suiting up twice, he was back on a plane, destination Phoenix. He had found limited opportunity for conversation at Candlestick Park. Giant players first ostracized Chimelis, then asked management to ship him out.

“I knew guys were not comfortable with me around,” he said.

Chimelis is back in the PCL and has more runs batted in than anyone else in the Giants’ organization.

Shreveport pitcher Steve Bourgeois, another Giants’ replacement player, recently was 8-3 with a 2.38 earned run-average--and wondering when his phone will ring.

And the Giants need improved pitching. They had a team earned-run average of 4.93 through Friday, last in the league.

Wednesday night, Padre players wouldn’t discuss their Ira Smith meeting with General Manager Smith.

Pitcher Andy Ashby, after carefully considering a question about the meeting, said, “I ain’t talkin’ about nothin’ except baseball.”

Ira Smith talked, however. He was reached in Salt Lake City, where his Stars were playing the Salt Lake Buzz.

“I talked to a lot of people when I made my decision to play [replacement games],” he said.

“I talked to a lot of friends, and to my mom. She told me to think it through, then do what was best for me.

“When the Padres asked me to play in the games, they made me feel pretty good about my future if I did.

“I knew it could mean problems down the road for me. But one of the factors I considered was my age, which is 27. I have played well in this organization the last three years and I’ve had absolutely no movement [toward the Padres].

“So frustration was a big part of it. I have a lot of self-confidence. . . . I can play this game. I’ve shown that.”

Smith, who said he accepts Randy Smith’s explanation that Cianfrocco’s promotion was a decision not dictated by Padre players, said his day will come.

“The last few days have been tough, but I need to put this behind me,” he said. “In the meantime, I’m rooting for Archi to do well.”

Cianfrocco said his friendship with Ira Smith was not impaired by Smith’s decision to play spring training games.

“Ira’s a great guy, we’re friends. . . . His decision didn’t change anything,” Cianfrocco said.

“He knew where I was coming from, and he just didn’t see it like I did. That’s fine.”

The Dodgers haven’t had to deal yet with the possible call up of a replacement player, but it will happen.

One candidate is Mark Mimbs, a left-handed pitcher at the Dodgers’ Albuquerque PCL team. He was a replacement player who in a recent monthlong streak had six games of giving up two or fewer earned runs.

“If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t play in those games and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else do it, either,” he said.

“At the time, I saw it as a chance to pitch before big league coaches, to show the Dodgers what I could do. I had no intention of using the spring games as a shortcut to making the Dodgers.

“When I make it, I want to earn it. I’ve played with half those guys anyway, and my relationship with them is good.”

The Dodgers’ Eric Karros was asked what player reaction would be to the call-up of a replacement player.

“It’s not a topic anybody’s thinking about, so there’s nothing for me really to say,” he said.

“We’ll just have to address that when or if it happens. I’m sure everybody’s reaction will be different, so it’s hard to say.”

Dodger Vice President Fred Claire said there will be no meetings with players if he decides to call up a replacement player.

“I can’t worry about how players are going to react,” he said. “If at some point I feel Mimbs can help us, I’ll call him up.

“We told all our players in the spring we were going to play spring games. We said to them: ‘If you want to play, fine. If not, we only ask that you respect any decision made by someone else.’ ”

Catcher Jeff Grotewold played in Kansas City replacement games, was called up from Omaha June 12 and was sent back to Omaha July 8 for reasons believed to be unrelated to the strike.

“Jeff made contributions,” said Royals’ official Dean Vogelaar.

“He hit a three-run homer for us at Anaheim [June 19] and was greeted at the dugout like anyone would be. But there was some coolness too. I mean, I didn’t see him getting invited out to dinner much.”

Meanwhile, in Rome, N.Y., Angelo Anthony Cianfrocco beams.

After confirming to a reporter that son Archi didn’t even ask for fatherly advice on whether to play in replacement games, he said:

“I raised him pretty good, dontcha think?”

* Times staff writer Tim Kawakami contributed to this story.