Padres Still Don’t Know How the West Is Won

No offense to that large portion of the country still in a tizzy over this recent string of heroic feats by little-known athletes, but be serious.

The San Diego Padres are not going to win the West.

Don’t care if they have been in first place for 106 of 128 days.

Don’t care that they haven’t led this late in the season since they went to the World Series in 1984.

Don’t care that Fernandomania has accounted for only two fewer wins than Nomomania.

Don’t even care that, judging from the left-field awning, their bullpen is sponsored by my favorite food clown.

The Padres will not win the West because that will require a final-month, high-pressure sprint with the Dodgers.

And as everyone from Chris Brown to Bobby Brown to Ollie Brown knows, the Padres can’t stand next to the Dodgers in the sun that long without wilting.

This has nothing to do with this year’s San Diego club, which hits intelligently and catches everything. It’s about something bigger than all of them. It’s about history.

Sure, the Padres can whip the Dodgers for a championship, as they did in 1984, embarrassing them by 13 games.

And certainly, they can ruin a championship for them as they did in 1991, when they beat the Dodgers with five infield singles, costing them a one-game lead over the Atlanta Braves with three games remaining.

But actually win a championship with the Dodgers scratching at their wallets? To go into the final week in a tie with the Dodgers and survive?

Never happened, never will.

The Chicken has a better chance of replacing Nancy Bea Hefley.

Two reasons. First, the people of San Diego so loathe Los Angeles--probably because many of them used to live there--that its teams are pressured beyond their limits against L.A. teams.

In a physical game such as football, the Chargers overcame this.

In a timing game such as baseball, played amid a crowd going crazy over the most insignificant foul balls and begging for blood, the Padres cannot.

The Padres play the Dodgers as if it’s the World Series.

The Dodgers play the Padres as if it’s the . . . Florida Marlins?

Guess who relaxes and plays better in big games for both teams?

“When people talk about us being such rivals with San Diego, I’m like, ‘Geez, the Padres?’ ” said pitcher Tom Candiotti. “I’ve never understood it. I’ve never felt it. Not like they feel it here.”

And this from former Dodger Chris Gwynn, now with the Padres:

“You have to understand, people down here hate everything about Los Angeles. Nobody says they are gunning for any series except the one against the Dodgers.”

Then there is tradition. Everything the Dodgers are, the Padres are not.

A sampling of things that have happened since the last time the Padres won a championship:

--Chub Feeney, as Padre president, once flipped the crowd an obscene gesture from the owner’s box. On fan appreciation night.

--A voodoo doll bearing the likeness of classy Padre leader Tony Gwynn was once found in the dugout. It was constructed by teammates.

--Roseanne Barr once sang the national anthem at a Padre game.

--Padre players Marvell Wynne and Chris Brown once were involved in a pregame fistfight. Wynne’s left eye was swollen shut.

He entered the game later that night as a defensive replacement.

--Larry Bowa was fired as Padre manager in a New York hotel room at 6 a.m. He conducted the ensuing news conference in his pajamas.

--Tim Flannery, former Padre infielder and current coach, once drove his wife from Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium to the New Jersey shore to watch the sun set.

--On his first trip to Chicago, former Padre John Kruk mistook Lake Michigan for the Mediterranean Sea.

--Tony Fernandez, Padre infielder, was once involved in a disagreement with coach Rob Picciolo.

When reporters asked Picciolo about it, the coach said, “No comment.”

When Fernandez was told about Picciolo’s response, Fernandez said, “He’s lying, he’s lying.”

--Before a spring training game in Yuma, Ariz., a Marine Corps marching band refused to leave the field until moments before the opening pitch. After Gwynn complained, they spent the entire game threatening him from the stands.

--Padre pitcher Mark Grant, shortly after trying to convince management he was not a clown, was captured on the Veterans Stadium Diamond Vision screen administering a hotfoot to a teammate.

--The organization has traded away Joe Carter, Robby Alomar, Sandy Alomar Jr., Carlos Baerga, Gary Sheffield, Fred McGriff and Derek Bell.

The Dodgers don’t have these problems.

Their president is Peter O’Malley, their team leaders are honored in life-size posters, their anthem singers are from the cast of “Phantom of the Opera,” their players are from all corners of the world and their spring training is in Dodgertown.

Worry about the Colorado Rockies, if they have really figured out how to play away from Coors Field. Worry about the splendidly managed Montreal Expos or St. Louis Cardinals taking the wild card.

But the Padres, in first place by one game with 48 games remaining?

The Dodgers have them right where they want them.