Padres Must Be Competing in Country-Western Division

This is sort of like dissing puppies, or saying that a baby is ugly. But, geez, what is Garth Brooks doing in a major league spring training camp?

And no snide remarks about the San Diego Padres not being major league.

Believe me, Brooks, the pasty, doughy, balding 37-year-old country-western singer who has, somehow, become a sex symbol as well as a best-selling singer, couldn’t be nicer. Of course he couldn’t start on his high school baseball team either.

“Sorry, my fault,” Brooks said when he let a ball roll between his legs. “Sorry, my fault,” Brooks said when he knocked his cap off while swinging. “Sorry, my fault.” Over and over Brooks would apologize for any transgression, past, present, future.

Certainly, major league baseball players could use some manners. Certainly some of them could stand to watch Brooks signing every ball, bat, cap, guitar, CD, shirt, pair of shorts, shoe and chewing tobacco package that is stuck in his face every day after practice.

Consider that Brooks has earned nearly $110 million over the last three years, which means he is actually paid more than most of the Padres. That makes his earnest attention to every child wearing a baseball cap backward, every matronly woman who says, “Garth, can I take you home?” every guitar-totin’ wannabe who whispers, “I sure would love it if you’d listen to my song later,” a necessary lesson for every major leaguer who won’t look a 10-year-old in the eye as he pushes past on the way to his luxury automobile.

But if the Padres want somebody to teach manners, well, they can hire Miss Manners.

This is a team, though, that went to the World Series last year and then threatened citizens of San Diego with the loss of the franchise if those citizens didn’t vote to pay for a new ballpark. The citizens voted yes.

Then the Padres began to not pay their star talent. As one Padre, who asked to remain nameless, said on his way to his luxury automobile, “I’d rather have Kevin Brown in the clubhouse than some damn country singer.”

For as sweetly in love with baseball as Brooks seems to be, he is still nothing but a publicity stunt.

Obviously Garth Brooks is not going to play baseball for the San Diego Padres. Or their triple-A team. Or their double-A team. Or their Class-A team. If Michael Jordan, in his athletic prime, couldn’t hit minor league pitching, what are Brooks’ chances at 37? (In his first real game situation Tuesday, he had to be reminded to put on a batting helmet before going to the plate in an intrasquad game, then struck out on a neck-high fastball from nonroster right-hander Salvador Rodriguez.)

Brooks says he is serious. He says he will go to the minors, the low minors, if the Padres will let him. He missed last week’s Grammy awards show because it was the day of conditioning tests here. Or maybe he knew that he was going to go 0 for 3 at the Grammys. It might look better to go 0 for 3 with a bat in his hands instead of with a guitar in his hands after all.

“I’m only here because of who I am, because I’m Garth Brooks,” he says.

He has always been in love with baseball, Brooks says. He has a batting cage at his Nashville home. He keeps stats, he collects baseball cards. He is a fan and that is great.

And, no, he is not damaging the integrity of the game or anything. Heck, when Roseanne sang the national anthem in San Diego, that did more damage to the game, not to mention the anthem. But what, exactly, is the point of having Brooks in a spring training camp?

Nobody with the Padres seems to have any kind of answer. Brooks is a good guy. He is doing it for charity--the Padres are making a $200,000 donation to a Brooks-sponsored charity. It’s just a little fun for the fans.

Maybe for some. On one spring day, there were probably 50 people who clearly had come only to see Brooks swing and miss or try to bend over to pick up a ball. Tony Gwynn says Brooks runs everywhere and is the first one in the clubhouse in the morning and the last to leave at night, but that doesn’t mean he is in any kind of athletic shape.

And there were other fans who shook their heads at every “Sorry, my fault,” saying, “Sorry? This organization is sorry.”

So Brooks keeps smiling.

“This is a dream come true,” he says. And that’s great for Brooks. But is that what spring training is about? Letting high school backups hang with the pros for six weeks? Becoming a fantasy camp for the stars?

“I’d sure like to get a chance like this,” said Todd Welty, adding that he was 21 and had played junior college baseball. “At least I started at second base when I was a sophomore in high school. This would be my dream come true too. Think I’ll get that chance?”

Welty spit out some sunflower seeds and shook his head.

“Don’t think so.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.