"He tells one guy he's ready, then he comes up to me and says he can't play," Bowa said Sunday. "I don't know what the hell's going on. I have no idea. All you can do is go by what a guy says. You can't baby him. You can't beg him to play. If he doesn't want to play, he's not going to play. Or if his ankle hurts, it hurts. I can't say his ankle isn't hurting. I'm sure it is hurting. (But) if I were a young kid, I'd want to be in the opening-day lineup, my first year in the big leagues."
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Opening Day Arrives for Padre Rookies - Their Indoctrination Into Big Leagues Begins
Jefferson says he does want to play.
"Opening day only comes once a year," he said.
But it has become a communication problem. A couple players--shortstop Garry Templeton was one--told Jefferson he should never have gone up to Bowa to take himself out of the lineup. They told him Bowa likes tough guys. And they also told him to tell the trainer when he's ready to play, not Bowa.
So there's the problem. Bowa keeps waiting for Jefferson to come to him, and Jefferson has no plans of going to him. He'll go through the trainer instead. Dent, the trainer, says: "I don't want to get in the middle of it."
Jefferson says he's ready to play. That's what makes him angry. And Jack McKeon, the Padre general manager, had been riding him too, and Jefferson doesn't like that either.
McKeon has nicknamed Jefferson "Johnson and Johnson" because of all the tape on his ankle.
McKeon saw him in the trainer's room and asked him: "Think you'll be ready by the All-Star break?"
Jefferson sat silent.
McKeon asked him: "Think you'll be ready by the home opener in a week?"
Jefferson sat silent.
"I was hoping I'd light a fire," McKeon said later.
"I'm in a bad mood," Jefferson said later.
In the meantime, Wynne will start today.
THE HAPPIEST
James Steels, who could get into today's game as a pinch-hitter, doesn't even care if he strikes out.
"There can't be a bad scenario," Steels said. "I'll still be around the next day if I do something bad. He (Bowa) told me I won't get a hit every time I pinch-hit. So I can't see anything bad coming out of it. Even if I strike out with the bases loaded and we're down a run."
The best possible scenario?
"Bases drunk . . . Three and two count . . . Down by three . . . Hanging curveball . . . I hit it into next week . . . Odds are against it, though."
Steels starts grinning.
"I'll just be glad to be there. I just want to see how many people they can cram in there (at Candlestick). The most I've seen in a ballpark is 12,000. It was in (Las) Vegas. Opening Day, 1983. But 50,000? I just want to see it. I'm still trying to figure out what to do in my first at-bat. Should I bunt or swing for the downs? I don't want to strike out, of course, but--shoot--I just hope I can walk to the plate without dropping my bat."
THE BOSSIEST
It's Bowa.
This is his managerial debut, and his buddy John Vukovich--a coach with the Cubs--has started a pool as to when Bowa will be ejected for the first time.
"Vukovich says I'll get tossed on opening day," Bowa said. "Nah, it won't be. I hope it ain't. Why? That wouldn't be a very good start, would it?"
Bowa grew up in nearby Sacramento, and he'll need about 20 tickets for his folks and friends.
"Am I nervous? Not yet," Bowa said. "I'm more concerned about how we're playing, which isn't good. Right now, I'm not looking forward to opening day, just because of how we're playing."
If Bowa has one rookie tendency, it's his wayward mouth.
After his team's eighth straight spring training loss Sunday, he said: "Judging from what we've seen, I'd say we need another month of spring training. . . . We're making ridiculous mistakes."
Of his team's lack of intensity, he said: "That's what ceases to amaze me right now. If you're going to go through the motions, come up to me and say 'Hey, I don't want to play today.' We'll put someone else in. . . . There's not too many guys out there who can say they busted their rears and played hard. There's a few, but not too many. And if they tell you they are, then they're lying. They're lying to themselves. We've had two weeks of bad games."
On whether he'll hold a team meeting, he said: "Nope. I told them my philosophy all spring. So what do you do during the season? You keep changing from player to player until you find a unit that plays together and wants to win. That's all. We might have 50,000 different lineups. We'll keep switching until we find one. There's too many guys concerned about individual averages instead of playing the game the way it's supposed to be played."
On whether a pep talk is necessary, he said: "If you've got to start the 1987 season with a pep talk, it'll be a long year. I've never heard of that before."
Rookies make it interesting.
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