Baseball

CHUB'S FLUB

When Jack McKeon of the Padres signed a three-year, $1.3 million contract last week to stay on as manager, it signaled the beginning of the end for club president Chub Feeney. After the season is over, San Diego's owner, Joan Kroc, will reportedly fire Feeney, the former National League president who took charge of the Padres in June 1987. She will replace him with a general manager, who she hopes will get along better with McKeon than Feeney has over the last two seasons. The aim: to turn the much-improved Padres into a pennant contender next year.

How quickly things can change. A few months ago it seemed that Feeney was firmly in control of the team and that McKeon was headed out the door. But since Trader Jack replaced Larry Bowa as the Padres' field manager on May 28, San Diego has amassed the third-best record in the National League (57-44 through Sunday). And Kroc now acknowledges how valuable McKeon, who was the architect of the pennant-winning Padres of 1984, is to San Diego's future.

Meanwhile, Feeney has been an embarrassment to Kroc because of the way he runs the Padres. Last week Feeney got into a shouting match outside the Padres offices with agent Jerry Kapstein over one of Kapstein's clients, righthander Andy Hawkins, who is eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season. Afterward, Kapstein recalled negotiating righthander Lance Mc-Culler's contract and said, "Chub told me in the spring, 'This is my final offer. I'm going to renew his ass unless you accept my offer by nine o'clock tonight' [meaning that the club could renew his contract for as little as 80% of his previous year's salary]. I decided rather than talk to Chub on the phone I would meet him face-to-face at his condominium. Mrs. Feeney met me at the door about 10 minutes to nine [that night] and said, 'I'm sorry, Chub has gone to sleep.' "

As might be expected, Feeney has a somewhat different memory of what transpired between him and Kapstein. "I never said that [about renewing his ass]," he says. "What's got into Jerry? He's full of spleen."

This is an important time for San Diego. According to most scouts, the Padres' McCullers (10 saves, 2.31 ERA at week's end) and southpaw Mark Davis (27 saves, 2.03 ERA) are the best righthanded-lefthanded bullpen combination in baseball. But McKeon, who will still have a strong voice in personnel, may lose two of his starters, Hawkins and righthander Eric Show, to free agency this fall. To get the speed and the cleanup hitter the Padres need, McKeon will also have to decide soon which of the Padres' superb young catchers he'll trade—23-year-old Benito Santiago, the 1987 National League Rookie of the Year, or 22-year-old Sandy Alomar Jr., the best minor league catcher this season. One National League scout predicts that Santiago will be sent packing: "Alomar handles pitchers better, he's a far better fundamental catcher, and Santiago has an ego the size of Jack Murphy Stadium."

MUSICAL INFIELD

To give the Mets lineup more punch, manager Davey Johnson would like to move Howard Johnson permanently, who heretofore has played mostly at third base, to shortstop. But HoJo doesn't have much range at that position, so the manager has had to use the weak-hitting Kevin Elster at short when lefthander Bob Ojeda, who gets more of his outs by ground balls than any other New York starter, pitches. As a result, if the Mets face the Dodgers in the playoffs, here is what New York's infield will look like:

?Against L.A. righthanders Orel Hershiser and Tim Leary (unless Ojeda is starting for the Mets), New York will use Wally Backman at second, Johnson at short and Gregg Jefferies at third. In games pitched by Ojeda, Jefferies will play second, Elster short and HoJo third

?Against Dodger lefthander John Tudor (unless Ojeda starts), Tim Teufel will play second, HoJo short and Jefferies third. With Ojeda pitching, Teufel will be at second, Elster at short and Jefferies at third.