I can remember my reaction to the 1969 announcement that the majors were putting expansion franchises in Seattle (the Pilots), Montreal (the Expos), Kansas City (the Royals) and San Diego — “San Diego? Are the kidding? How many people are there in San Diego?” It seemed like a fantasy, or a shameless reach. The American and National Leagues were competitive, balanced . . . interesting. Now, though, there would be four official doormats, including a team named (get this) the Padres. And for what: a shade more revenue? A dilution of talent? It’s not as if the people of Montreal, Seattle, Kansas City or San Diego were exactly clamoring for a team — there were no public marches, no grand petitions. Above all, the expansion decision meant extra time spent assessing the qualities of new meat: Tommy Dean, Ed Spezio, Ollie Brown. Oh, and Nate Colbert — a young Houston castoff whose first years defined the Friars, and led to my (admittedly irritating) habit of naming teams for their players. They weren’t the Padres, they were the San Diego “Colberts,” a perhaps too-cheeky dismissal of their claim to a place in the hearts and minds of baseball afficianados.

The Padres were an afterthought, no more than a footnote really, until 1974, when the hobbled and aging Willie McCovey came down from San Francisco to give the franchise legitimacy — and to put bodies in the seats. This must have been an MLB decision, for I can’t imagine Willie ever agreeing to accept a San Diego assignment willingly. “Go down there Willie and see if you can’t help these people out,” I imagined Bowie Kuhn saying. McCovey didn’t make the Padres winners, of course, but his arrival signaled a new seriousness on the part of San Diego’s ownership. It was during the first home game of 1974 that new owner Ray Kroc grabbed a microphone and apologized to the fans for fielding such a lousy team. “I’ve never seen such stupid ballplaying in my life,” Kroc intoned. Yeah, well . . . if Kroc had looked a little more closely he would have seen a San Diego ballclub that, despite their 60-102 record, was on the road back. For out there in left field (on the other side of the diamond from McCovey), was a 22-year-old Minnesota prospect, Dave Winfield, while standing in the bullpen (ready to begin his second season in the Padres’ rotation) was a 24-year-old curve-and-sinker specialist by the name of Randy Jones.

Jones was not an immediate success. In the year that Kroc berated his own team, Jones compiled a record that ranks as among the most futile in all of Padres’s history — 8-22 with a 4.45 ERA. It’s a wonder that Padres’ manager John McNamara kept running him out there, game after embarrassing game. But “Johnny Mac” saw something in Jones that others would not or could not recognize: an almost obsessive desire to win and (oh yeah) a sinker that (when it was thrown well) was absolutely unhittable. The Jones sinker hardly sunk at all in 1974 — but the puffy-haired semi-Afro wearing Californian went 20-12 the next year (and helped the Padres climb out of the cellar) and an astounding 22-14 in 1975, when Jones pitched in 40 games and completed 25. The world noticed. SI put Jones on its cover (“Threat To Win 30″) and Topps printed a card that showed Jones paired with Baltimore ace Jim Palmer.

Sadly, but perhaps predictably, Randy Jones was never better than he was when SI decided to put him on its cover. While Jim Palmer went on to a Hall of Fame career, Jones reverted to form: his sinker lost its edge, his arm tired, and his record over the next six years (43-69) seemed to prove the adage that while strike out pitchers succeed, ground ball pitchers fail. Jones ended up in New York (the Mets have a penchant for signing end-of-career burn outs) and then was out of baseball. In retirement, Jones perfected a line of baseball barbecue sauces (Randy Jones Original Baseball Barbecue Sauce, Inc.), and gave private pitching lessons to young and talented pitchers — including (in one notorious case) Barry Zito. Jones is an exacting  teacher and an apparently good one: he began coaching Zito when the lefthander was 12 and watched proudly when he won his first Cy Young.”It was great to inspire him,” he told a reporter back in 2002. Jones remains a part of the Padres community outreach efforts, speaking on behalf of the team to business and community groups and he has his own program on the Outdoor Channel — “Randy Jones Strike Zone.”

For me, at least, Randy Jones defines what it means to be a Padre. The Padres are (like Jones) a bright meteor of a team that, from time to time, will shock and awe before reverting to what they were in their darkest years: a left coast footnote waiting for an identity. Jones would probably and emphatically disagree. But Jones, more than either Colbert or Winfield (who went on to the Hall of Fame) is quintessentially San Diego. Then too, to give him his due, for a short time in the mid-1970s (when his sinker was sinking), Randy Jones was not only the hair-flying junk-ball master of San Diego — he was the best pitcher in baseball.

DWilly’s piece yesterday about the Red Sox was right on the money: their age is showing. I’ve been looking for a word that describes their play since the All Star break and I’ve had a difficult time coming up with just the right moniker. Then, this morning, I read a piece in the New York Times on the Sox newest Japanese import Junichi Tazawa and there it was: “wheezing.”  Perfect. Their batting averages show it precisely. The Red Sox top four guys are hitting .297, .300, .292 and .308.  After that the averages fall off, with their eight- and nine-slotted guys (Varitek and Gonzalez) not hitting their weight — at .222 and .210 respectively. Combine that with a two man rotation and you get what you get.

It is a truism that this not the ’04 ball club. There is no “Cowboy Up” talk and no emotional sparkplug. There is no Kevin Millar. The oldest guy in the Sox lineup that year was third baseman Bill Mueller, who was 33.  Today Varitek is 37, third sacker Mike Lowell is 35 (both, shown below, in the ’07 series) and two other guys are 33. Not the geriatric ward but no spring chickens either. But there is one similarity with the ’04 club. Today the Sox are 70 – 52, 6.5 games behind the Yanks. On this day five years ago they were in a similar position: 70 – 53, 6.5 games behind the Empire. The Sox finished the ’04 campaign with 98 wins, which is .700 baseball.  But without a bottom half of the lineup and a beat up pitching staff it’ll be quite a feat to match their ’04 glory.