With Season’s Final Day Comes Feeling of Regret

SAN DIEGO —  The warm temperature and unpredictable showers at Sunday’s Padres game brought back memories of afternoon conditions at the team’s Yuma training camp in the Arizona desert.

But the weather was the only similarity between the optimism of last spring--when the Padres to a player thought they could go all the way--and the reality of fall, as the team battled Houston on the final day for undisputed rights to third place.

The clubhouse talk reflected a mixture of resignation and sadness at the bittersweet end to the ’85 season.

“Yuma seems like it was 10 years ago,” catcher Terry Kennedy reflected. “And that’s compounded by not winning when we had such high hopes of repeating (as National League champions) and even winning the whole thing (World Series).”

“It’s the best and worst of times,” mused Steve Garvey as he signed a stack of pictures one last time. “We vow to meet again next February, ready to regroup and win it all.”

But the nature of sports teams, with trades and retirements, means that not everyone in the Padres ‘family’ will be back again in 1986.

“We’re a good group but I think a lot of us won’t be around next year,” Kennedy said.

For Graig Nettles, the final day is always more than just a game.

“You realize there are some guys you might never see again,” Nettles said. “You don’t know whom to say good-bye to.

“The reality of the last day won’t set in until tomorrow, when after seven months you wake up and realize the whole day is your own for a change.”

Pitcher Eric Show, who drew the final day’s mound assignment, said the last day has always brought “a touch of melancholy, from the time I played ball in Little League to today in the major leagues.

“There’s a sadness that the particular season will never happen again. It’s like the finality of a high school graduation.”

For that reason, Tim Flannery, who had an outstanding year platooning at second base with Jerry Royster, said he played Sunday’s game as if it were his last ever.

“Sure, last year was magical and all that, but I still try to have a lot of fun and play as hard as I can because you could get hurt and the game could really be your last.”

Flannery said the players would linger a bit longer in the clubhouse than usual.

“The guys on this team really like each other,” Flannery said. “I remember the teams from 1979, ‘80, and ’81 when no one liked anyone else. The last day would come, and everyone would just leave.”

Pitcher Roy Lee Jackson reflected on the fact he began spring training in Florida with Toronto, the American League Eastern Division champions. He was traded to the Padres organization during the Alan Wiggins imbroglio early in the year and brought up to the team in mid-summer.

“I’m just real disappointed that this team didn’t win its division as well since the talent is certainly here,” Jackson said.

For Jackson and coach Ozzie Virgil, the season didn’t really end Sunday.

Jackson will begin working out in late November and start thinking about spring training in earnest.

Virgil marked his 33rd season Sunday in organized baseball.

“With no feeling of something special about the end like last year, it’s just another day gone,” Virgil said.

Besides, Virgil will leave for Venezuela and winter league ball in 15 days.

“So it’s more like just going from one job to another.”