Padre Notebook : Dr. Gwynn Says He’ll Be Operating in Customary Spot by Opening Day

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. â€”  You know all those people who have been saying that Tony Gwynn is going to be missing from the Padres for four to six weeks?

Saturday afternoon, one day after Gwynn had successful tendon surgery on his left index finger, another guy jumped in with this dissenting opinion:

“All those other people are crazy, I have no idea what they are talking about. As many as six weeks? No way.�

The expert?

Tony Gwynn.

The Padres’ best player is alive and talking and ready to return to work. His left hand in a thick bandage, his left arm in a sling, Gwynn will rejoin the Padres in the Phoenix area today and hopes to be back on the field by Opening Day.

“In Houston, Mike Scott pitching, second hitter, first pitch . . . that’s going to be me,� Gwynn said from his Poway home.

If that prediction is true, then Gwynn would only miss three weeks and four days. That’s less than even the most optimistic of pre-surgery estimates.

According to Gwynn, that’s how well the 45-minute surgery went and how good he’s feeling now.

“My fingers are swollen, and my hand aches a little bit, and this bandage looks like a bowling ball,� he said. “But other than that, I feel fine. I’m going to get them to give me a smaller bandage so I can start running.�

Gwynn already feels one step ahead, considering that pre-surgery X-rays showed a possible abnormality that might have required shaving the bone. After the hand specialist, Dr. Merlin Hamer, entered his finger, he discovered shaving was unnecessary.

“I was pretty worried when he starting talking about it, but then it turned out fine,� Gwynn said. “I guess everything was better than they thought it would be.�

Even Gwynn was better than he thought he’d be.

At 27, undergoing his first surgery other than for wisdom teeth, Gwynn was openly queasy about the procedure. But the only time he needed to sit up on the operating table was to look at the inside of his hand.

“Once they gave me that first drug, I relaxed and it was fine,� he said. “Even when the doctors asked me if I wanted to see my tendons, I said, ‘Sure,’ and took a look. Two white things. I guess they were the tendons.�

“Unbelievable,� said John Boggs, Gwynn’s agent, who accompanied Gwynn’s wife, Alicia, to the clinic. “If I looked at that, I would have passed out cold. As scared as he was going in . . . “

Gwynn felt so good, the first thing he asked for after the operation was food. His wife and Boggs, thinking ahead, had brought cartons of Japanese food.

“I stuffed my face,� he said. “Shrimp fried rice, ribs--after not getting to eat all day, it was great.�

An hour after the surgery, when nurses popped the IV out, Gwynn jumped out of bed and announced he wanted to get home in time for “Miami Vice.� At the same time, in a different way, he announced that he was ready to begin rehabilitation.

“He gets out of bed, and then all of a sudden he’s moving his hand around like he’s trying to get it in shape,� Boggs said. “We were saying, ‘Wait a minute now. . . .’ I’m telling you, he’s going to have to be watched.

“But from all those signs, you can almost anticipate he’s going to be a fast healer.�

The stitches will be removed in Yuma next weekend. From there, it will be up to Gwynn. Just the way he likes it.

“His biggest hurdle is over with,� Boggs said. “Instead of hanging around in limbo, now he can get on with the healing.�

Concluded Gwynn: “They said it’s all up to me, that it depends on how I feel. Well, I know how I feel.�

The Padres’ spring training has reached its halfway point, and Manager Larry Bowa is edging nearer his boiling point.

It wasn’t that the Padres lost their sixth consecutive game in nine tries Saturday, 3-2, to the San Francisco Giants. It was, as usual with Bowa this spring, how they lost.

In the third inning, with one out and San Francisco’s Brett Butler on first, Will Clark singled to right field. Rookie Shawn Abner picked the ball up, and, instead of throwing to the cut-off man at second, tried to gun it all the way to third to catch Butler. It was a great throw, but even great throws don’t often get the quick Butler. This one reached third an instant too late.

Meanwhile, the not-so-quick Clark was jogging easily to second base. If the cut-off man had been hit, and Clark had been forced to stay on first, he never would have scored the eventual winning run two batters later after an infield hit and sacrifice fly.

“I’m not worried about losses, I’m worried about missed cut-off men, missed signs, things like that,� said Bowa, who was also upset that Stanley Jefferson ended the third inning being thrown out trying to steal second base in what looked like a hit-and-run mix-up with batter Randy Ready.

“You can only preach this stuff so much. Somewhere they have to comprehend what you are trying to say,� Bowa said.

He was asked if he was, perhaps, in stressing fundamentals almost around the clock in this camp, asking too much of his players mentally.

“Maybe I am,� he said.

Bowa said he might not wait until the start of the season to institute $50 fines for missing signs and cut-off men. And once the season starts, he said, he will start benching people.

“I don’t care about wins or losses, but I think all of these games are important,� Bowa said. “I don’t know what my players think. I’m sure some of them think right now is fun time.�

The Padres actually fought back from a 3-1 deficit to load the bases with two out in the ninth against ex-Padre Craig Lefferts. But rookie Brad Pounders struck out to end the game.