He’s Finally a Hit : Staton Battles Illness, Injury to Reach the Padres

During his state-of-the-Padres address before spring training, Manager Jim Riggleman said Dave Staton would have to hit to keep his job as the starter at first base.

In his first at-bat of the spring, Staton crushed a towering home run that gave everyone plenty of time to admire it and Riggleman cause to reflect on his good decision to give the rookie a chance.

You see, Staton is not very fast. OK, he’s slow. And he’s probably not going to win any Gold Gloves. OK, he hasn’t got a chance.

But he can hit baseballs a long, long way.

Just ask the folks in Las Vegas. Last season, Staton hit a shot off the top of the scoreboard there that was so prodigious, the front office hired a survey team to figure how far the ball would have traveled if the scoreboard hadn’t been in the way.

“I get lucky once in a while,� Staton said, smiling. “You catch the ball just right, and it goes out of the ballpark, and people like to watch that, but that’s just an extra. I don’t go up there trying to do it. Sometimes it just happens.

“That one in Vegas was the best ball I ever hit. Plus, the ball travels there better than most places. They estimated it would have gone 580 feet.�

Staton, who regularly made baseballs disappear when he played at Cal State Fullerton, Orange Coast College and Tustin High, is finally getting an opportunity in the big leagues after major injuries slowed his progress through the minors.

He cracked a vertebra in his back while swinging at a pitch near the end of the 1991 season at Las Vegas. The injury did not require surgery but required a lengthy and ongoing rehabilitation.

Then, while throwing a ball from the outfield in 1992, he almost tore his rotator cuff in half.

“The shoulder injury cost me a whole year,� he said. “To give you an idea of how bad it was, I had twice as much surgery as Orel Hershiser. You know how long and severe his was, well, mine was twice that bad.

“If I was a pitcher, my career would be over.�

As it was, his wife, Liz, fed, bathed and dressed him for two months after the surgery.

Staton learned long ago how to be a patient patient. During his sophomore year at Tustin, he was diagnosed with systemic lupus, a disease that affects joints, muscles and organs and can cause abnormalities in the immune and nervous systems.

Blood clots formed in his legs, and he was hospitalized four times for periods up to three months. Eventually, his spleen had to be removed.

Doctors told him to give up baseball. Instead, Staton gave up his rights to sue the school district and signed a medical release form so he could play for the Tillers.

“Playing baseball is all I ever wanted to do,� he said.

So he wasn’t about to let a little--or even huge--rip of his shoulder muscles stop him from making it to the majors.

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Staton’s arm is not yet up to 100% strength, but with a limited throwing regimen during the spring, he believes he will be able to make it through the season at first base.

“The only question is how my shoulder reacts to playing every day, to throwing day in and day out for week after week,� he said. “I watch it really closely.

“It sometimes stiffens up a little bit, but it doesn’t really bother me. There’s no real pain factor. And swinging the bat has always been fine ever since I first picked up a bat after surgery.�

That big swing--and San Diego ownership’s salary-cutting fire sale last year--have put Staton in position to play his way out of a starting job after only 42 major league at-bats before this season.

“From one standpoint, the situation with this organization did work in my favor,� Staton said. “Still, it’s hard for me to look at it like that because I’ve been hit with two severe injuries, so it’s hard to say things have gone in my favor.

“I mean I’m confident enough in my ability that I think I should have been playing at this level a year and a half ago. In any case, I’m not going to dwell on my past problems or how my opportunity finally presented itself. There are a lot of ifs, ands and buts in this crazy game, and if you sit and worry about when you will get your shot or why you haven’t gotten a shot, your shot may never come.

“Everybody here has had to go through some roadblocks. Some guys are fortunate enough to have to go through fewer. To this point, I haven’t been the guy with the fewer, but all I can do is make the most of this chance now. And I feel good about my chances.�

Part of that optimism stems from his brief stint with the Padres last season. Staton was called up on Sept. 6, and his first big league hit was a pinch-hit homer off the Dodgers’ Kevin Gross. The ball landed in the second deck at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Staton hit four more homers in the final days of the 1993 season.

“He’s got an awful lot of pop in his bat,� pitcher Andy Benes said, “and now that he’s healthy, he can be a real impact hitter for us. It’s just a matter of staying in a good frame of mind and not getting too down if things don’t start off too well.�

Staton is struggling with a .160 average and Benes hopes he hasn’t started pressing.

“I hope he knows that he’ll be out there,� Benes said, “so it’s not a matter of, ‘I have to hit right now.’ I hope that helps him relax and just go out there and have fun.�

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Staton thought the fun had ended after his senior year at Tustin when USC Coach Mike Gillespie informed him that he couldn’t help the Trojan program.

“I had a great year as a senior in high school (hitting .525) and I really wanted to go to USC,� Staton said. “I was really disappointed. I’ve talked to him since, and I think he’s changed his opinion about that, though.

“I hope he’s just one of the coaches who are kicking themselves now for not giving me a chance.�

Former Orange Coast College Coach Mike Mayne, now a scout with the Seattle Mariners, showed “tremendous interest,� Staton says, but “no one else cared.�

So Staton went to OCC and two years later became a Titan because Fullerton was the only Division I school to offer a scholarship. He was named a second-team All-American designated hitter after his only season at Fullerton in 1989, hitting .361 with 18 home runs and 72 runs batted in.

“You know, I had a spectacular year there, and I have happy memories, but it wasn’t my first choice,� he said. “I just didn’t have any other options.�

It was for the same reason that Staton ended up at OCC, but that experience, he says, is one of the major reasons he’s in the majors today.

“That was far and away the best decision I ever made and the biggest boost to my career,� Staton said. “Mike Mayne taught me exactly what I needed to set me on course.

“He taught me what I needed to know about the game, and he showed me how to polish my skills. Most important, he re-motivated me in that I developed an understanding of what the game is all about and what can be accomplished in this game.�

So far, the Padres haven’t accomplished much. A 1-9 record isn’t the kind confidence-building beginning they hoped would jump-start this young team and put an end to discussions of the organization’s downfall.

“I didn’t have to face the full brunt of the whole season last year, just the last month,� Staton said, “but this year I don’t sense any of the negativity that I read and heard so much about.

“I think the guys are ready to put that behind them. You never know what’s going to happen with the new playoff format. Heck, if you can stay healthy and put consistent players on the field, in a four-team division, who knows?

“It’s really difficult to keep a team healthy over the course of 162 games. God knows I haven’t been able to do it. Hopefully, this will be my first year, and everyone in this clubhouse will do it too.�