AFTER A YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY . . . : Whitson Hunting for Peace, Success

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. —  Ed Whitson has set some ground rules.

“No questions about New York,” he said to reporters this week. “No questions whatsoever. Ask me about this year or ask nothing at all. I just want to stay away from it.”

New York, New York. Ed Whitson says it’s a hell of a town, and you know what he means. He goes back there only because he must. The Padres went there to play the Mets last year, and Whitson wore out the room-service waiters. He never left the Padre dugout, perhaps fearing that some New York fan would throw something.

Whitson had a pretty awful time last year. When he pitched for the Yankees early in the year, he had a 7.54 earned-run average. The New York fans were so unmerciful that he was afraid to pitch in Yankee Stadium. Whitson is a heavy smoker anyway, but he began putting away a few more packs a day. New York reporters would walk into the clubhouse and he would start yelling, “Get out of here! Get out of here!”

The Yankees traded Whitson to the Padres in midseason, and he hardly improved--going 1-7 with a 5.59 ERA. When the season finally ended, he went home to Ohio to recover. His wife, Kathleen, asked him if he was all right. He wouldn’t talk about it.

“By the end of last season, I was drained,” Whitson said. “I was just dead. I wasn’t ready to talk to anybody.”

So he did the only thing he could do. He went alone into the woods.

“I could be out there hunting, and it could be down to 10, 15 degrees, and a lot of times I’d find myself asleep. I’d get relaxed, sitting up against a tree someplace, and I wouldn’t care if I saw a deer or not. I really wouldn’t care.

“It was just for the peace and quiet of just being out there and being alone and thinking good thoughts. I’d do the same thing with fishing. I didn’t care if I’d get a bite or not.

“I come from down in the mountains of Tennessee, so I know what it’s all about to be there in the mountains by yourself or out on a lake or someplace fishing. I enjoy it.”

Whitson said it’s easy to fall asleep in the woods when it’s 15 degrees.

“You’re hiking a mile or a mile and a half to get there and you’ve got all these winter hunting clothes on. One time, I fell asleep when it was 30 degrees below zero with the wind chill.

“When you’re walking there, you work up a pretty good little sweat. So you sit down, kick back and wait on the deer to come to you. If they come, fine. If they don’t, fine. And while you’re sitting there, you’re still warm from the walk and stuff, and you fall asleep.”

That was how Whitson got ready for the 1987 season.

“I’m really refreshed this year,” he said. “I’m just glad fishing season was in when I got home this winter. That way, I could get away from everything. I didn’t have to talk about it. I’d talked enough about it. . . . And it seems you can figure out more things when you’re all by yourself than when you’re with a whole bunch of people.”

Still, 1986 can’t be stricken from Whitson’s existence. It happened. In spring training last year, Kathleen Whitson lost a baby boy 5 1/2 months into her pregnancy. It was the second baby boy the couple had lost. Then came the boos in New York. Then the trade. Then the bad outings in San Diego. Then one night in Atlanta, he saw his father for the first time in 17 years.

Whitson says his father--who was divorced from his mother when Whitson was a child--is a “mountain man” and had never seen a baseball game before he went to Atlanta. Whitson was so nervous he didn’t last two innings.

“I didn’t know what to say to him when I first saw him,” Whitson said. “I really hardly recognized him.”

So, 1986 was a strange year for Whitson. Fortunately for him, his wife was understanding this winter.

“She’s helped me a lot,” he said. “She’s great at saying, ‘Hey, get out of here! Get out and catch yourself some fish! Hunt! Fish! Get out of here!’

“She doesn’t want me around the house anyway, especially when she knows I want to be out there. I ain’t no use around the house when I want to be out there.”

On Thursday, Whitson pitched four innings in a “B” game against the Giants--his longest stint of the spring--and gave up two hits and three runs and struck out four. He was the victim of some poor defense by James Steels, who misplayed a ball in center field. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given up a run.

Manager Larry Bowa said he hopes that Whitson can become his fourth starter. He says Whitson’s troubles last year were probably a result of a combination of the strange occurrences. Galen Cisco, the Padre pitching coach, says it’s important for Whitson to get off to a good start this year.

“Doggone,” Cisco said, “he got off to such a tough start last year. If he gets off to a good start, it’d give him a boost. . . . No question, his attitude was broken down last year. He never did get himself righted.”

So far, so good. But it’s early. He’s not out of the woods yet.