(April 8 marks the 50th anniversary of the first major league game in Padres history. To commemorate the occasion, the Union-Tribune is producing a nine-part series on memorable debuts through the years. Today: Chapter Four ... Randy, Willie and the ball that’s still going)

Padres pitchers were taking a pounding on this day — as they often did in those early years — and a call went to the bullpen for the rookie left-hander to get loose.

The Padres were already down five runs midway through a game they would lose 10-2 to the Mets when the bottom of the fifth inning came and Randy Jones took the mound for the first time in a major league game.

Not that the 24,452 fans at New York’s Shea Stadium made much note of the moment. Jones retired third baseman Ted Martinez and catcher Duffy Dyer on balls back to the mound, then got pitcher Jerry Koosman on a fly ball to right field to end the inning.

“My first inning was awfully pretty,” Jones said during a phone conversation this week.

When Jones returned in the sixth for another inning of work, he threw his warmup pitches and catcher Fred Kendall threw the ball down to second base. It was whipped around the infield and ended up in the hands of third baseman Dave Roberts.



“Dave runs over and flips me the baseball,” Jones said, “and then he asks me ‘Do you know who the hitter is?’

“I turned around and it was Willie Mays. Damn.”

Jones remembers getting Mays in a 1-2 hole and knew exactly what he wanted to do next.

“Figured I’d throw him a ball down and in and he’d pull it foul,” Jones said. “I was wrong.”

Instead, Mays hit a ball none of the opposing fielders were going to get to, as he had done 655 times previously over his Hall of Fame career (he would hit just four more homers before retiring at the end of the season to finish at 660).

“He hit that ball so hard you wouldn’t believe it,” Jones said. “It disappeared in the dark over the bullpen in left field. ... They still haven’t found it. It must have gotten lost in the parking lot somewhere.”

Jones doesn’t remember Mays’ entire trip around the bases, but he does recall watching him come around third base and touching the plate.

“I remember that much,” Jones said, “because they won’t give you a new baseball until he reaches the plate. ... “I just remember thinking, ‘I’ll be damned, my first big league hit (allowed) is a home run to Willie Mays. I had the rosin bag, threw it down and said, ‘What the hell, it’s not that bad.’ ”

Jones tried to calm himself thereafter. He was not successful.

“I was crazy after that,” he said. “You get rattled.”

He allowed hits to three of the next four batters before Padres manager Don Zimmer came out and replaced him with reliever Bob Miller.

Jones had steadied himself by the next day. In fact, he even sought out Mays during batting practice.

“I made a point to get a brand new baseball, went over and found Willie and asked him to autograph the ball for me,” Jones said. “I thought I wouldn’t find a better time, I just gave up a dinger to the son of a gun, he better sign for me. “He was happy to do it.”

Jones’ first appearance was on June 16,1973, just more than a year after the Padres had selected him out of Chapman University. He was selected in the fifth round of the 1972 draft, 96 picks after the Padres had made Roberts the first overall selection.

Jones pitched well in the minors — he was 8-1 at when the call came — but the opportunity wouldn’t have arrived so quickly had the Padres not traded one of their starting pitchers four days earlier.

Pitcher Fred Norman was shipped to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for outfielder Gene Locklear, minor league pitcher Mike Johnson and cash.


Cash being the key to the deal.

“They drafted Dave Winfield and needed money to sign Winfield to give him his bonus,” Jones said. “So they sold Freddy Norman to Cincinnati, left-handed starter.”

Winfield would get a $100,000 signing bonus and, in fact, join the Padres within a week of Jones. But that’s another story.

Winfield was watching from the bench when Jones made his first start one week after that first appearance.


It was game against the Atlanta Braves at San Diego Stadium. A crowd of 6,039 saw Jones allow five hits and three runs over seven innings of a 7-3 loss. Jones allowed one home run in the game.

“And who did I give up a home run to?” Jones asked.

Hank Aaron.

“There you go,” Jones chuckled. “I didn’t mess around, man. I was getting the big boys out of the way.”


Added Jones: “You won’t be shocked by this, but the day after I started that game, I got Hank Aaron’s autograph. “I’ve still got the baseballs. I kept both of them.”

Jones said he threw Aaron a sinkerball that didn’t have much sink.

“He just kind of flicked his wrists and it went into left-center seats about nine rows up,” Jones said. “I just remember watching that ball hit that seat and going, ‘Damn, he didn’t even swing that hard. It kind of freaked me out.”

It didn’t shake Jones’ confidence, however.


“I looked at my wife, Marie, on the way home after the game,” Jones said, and I told her, ‘I can pitch up here. I can get these guys out.’

The glance Marie Jones returned was not reassuring.

“She wasn’t buying it whatsoever,” Jones laughed.

It would be a couple of years before he could prove it.


In 1974, Jones went 8-22, suffering more losses than any other pitcher in the National League.

He turned it around in 1975, becoming the Padres’ first 20-game winner with a 20-12 record and an NL-leading 2.24 ERA. In 1976, Jones earned the NL Cy Young Award with a 22-14 record. He led the majors in games started (40), complete games (25) and innings pitched (315.1).

Jones finished his rookie season in 1973 with a 7-6 record and a 3.16 ERA. One of those victories was against New York.

Two months after his debut, Jones pitched an eight-hit shutout against the Mets at San Diego Stadium in a 9-0 Padres win. Mays went 1-for-3 in the game, with a two-out single in the third and a strikeout in the fifth.


“I struck out Willie on a 12-to-6 curveball for the third out of the inning,” Jones said. “Freddy Kendall was catching for me and he rolled the ball back to the mound. I grabbed it and kept it. “So I’ve still got the ball that I struck out Willie Mays.”

Mays didn’t sign that one.

Thursday: Keeping up with the Joneses ... the greatest pitching debut ever.