Chase Headley was back on the bench Tuesday night, back to his greatest contribution possibly being a late-inning RBI but probably being him swallowing his pride and being a good teammate and teacher.

“When I’m done, nobody is really going to remember a ton about my career,” Headley said recently. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel like I’ve had a nice career and I feel like I’ve dedicated myself and put everything I possibly could into it. At the same token, the game is going to keep going. When I’m done playing, people aren’t going to go like, ‘Whoa.’

“So the impact is with people. It’s with your teammates. It’s in five years when you see somebody you worked with and you hope, in some small part, you made an impact in what they’re doing.”

He isn’t happy about his situation.


“There’s two ways you can go about it,” he said. “You can be upset about it, you can complain and pout, or you can make the best of it. And that’s what I’ve tried to do.”

He works at being content. With intent.

And so in addition to spending an abundance of time in the batting cage, he spends time in all corners of the clubhouse and the flights and the dugout, sharing and encouraging and listening.

Headley is the second-oldest position player on the team, one of just five with at least three years of major league service time.


If there is a team that can use a player with Headley’s experience, it is the Padres. But they are also a team that can’t use him for long.

The 34-year-old Headley knows that any day could be his last with the Padres. If enough players on the disabled list get healthy and enough others stop getting hurt, he could be designated for assignment. Or maybe the Padres can find a team that wants to make some sort of swap. Either way, barring some crazy circumstance, he is almost certainly not around for long.

Headley’s contribution in the clubhouse is valued, absolutely. But at some point, the Padres will need his spot on the roster for a young player.

This isn’t how he or they envisioned it. When the Padres acquired Headley and pitcher Bryan Mitchell in a December trade with the Yankees, taking on Headley’s $13 million salary, it was largely due to their intrigue with Mitchell’s curveball. Whatever Headley gave them for however long would be a bonus, they thought.


He’d get on base like he always has, play some solid third base, and eventually a team would offer an acceptable trade. And if not, the Padres gladly would take the combination of his play and presence.

The latter has been all they expected, maybe more. But entering Tuesday’s game against the Washington Nationals, Headley was hitting .136 in 44 at-bats with just a .269 on-base percentage.

The team decided shortly before the season started that it needed to evaluate Christian Villanueva every day. The rookie responded by being named National League Rookie of the Month for April.

Headley on Monday made his first start at third base since April 9 and just his fourth start there all season. He has started four games at first base.


For whatever reason, he has looked discombobulated at the plate, though he has hit a number of balls hard recently.

He attests that his issue is mechanical, not physiological. He will be honest with himself, he said, when it is Father Time striking him out.

“As soon as you don’t believe you can do it anymore, then it’s probably time to go home,” he said. “I know I can still play.”

Headley had a .300/.366/.455 line in 266 plate appearances for the Yankees after the All-Star break last season.


A man doesn’t play 10 seasons in the majors without believing in himself.

“It’s been challenging,” Headley said. “I still feel like I can succeed in an everyday role.”

Often, such a conviction can get in the way. To Headley’s credit and the Padres’ benefit, it hasn’t here.

“There’s days you feel sorry for yourself, and you’ve got to snap yourself out of it,” he said.


His is a higher purpose — to have an impact.

“Really, it’s the most important thing we do,” he said. “… I hope that at some point, somebody can say, ‘I took something from him,’ whether it was what I said or the way I did it.”

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com