To Skip Schumaker, "The Cardinal Way" is about calculated conversations at clubhouse lockers. To Carlos Villanueva, it's about a star sweating at sun-up. To Jon Jay, it's about a vanishing teammate.
The Cardinal Way is an elusive baseball concept. It's nowhere and everywhere, an unwritten edict lingering in the St. Louis ether.
That's a subtle part of the clubhouse-shaping influence the ex-Cardinals packed into bags for spring training with the Padres, an organization in a heightened hunt for pieces to seismically shift win-loss fortunes.
The Cardinals are winners. They piled up a big-league most 100 regular-season victories last season and a league-high 97 two seasons before that. St. Louis set the MLB standard, too, with 105 and 100 in 2004 and '05.
No team has led baseball that many times the last dozen seasons. The organization cemented its red-on-the-outside, blue blood-on-the-inside reputation with four World Series trips in that time, including titles in 2006 and '11.
The Padres? Well ...
There's the no-winning-season-since-2010 part. There's the no-postseason-since-2006 part. There's the coming-off-74-wins part. San Diego thirsts for every ounce of winning-by-osmosis it can get.
"I remember my first big-league camp, there was a kid with a locker between Jim Edmonds and Reggie Sanders," said Schumaker, a Cardinal for eight seasons who hopes to land a utility role with the Padres. "He showed up 10 minutes late. Reggie kicked him out and put me between Reggie and Jim.
"I knew right away, it was big ears, small mouth. You're not late. You're accountable."
Former teammate John Mabry figuratively grabbed the jersey-back of Schumaker, immersing the rookie into rhythm and routine. They ate together at a set time. They lifted weights at a set time. They hit at a set time.
Mabry forced Schumaker to ride with him in a taxi each day, arriving at the park an hour early to ensure there was no chance to miss a meeting or bus.
"The thing that they have that's great is the veteran guys taking ahold of the young guys and showing them the way early on," Schumaker said. "Chris Carpenter did that with (Adam) Wainwright. Wainwright did it with (Michael) Wacha and it trickles down.
"(As a player, Mike) Matheny did it with Yaddy (Molina). (Padres bench coach Mark) McGwire did it with (Albert) Pujols. It just goes on and on and on. When you have that, you truly create a culture."
Villanueva gobbled up innings last season for St. Louis, carving out the best ERA of his decade-long career (2.95).
"If you had to say there's a Cardinal Way, it basically means you're expected to do your job," he said. "You see a guy like Molina, has a million Gold Gloves, showing up at 5:30 in the morning and blocking balls.
"Me, as a pitcher, how can I not give this guy my best? This guy's probably a Hall of Famer and he's busting his (butt)."
Jay, an outfielder the Padres scooped up this offseason, played all six of his professional seasons in St. Louis.
Jay wondered why he rarely saw Pujols, a three-time league MVP who developed into one of the most feared sluggers of his generation.
"You're like, 'Whoa, why's Albert never at his locker?' " Jay said. "At first, you didn't really understand. But it was because he was always doing something to get himself ready for the day.
"He'd go to the (batting) cage. As soon as he was done with the cage, he'd go to watch film. When he was done watching film, he'd go to the weight room. You never saw him just hang around his locker. He was always working, doing something to make himself better."
That whole actions speak louder than words thing? In St. Louis, actions screamed.
Padres general manager A.J. Preller said lessons gleaned inside successful clubhouses travel well.
"You're always looking for guys coming from winning organizations, you're looking for small separators," Preller said. "From a scouting standpoint, we did our 'makeup' homework on all three of those guys. They're winners in general.
"Attention to detail and doing things the right way, guys coming from winning programs, they've tasted that before."
The drumbeat about details, about accountability, about little things that crack open big doorways has fueled rookie manager Andy Green's spring training stump speech.
"In many regards, they've become the model organization in baseball," Green said of St. Louis. "We targeted guys like that who brought high character, high energy, high work ethic and high integrity. We think they're perfect fits for us."
The Padre Way? That doesn't exactly roll off the ol' tongue.
Someday, maybe it will. And if so, someday might as well start today.
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