The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - All along, the San Diego Padres planned for a big start in their new ballpark.

Now they're beginning to make believers of everybody else.

After spending the past year rebuilding their roster, the surprising Padres entered Monday with 16 wins - tied for most in the majors.

San Diego's surge has been led by veteran second baseman Mark Loretta, rookie shortstop Khalil Greene and new reliever Akinori Otsuka, with a huge assist from Petco Park, located just two blocks from San Diego Bay.

"It's a lot more fun to come to work every day when you have a facility like this and a crowd like this and a team like this," said slugger Phil Nevin, whose initial gripes about Petco's vast, home run-robbing outfield have been tempered by winning.

It's a big change from five straight losing seasons, each progressively more dismal, that followed an appearance in the 1998 World Series.

At 16-10, the Padres are percentage points behind first-place Los Angeles (15-9) in the NL West, with a four-game lead over San Francisco and Colorado. They're 11-5 at home, and 5-5 on the road.

After 26 games a year ago, the Padres were 10-16 and already in last place, 8 1/2 games back. They finished an NL-worst 64-98.

The Padres opened this season with 19 straight games against division rivals, going 10-9.

The new downtown ballpark has already drawn 581,197 fans, an average of 36,325. That's well on pace to break the club record of 2,555,901 set in the Padres' World Series season of 1998, their last winning campaign. It's a good bet they'll draw 3 million.

RED SOX: Team vice president of baseball operations Mike Port was in serious condition Monday after having a heart attack during the weekend.

Port, 58, was out shopping on Saturday when he felt ill, the team said. The longtime baseball executive was being treated at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, hospital spokesman Martin Querzoli said.

Port served as Boston's interim general manager during the 2002 season after the team's new owners fired Dan Duquette.

Port assumed his current position after Theo Epstein became GM before the 2003 season.

A former general manager of the California Angels, Port has spent more than 30 years in baseball.

DODGERS: The New York Yankees' chief financial officer, Martin Greenspun, will leave the team to become chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Greenspun will assume responsibility for all aspects of the Dodgers' business operations on May 17, Los Angeles owner Frank McCourt said Monday.

Greenspun, a 16-year veteran of professional sports operations and management, has been with the Yankees for six years. Prior to that, he was Disney Sports Enterprises' director of finance for the Mighty Ducks and Anaheim Angels from 1994-98, and executive director of finance for the Los Angeles Kings from 1988-94.

SHORT HOPS: Kansas City recalled left-hander Jamie Cerda from Triple-A Omaha. Cerda made the Royals' opening day roster and went 0-1 with a 5.06 ERA in four games. He had a 3.00 ERA in four games with Omaha. The Royals optioned right-hander Eduardo Villacis to Double-A Wichita.

• Longtime Milwaukee Sentinel baseball writer Lou Chapman has died at 90. Chapman, who covered all 13 years of the Braves' existence in Milwaukee and the first decade of the Brewers, died Friday in Venice, Fla. He reveled in ferreting out stories, earning the nicknames "Scoop" and "Gumby," an offshoot of the term gumshoe. Former Braves catcher Bob Uecker, now the Brewers' radio play-by-play broadcaster, said Chapman once hid behind clothing in a player's locker to eavesdrop on a team meeting.