Padres Baseball

The San Diego professional baseball team has become a truly pathetic organization.

• Ownership is a farce. The titular owner, John Moores, has been trying to dump the team to pay for his divorce. The prospective owner, Jeff Moorad, is being rejected by the other team owners because he used to be a sports agent.
• There is no effective television deal. Nowadays, television is the only way a team markets itself - no television equals no marketing.
• The roster is feeble. Yet again, the team is in the bottom four in salaries. They claim to have an outstanding minor league system, which should boost ticket sales for the Lake Elsinore team.

Their best player, Cameron Maybin, is a career .255 hitter (who will probably be traded next year when his salary jumps from $500,000 to $3 million). Their top prospect is a hands-of-stone first baseman who is expected to hit lots of doubles. Their middle infielders are elderly and poor fielders. Their starting pitching is injury prone but cheap. Their relief pitching chews up the largest share of the budget, most of it in Hutson Street, a closer of modest skills whose best season was his first and that was seven long years ago.

Ted Williams broke into professional baseball as a 17 year-old playing for the minor league San Diego Padres 76 years ago, the first year for pro ball in San Diego. In 1948, San Diego broke the color barrier in the Pacific Coast League by signing catcher John Ritchey in 1948.

In major league play, the Padres have produced Tony Gwynn and nobody else of much note. In the World Series their record is one win and eight losses.