I'll be honest, when I say that I cringe a little when I see Padres or San Diego themed kids books, because, even though they're kids books, there's a corniness to them that I can't shake. Like in Good Night San Diego, when the book depicts 15 foot waves and says hello to a pelican and an unnamed pier. The art in that one isn't so amazing either.

But, I will tell you that My Padres Baseball Game does not suffer from Good Night San Diego-itis. I'd recommend this to Padres fans as a nice book to read to a preschooler that doubles up as something for your Padres stuff collection once your preschooler has grown up.

Jenny originally wrote the book as a Father's Day, Birthday, Anniversary present to her husband, Steve. It started out first as a poem and she later glued photographs from their games at Petco into a storybook as a keepsake for her husband.

This actually explains the art in the book quite a bit. Brent McCarthy, the illustrator, has a comic book style, but the images of Petco Park almost look like painted over photographs, which they very well might've been. It was only published last year, but I think it'll be interesting to spot how many differences in the park there have been from one season to the next. Already, the cover (and the pages I scanned) show Everth Cabrera diving and the old Petco Park logo.

I read the book to Elliott, age 4, and he enjoyed it just for recognizing Petco Park and the song from the last page of the book that we had linked to before:

Actually, when I got to that page and started singing it, Elliott was pretty quick to point out that I was getting the tune wrong, which was weird considering he hadn't watched the video in a week. Photographic memory, that one.

Check out Jenny's Facebook page for more info and where/when she might be doing any local signings. I'm not sure how we can fit the book in with our Happiness Project, but I'm sure this would make a good gift for a young Padres fan that you know and giving gifts makes you happy, right?

Honestly, news media is a bit of a joke.

Of course the Padres new deal could be worth $75 million a year... If you want to rile up a fan base into believing that $75 million a year is cash that should go towards increasing player payroll. You could say that considering the fact that some day in the future - ten or twenty years from now - the Moorad group will eventually sell the Padres and the value of the Regional Sports Network that they will have helped start could maybe be worth like billions of dollars and if you divide up those billions of dollars that you stand to earn (should you decide to sell your stake 10 or 15 years down the line) then you, by GOD, should be spending that money that will be yours in 10 years to buy the most expensive player you can afford to buy because 2012 is our year.

I'm on a tagent... P.S. Krasovic confirmed Bob Nightengale's numbers, I guess... If you want to confirm them as bullshit.

Anyways. So now there's YASS (Yet Another Secret Source) that is saying that the Padres deal isn't actually worth $30 million, and it probably won't be worth $75 million, but f_ck-it-all let's split the difference and call it $40 million and then kinda vaguely say all the things that everybody believes so that we can just get back to speculating that it's actually worth a zillion dollars, which is what my source says.

The source added that when other factors, including a "signing bonus" and 20-percent equity in the new Fox Sports San Diego, are considered, the club could receive as much as $40 million this season.

Ohhhhh... So now there's a signing bonus and the 20% equity (which as far as I can tell still isn't spendable unless you want to take a regular annual loan out against it). And now the number is $40 million.

Incidentally, I still don't get how you "receive" $40 million if any of it is equity. Is Moorad planning on selling his share in Fox Sports San Diego as soon as he gets it in annual chunks? Who is this mysterious buyer going to be? My guess is Dennis Morgigno. He's apparently been sitting on a gold mine. If non-existent Fox Sports San Diego is worth over $3 billion, then, Channel 4SD, even in broadcasting to only half of San Diego, should probably have been worth $1.5 billion!?!?!

Corky's Pest Control must kill a sh_t ton of bugs.

So I seen the response from other bloggers and internet commenters after jbox posted his thing about Garfinkel trying to rebut the Bob Nightengale $70 million a year TV contract, and I thought I should probably comment since lots of people make underlying snide remarks about our bias towards this FO.

First off, are we fans of Tom Garfinkel?

Yes. I've always thought him much more personable than Sandy Alderson in the same role. I started out a fan of Sandy Alderson, then I saw the commercials featuring Sandy and Grady and KT as the "best front office in baseball" and I thought ugh. And then they gave us 2004-2008, which was some of the most uninspired baseball combined with blind luck to back your way into the postseason that I've ever seen and I totally soured on them. Not to mention Sandy Alderson, during a broadcast, saying, "If the fans boo too loud, we'll just turn up the music." When I heard that, I lost my sh_t.

Throughout, I was a fan of Paul DePodesta, even though I'm still not sure what it was he did while he was with the Padres.

I think if anybody were to go back in the archives of Gaslamp Ball, they will see that we've been pretty consistent in realizing a simple fact that I would guess 95% of Padres fans don't realize.

San Diego is a small media market when compared to the other MLB media markets.

I don't know why this information is hard to believe, considering it's true and readily available to be seen. If you Google "Top Media Markets", you will find any number of resources telling you that the Padres are somewhere between 26th and 30th in the US, with a few non-MLB media markets thrown in (cities that incidentally get included in our competition's broadcast area).

The Padres TV Deal, will be strongly based on the size of the Padres media market

If we were San Jose. A smaller media market (but able to draw TV audience from a neighboring HUGE media market), with a stinking rich population filled with stinking rich companies all wanting to advertise with the local baseball team, then I could see bargaining upwards in a TV deal. For example, If/When the A's get a stadium built in San Jose, what do you think it will be named? Yahoo stadium? Google+ Park? eBay Field?

We play, no offense to animal lovers everywhere, at petco park (lowercase intended). Petco... A Fortune one thousand company.

We live in a military town, with some (but not a lot of) high tech companies, minimal discretionary income and a largely transplant populace.

So when I think Bob Nightengale's $70 million is way off, I don't know how this equates to other bloggers and commenters as us having a biased view. Sure. I'm biased in that I'm a fan of Garfinkel (along with lots of other Padres FO members both past and present that I've met), but if this were a FO that I wasn't a fan of, I would call bullshit on the $70 million anyways.

Why?

1. Every other estimate has the Padres between $20-$30 million. So Nightengale's number is an outlier, which immediately makes it suspect.

2. The rumored values of other deals currently in negotiation suggest $150 million a year for an LA team. San Diego is not half the media market of LA. Refer to those references that you Googled earlier. We are a fifth the size of LA. Again, if LA suggests $150 million a year, then a fifth of that is $30 million a year. The top end of everybody's estimate except Bob Nightengale's.

3. Nightengale's reasoning is that his $70 million a year is averaged over an escalated deal and includes equity in the stake that the Padres are getting in FS West San Diego.

OK So the third point is where it gets wishy washy and were I could very well be wrong about Nightengale's numbers (but I don't think I am).

First, I think the Padres are right to get a stake in the regional sports network. I look at the largest teams out there and they basically hedge the money made in TV deals by separately owning their regional sports networks (I'm thinking of YES and NESN). In fact, if San Diego literally had anything else they could broadcast on their RSN, then I would complain that the Padres weren't getting more than Nightengale's estimate that the Padres will be getting a third.

But if Nightengale is including equity in the RSN, then my bad math would suggest that $50 million per year extra is the "equity" of the RSN, which most rumors say the Padres will have a third share in. $50 million a year in equity over 20 years for something the Padres have a third share in suggests that the San Diego RSN, which has yet to actually be created, is currently worth north of $3 billion. Without a deal in place and whose primary draw is the Padres with no opportunity to broadcast an NBA, NHL, or MLS team.

Thank goodness our minor leagues are so good.

But regarding the $3 billion... I just have to say... Does that sound right to anybody? Keep this in mind. Some estimates would say that the YES network is worth $3 billion. And New York's media market? Yeah somewhere around 10 times the size of San Diego's. In Nightengale's own article, he credits the Rangers RSN with a $3 billion valuation and they broadcast to all of Texas. That's the second largest state in the union, mind you, by populous and size.

It seems to me, Nightengale took the most recent estimate he could find of an RSN: $3 billion. Divided that by 3. Divided that by 20. And then added the number to the estimate that everybody else has for the Padres TV deal. Or somebody did that for him.

Feasible? I guess.

So no. I don't believe Bob Nightengale. I think his numbers are exaggerated and I don't think he would've got them from anybody at Fox nor at the Padres, so I still do believe that his numbers were "leaked" to potentially help another team (or every other team) score richer deals. Much like the NFL's constant, hollow threats about moving a football team to LA, claiming that one of the smallest markets in baseball is scoring one of the potentially richest TV contracts is MLB's way of milking as much TV money as possible for each of their teams.

Do we want the Padres to score a ton of money from their cable deal? Yes, if it helps the operating costs and puts a better team on the field. Do we want the deal to be worth Yankee or Ranger money despite the fact that our market would suggest much less?

No, unless you don't mind paying extra on your cable bill so that FSN West can prove some of that YES Network valuation.

[UPDATE] Tom Krasovic writes that Bob Nightengale's numbers are basically a best case scenario. Sooo... Assuming that things work out perfectly over the next 20 years, Bob Nightengale will be proven right.

In that case, I actually think the Padres deal is actually worth a zillion dollars.

The problem with claiming that the Padres are going to be making a certain amount per year based on "best case scenario"? Look at the housing crisis. That's a ton of people that took out the "guaranteed equity" in their "million dollar homes" and then had to get bailed out when nobody was willing to pay six figures for them and the banks came collecting on the money they spent.

OK So you're going to Friar Fest in the morning. This Open Thread is very likely not the proper technology to coordinate meetups and the like, but still, it's a good place as any to post comments questions and I'm sure somebody will find them. Better yet, be following us on Twitter and Facebook because (no offense to our wonderful SB Nation tech team), but those have better "live" mobile interfaces.

Some quick rules of Friar Fest

• Calling it Friar Fest instead of Fan Fest may or may not make you seem old school. It's the equivalent of calling it the Del Mar Fair instead of the San Diego County Fair.
• Stay hydrated
• Wear sunscreen. It's supposed to be cloudy tomorrow, but you'll still be outside for a while and UV rays can penetrate clouds.
• Bring a hood. There's a 20% chance of precipitation. You don't want to be the dork carrying an umbrella, but you also want to keep your hair dry.
• Take copious notes. I'll expect funny stories from each of you.
• Take lots of photos. See above point.

This would be, by my recollection, the first time the Padres have ever shown up this high in farm system rankings. Keith Law credits the Padres with incredible depth and high-floor guys. Basically, our youngsters will be big league players. Keep in mind, I loved me some KT, but we can all agree that the big leaguers that he drafted were psychos. Like literally crazy.

He drafted toolsy, skillsy, psychotic dudes.

I, for one, am willing to trade Crazy for Professional.

I'm reading all of this commentary about how this is a one and done deal... This was "all" Jed Hoyer's doing, but let's be honest. After Josh Byrnes' first full year as Diamondbacks' GM, here's where he had the Diamondbacks minor league system. The year after, there was a dip, but that's what happens when you graduate a Stephen Drew and a Carlos Quentin (and incidentally still have a Juston Upton and Chris Young in the mix).

So no. I don't believe that this farm system was all Jed Hoyer's doing. Is is "mostly" his doing? Maybe, but it's also hard to imagine that Josh Byrnes could possibly screw this up. Consider this, BeyondTheBoxScore says our window is 2014 for our three B+ prospects to all be up at the same time, but on top of that, we have 6 picks of the first 70 in this years draft from all of the churning of one year contracts over the last couple years. As long as they draft strong and avoid the psychos, this should continue.

How quickly will we see the results? Well, Yonder Alonso is slated to start this season, so we'll see some of the results right away. Depending on how Hundley works out, we have Grandal and Hedges over the next couple years. We should be able to see big league results right away, but everybody's best guess is for things to really start clicking 2013-2014.

Who will be unhappy with this? Anybody who wants a payroll starting with 6 or 7. We will be running a very modest payroll from the looks of things. If you get off on big payroll, you have absolutely no business rooting for the Padres for the next 5 seasons. The Padres 2012-2017 is all about young talent. Let the Dodgers and Giants slug it out with their hundred million dollar payrolls, because by the looks of things, the experts don't think we need it.

It's a pretty good time to be a Padres fan.

The results are in! The Padres' Little League Uniform initiative is underway and we have some numbers on the uniforms you'll be seeing at the ballparks throughout the season.

There were 20 uniforms to choose from. Each division got to pick from the group of 20, and obviously each team had to have a uniform that was different from the other teams in their division. Typically between 8 and 12 teams per division, so some uniforms obviously weren't getting used. Each team was allowed to make their requests and they were handled differently by everybody. In some divisions, the coaches let the players vote for the uniforms they'd want. In others, the coaches made the choices themselves.

Incidentally, my thought was that the teams would be able to pick their uniforms and then pick their own names. For example, if you happened to pick the current road uniform, your team name might be the San Diego Grays as opposed to the San Diego 2012 Roads. This might explain why the uniforms that only say San Diego on them were more appealing to some teams as opposed to others.

Here then, after the jump, is the ranking of which uniforms were most (and least) requested by the teams participating (along with some commentary). Vote for the one you'd want to be rocking on the weekends.

Continue reading this post »

As part of our February Happiness Baseball Resolutions, I got permission from the esteemed Rob Neyer to republish one of his essays from his terrific book Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups : A Complete Guide to the Best, Worst, and Most Memorable Players to Ever Grace the Major Leagues. I think we all know that, as Padres Fans, we dislike the Dodgers, but this essay sums up so much more of why we dislike the Dodgers. Like it's part of our genetic makeup. You might think that focusing on the negative is contradictory to the Happiness Project, but one of the great things about rooting in sports is having rivals and regardless of how Dodger Fan may think of us, there are perfectly good reasons why they could be considered our most hated rival and the first perfectly good reason happened right from the get go. Don't let it make you unhappy. Instead, relish in the joy of having a rival knowing the roots of that rivalry. Enjoy!

-Dex

Ending Up With Enzo by Rob Neyer

Tommy Dean. Jose Arcia. Enzo Hernandez. Derrel Thomas. Bill Almon.

Those are the men who played shortstop for the San Diego Padres before Ozzie Smith arrived in 1978. Mostly it was Hernandez, who played regularly for the better part of six seasons. And to be brutally honest, Enzo Hernandez has to rank among the worst players ever to play regularly for so many seasons. He was a terrible hitter, even for a shortstop. In those six seasons, he batted .225 with a .285 OBP and .267 slugging percentage. He did run pretty well, but wasn't on base nearly often enough for his speed to make much of a difference. The real problem, though, was that Hernandez wasn't much on defense, either. He was adequate, at best, and adequate isn't actually adequate when you're a complete zero with the stick.

And the hell of it was, the Padres could have had somebody good.

Continue reading this post »

Ahhh February... This is it. The end of Baseball Winter. Non-fans often wonder how there can be so many months of baseball, but after a winter of licking your wounds and reloading for the future, by February, like an unbroken boxer coming out of our corner in the 10th round of a fight where we've already been knocked down four times, Padres fans are raring to go.

So it's the first of the month and the first month of our Baseball Fan Happiness Project. Our theme and goals for this month focus on grounding ourselves in the Padres rich history. With nothing really happening game-wise it's the perfect opportunity for us to get a firm understanding for what it means to be a Padres fan and a baseball fan in general.

Will getting some historical perspective make you happier? Considering the Padres history, maybe not. However, when the Padres win the World Series, you will be glad to have cultivated your knowledge and appreciation of the team. Also, it might help for Trivia Night.

You don't have to do everything that I suggest, though I'd encourage you to come up with alternative resolutions for the month. I also think that focusing on the theme will probably help by osmosis.

So onto the first month... Immersion into the past!

Continue reading this post »

I recently finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which I would recommend to most. If you're not familiar with it, Gretchen decides that she's not as happy as she should or could be and undertakes a series of resolutions throughout a year in an attempt to do things to make herself happy, or maybe more accurately, help her appreciate life more. Everything's based on philosophers and writers and popular opinions on happiness.

I generally think of myself as a happy person, but when I think about the blog, I can't help but think that we, as a Gaslamp Ball, aren't necessarily "happy" all the time.

Not that there's typically a lot of stuff to be happy about if you're a Padres fan, so any happiness we derive from last place seasons is bonus. Personally, I know we're going to be outspent on the field by larger markets. There's no shaking the idea that we typically will have players leading up to the best years of their career or potentially finishing out the tail end of a great career, as opposed to that sweet spot in the middle. Some of our local media seems to relish in the unattainable "fact" that our millionaire owner and his ownership group should field the most expensive team possible for no reason other than out of the goodness of their hearts. There's a weird perception that there are billionaires that are out there that are lining up to buy the Padres, or would want to buy the Padres if only they heard our stories about why we deserve a team and pretty things. Like Mark Cuban is Daddy Warbucks and we're a bunch of ginger orphans.

On the other hand, let's say you're a fan of the Yankees. You have a rich tradition to draw from. Even non-baseball fans can probably name 5 to 10 Yankees past and present without batting an eye. So your team is part of popular culture. You can rest easy in the knowledge that you will be competing for a post season spot and even in an off-year, you're fairly confident that you're watching a team that's made up mostly of All-Stars, former All-Stars, future All-Stars with a touch of Hall of Famers scattered in. Money for players is spent like a spectacle.

The Padres are a quiet independent film while the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Giants are spectacle summer blockbusters. When they're big time, they're amazingly big time and enjoyed by lots of people. When they flop, they flop in amazingly spectacular fashion and people laugh. Quiet independent films win little awards here and there (best farm system, best front office, best grounds crew). When they win the big awards, it becomes a big deal, but most people go back to watching the blockbusters next year.

So what's this all leading to? I've decided to undergo a Gaslamp Ball version of a Happiness Project this season!

Every month, there will be a series of resolutions and activities that I'm going to focus on (and that you can focus on as well). All of this is geared towards making us more appreciative Padres fans, but also better baseball fans in general. Sorting out the schedule, but on the calendar for this year:

• Be more statistically inclined
• Root passionately for no logical reason
• Empathize with other fans
• Look forward to the future
• Appreciate the present
• Reflect on the past
• Do things in the name of fanhood that make no sense

We'll square away the details as we go, but February is coming up and is just as good a time as any to start. Let's get pumped, people! It's almost February! Pitchers and Catchers reporting any second now!

Gaslamp Ball will occasionally provide endorsements and judgments in the world of baseball and beyond. Should Gaslamp Ballers need to cast a vote or require an official opinion, look for Gaslamp Ball Proclamations first to see what our official stance is. Thank you.

A Major League pitcher is primed for success. He literally has 7 men standing behind him ready to do whatever it takes to help him accomplish his task and another man squatting 60' 6" in front of him directing his every move. In Petco Park, a pitcher also has the benefit of the moist sea air and spacious outfield to assist in his task. More often than not, this success is realized.

The odds are notably stacked in favor of a pitcher and because of this, there is never a need to be "scrappy" when pitching.

A scrappy position player has the odds against him and can be compared to the fisherman from Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea. His physical prowess has long escaped him (if ever it was there) and he is forced to rely on wits, luck and sheer determination to accomplish his task, which no one expects him to do. In contrast, Major League pitchers are captains of Japanese whaling boats, literally commanding a team of men to help him throw spears into a defenseless animal, minding its own business, that has to come up for air eventually.

In light of David Eckstein's almost, but not quite, retirement, it's only fitting that we decide where he fits on the list of the all time scrappiest San Diego Padres.

It's not an insignificant honor to be included on a list of scrappy players. Among the numerous criteria for being considered for this definitive list, a scrappy player must:

• Be capable of executing a straight steal of home plate because the other team is so completely unimpressed by you that they literally forget that you exist.
• Be resilient to the point of extreme annoyance, defying all odds and yet contributing positively in some small, yet historically insignificant fashion, not like a cockroach, per se, but not unlike a stream of ants embodied in one man.
• Be a slight source of embarrassment to the fans of the team you play for. Like, "Our starting short stop for the World Series? Yeah... Umm..... Chris Gomez.... No. It's OK. It's OK to laugh."
• Be a player who tries much harder than everybody else to make up for some deficiency. The most obvious being size or a lack of baseball talent, but this may also include not being quite as good at playing folk guitar as other local San Diegans or as handsome as other teammates.
• Ability to get a uniform muddy and grass stained even in the apparent absence of mud or grass.

One is disqualified from this list if they have ever been referred to as a "natural talent" or "physically gifted".

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO...

5. David Eckstein - David Eckstein would rank higher on this list except for the fact that he so wanted to be referred to as "scrappy" that it made it even more painful and embarrassing to watch him play for us. Also, his wife is really pretty and talented and it becomes almost impossible to believe that he's relying solely on scrap. Like, I believe you're scrappy, David Eckstein, but no amount of scrap is letting you marry that far above your head. He does get bonus points for excessively waving his bat during his stance as if to say, "I am so scrappy and hopped up on caffeine, I literally can not hold still for two seconds."

4. Chris Denorfia - Chris Denorfia almost doesn't make this list because he is not shorter than 6 feet and yet he fits almost all of the criteria. He put together one of the finest defensive seasons in Padres history in 2010 and yet he's known as the bad fielder who would have to fall down and dive to stop a softly hit ball that lands directly in front of him. Chris Denorfia has been known to make spectacular diving catches while catching a cold. People often watch him play and wonder if he must be getting paid to be trying so hard. Like, jeez dude. Settle down a bit.

3. Chris Gomez - Some would have you believe that Chris Gomez was one of the worst short stops to ever wear a major league uniform and they'd have some pretty good statistical evidence. And yet there he was, seemingly year after year playing for the Padres. If he was your favorite Padre during his time here, nobody would've blamed you at the time, but now you would attribute that to youth and not knowing anything about anything.

2. Eric Owens - I sometimes think that Eric Owens is actually still active in the major leagues somewhere and has simply taken his scrappiness to the level of wearing a fat suit, impersonating an overweight DH from the Dominican. During his brief stint with the Padres, Eric Owens was never known to not take an extra base. Devilishly quick on the base paths, one could not be blamed for mistaking him for an elf that makes shoes for needy cobblers as opposed to a professional baseball player. His straight steal of home is still remembered in Padres folklore as it happened against Brett Tomko, a right handed pitcher, with a left handed hitter at-bat, meaning everybody in the world had a perfectly clear view of Eric Owens except for anybody that could've done anything to prevent it. In the process of that particular steal, Owens also managed to distract Tomko so badly that the pitcher rolled his ankle during the pitch and was forced to leave the game.

1. Tim Flannery - While many of today's younger Padres fans remember Tim Flannery as the overenthusiastic third base coach for our San Diego Padres and/or a decent folk singer who would smoke weed at Rugburns shows and hang out with Steve Poltz, he is and will be known as the San Diego Padres true scrapper. A cloud of dirt would follow Tim Flannery around the beaches of San Diego, warding off panhandlers and gypsies. As a third base coach for the team, he tried to impart his scrappiness onto other players by never actually putting up a stop sign. Legend has it that after becoming a third base coach, he had his right arm replaced with a propeller from a retired Navy fighter plane from WWII.

We met Paul DePodesta back in 2007, shortly after joining the Padres and performing various tasks that, despite our three part interview with him, we never really understood. I re-read those interviews and I realize we never really asked him much about Moneyball, but nevertheless, those interviews portray a confident man. A man, despite being in an amorphous role, was exactly the opposite of amorphous.

What's the opposite of amorphous? Shapely.

So when Jonah Hill was cast to play the Paul DePodesta part in Moneyball the Movie, we thought, Jonah Hill typically plays the smart ass young dude and he's shapely, so that should work for Paul DePodesta.

But it was not to be.

Paul DePodesta is presented in both versions of Moneyball as a baseball dork, stuck to his laptop and somewhat quiet. Relatively meek. And he did not want to be immortalized as that.

Which, in the end was probably the right call, as Jonah Hill has now earned himself an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a baseball dork, stuck to his laptop and somewhat quiet. Relatively meek.

So if Paul DePodesta wanted to distance himself from that particular rendition of his personality, then it's best that he's distanced himself from the rendition that is being universally recognized as one of the year's best renditions by a supporting actor in a feature film.

Dodged that bullet, Paul DePodesta, but make no mistake! The world will know of you! We will continue to link to this interview from 2007 until the world knows of you!

So it looks like John Moores just didn't want to be the only one leaving Arizona with his fate left up in the air as he has apparently now gone ahead and voted "yay" for letting Bud Selig remain Commissioner of Baseball.

If you'll remember, the owners meetings were supposed to be a time for the owners to go ahead and approve the transfer of ownership from John Moores to Jeff Moorad, but was unexpectedly tabled. Selig at the time said that the vote could probably be finalized at a later date by phone, to which Moores apparently responded by voting a NO on letting Selig become commissioner again.

But now, cooler heads have prevailed and Moores has fallen in line and seen the light. Of course Selig should be commissioner. Of course.

In my mind, however, what this means is that the Padres ownership transfer will happen any second now. Any second... Waiting... Twiddling...

A Padres press release announced that we will be able to buy 2012 single-game tickets at the upcoming Fan Fest on February 11th (presented by Bloomberg Sports), including Opening Day.

Or stay home and use the Internets:

Single-game tickets for the 2012 season will go on sale the day of FanFest beginning at 7:30 a.m. at the Petco Park box office, online at www.padres.com and by phone at 619.795.5555. Tickets will also be on sale at three locations inside the ballpark during FanFest, beginning at 8:30 a.m. This will be the first opportunity for fans to secure tickets for the season’s most in-demand games, including Opening Day, interleague play against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Texas Rangers, and matchups against NL West rivals like the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. Visit www.padres.com for the complete 2012 schedule, including game times (subject to change).

You also should probably register for the event online as it gets you through the gates 30 minutes early (assuming they open the gates up on time) and puts you into a drawing to hang out with Trevor Hoffman and do some clinics, etc.

Changes this year: The Padres Garage Sale will be held on the field. You too can own crazy things that once were used at Petco Park. And the whole thing is sponsored by Bloomberg Sports. I don't think I've ever seen it sponsored before, so I'm pleased that the team is capitalizing on this stuff. Heck throw a Qualcomm patch on the sleeve of every player if it ups the big league payroll. That's what I'm willing to see.

I will be hanging out with Jonny Dub and jbox with a giant NL pennant, looking to see if we can do some sort of swap back with the team. Buy low, Padres! When you're competing for the division again in 2013, you will want this piece of signage back!

As we continue Mentor's request to help him feed people at Petco Park with various delicious foods, we come to a bullet point that's probably not very controversial... Guacamole.

There's really no arguing this point. If you don't like guacamole, there's no sense in you telling everybody you don't like guacamole, and if you like guacamole, then you know that there is very little in terms of variation to get a good guacamole.

In fact, the only guacamole that I can think of that's unique in a good way is probably La Puerta's guacamole downtown. Otherwise, guacamole is easy:

Cook Time: 5 minutes

1. Get some slightly overripe avocados
2. Mash those f_ckers up
3. Squeeze a bit of lime in there
4. Add diced tomatoes/onions/garlic/pepper in TRACE amounts. You're not making salsa, bro.
5. Salt to taste

The expected transfer of ownership from John Moores to the Jeff Moorad ownership group has officially been postponed. Lots of sources are reporting much of the summary, but here's what there is to know in some bullets. I'll source anything that isn't known, but let me know what you need sources for because otherwise, I'll just be summarizing.

• A vote was to happen at today's meeting. For the ownership transfer to be approved, the Padres would have needed 75% of owners approving.
• At a caucus prior to the vote ever happening, there were questions regarding details surrounding the financing.
• There has NOT been a vote. The vote itself was postponed following the caucus discussions.
• The balance required to buy the team has been presented by the Moorad group and is reported to be in escrow currently.
• There is no official word that the pending television deal is what is somehow holding up the sale.
• The caucus that discussed the open questions that needed to be answered before the matter could be put to vote included Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Whitesox.
• Supposedly, Jerry Reinsdorf is not a fan of Moorad from back in Moorad's agent days.
• The TV deal is not at risk, though is not currently approved.
• Bud Selig and Jeff Moorad are both quoted as saying that this is not a major issue.
• Selig believes that another face to face meeting is not needed and that approval could happen via conference call in the coming months and before opening day.
• Allegedly in response to the delay, John Moores was the one owner who voted against renewing Bud Selig's contract. Jeff Moorad, as currently a minority owner, does not yet formally have a vote.
• Today's vote of transfer would have been years early. The original reports have been that the transfer of ownership would happen over the course of 5 years. This timeline was sped along at the insistence of John Moores and Jeff Moorad was able to get the ownership group to front the monies earlier.

Twitter says that there are a lot of bummed out looking people outside the meetings. How does this not get approved? I guess the conspiracy theorists were right... about something or another... I kinda forget what it was they were complaining about.

If you're late to the game, Moorad surprised many when it was announced that he would be fronting the final amount of money needed to own the Padres outright. Several people thought that Moores may have been involved with the Padres for years to come as the transfer was rumored to need at least 5 years to be completed.

MLB.com

Major League Baseball rules stipulate that the new majority ownership must be approved. He needs 75 percent of the 29 other owners or their representatives.

[UPDATE 10:05AM] Hacksaw saying that the owners are suspicious of the idea that the money from the TV deal may be getting used to pay for the purchase as opposed to being used for operations. The Conspiracy Theorists have gotten to the other owners! omg.

The idea that there might be trouble with financial obligation is a little weird considering that the money to buy out the team was supposed to have been sitting in escrow all of this time. I'm not sure how they could formally prove that the Padres would use TV deal money to pay out owners. That seems pretty bold and could be akin to requiring an MLB team to operate at a loss.

[UPDATE 10:52AM] It appears to be a technical snag. From the ever diligent Tim Sullivan, Moorad says:

"In the rush to finalize the completion of the sale, earlier than scheduled, some technical questions, late into the process, arose that need to be answered/addressed..."

No word on cake hazing.

[UPDATE 1:21PM] Hacksaw says that Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the White Sox and the owners of the Diamondbacks are the ones who are raising the big issues with Moorad's financing plans.

We must've won the Carlos Quentin trade, eh?

When Yelp was first really hitting popular strides a few years back, Arthur Frommer, the founder of the famous travel guides, critiqued the "critics" both in an editorial and in several interviews on Rick Steves' travel show on NPR.

The basic premise is this... While everybody is entitled to their opinion, somebody who offers a truly expert opinion will always run circles around a social media site.On the one hand, you have a critic who's done research to the tune of tasting and trying every restaurant in a given area and is able to compare that to restaurants in surrounding areas or even other parts of the world while educating and infusing his or her culinary knowledge combined with insights into the true value of what it is you are about to eat. On the other hand, you have your next door neighbor who's been to Phoenix twice and managed to find the VERY BEST BARBECUE IN THE SOUTHWEST and is insistent upon the fact based on the fact that he had one meal at Phil's and he discovered that he doesn't like BBQ sauce, but watch out, because at $15 a plate it be WAY more expensive than what BBQ is worth, but hey they serve High Life.

So, I agree with Arthur Frommer and I take every piece of advice on Yelp with a grain of salt.

And yet... That does not stop me from asking you what Mentor has asked of us... To help him find the "best" foods in San Diego.

Today's topic.... What is the best taco in San Diego?

To be sure, it is just about impossible to find a bad taco in San Diego. You have to try really hard. Like you have to be going to Del Taco and then letting their #1 meal sit and go stale before you find a bad taco and even then, it's better than what you'll find at a taco shop in Missouri.

On my personal short list:

• El Indio's Morditos and/or rolled tacos
• Lucha Libre Surf & Turf
• Rubio's Fish Taco Especial (Please don't pitch Wahoo's, Orange County lover)
• La Posta tacos, any flavor
• Whatever is going into a taco shell at El Take It Easy's (Jay will likely be super pissed at the company he's keeping in this list)
• Taco Bell's Chalupa
• Dos Amigos Grille street tacos
• ???-berto's

Like seriously, as long as it's shredded beef or deep fried fish or sufficiently fatty carnitas, how far off could you possibly be from a great taco in San Diego? San Diego is a place where you could have 4 taco shops on a single block and all of them have a line out the door at lunch time with every single person talking about how this one is their favorite taco shop ever.

IT SHOULD NOT BE HARD TO SERVE A FANTASTIC TACO AT PETCO PARK.

So let's help Mentor figure out what he should be emulating.

I also will also take a moment of silence to remember El Asadero Market, formerly on El Cajon Blvd in the college area. The best tacos in San Diego and for no good reason, they just poof vanished while I wasn't looking. Seriously, you don't even know. Don't mess around. Five street tacos there and you're in heaven. Also mighty fine carne asada burritos.

So I'm reading Nick Canepa's article about John Moores and I hesitate to even say anything because what I say on this subject is such an unpopular opinion, but personally, I'm not surprised that Moores would backhandedly badmouth owning the Padres.

In particular, people seem surprised about this:

"To be fair, I don’t know if I’d do it again. It’s like buying an E-ticket at Disneyland and a little ways into the ride saying, ‘Oh, oh, this was a mistake.’ But there are no do-overs, no mulligans. On balance, it was OK, but I probably would have been better off with my money invested in bonds.

And people are like "ROWR! ROWR! YOU'RE A MILLIONAIRE! YOU MADE MONEY AND CRUSHED MY DREAMS! ROWR!"

But read the quote again... "On balance, it was OK". By "balance" he's saying, "Yeah. I made money."

The last part then, if he made money and still feels he would've been better off with his money invested in bonds. What does that mean?

What it means is despite the money, he apparently feels that he had to put up with too much BS to have made it worth his while... or at least make him question if it was worth his while. He's basically saying, "I was told that I could make money eating a hamburger, but it turns out the hamburger was made of shit."

He's not saying that he lost money overall. He's saying that the profit wasn't worth it because owning a team wasn't quite as fun as he thought it would've been or it didn't make him as famous or as loved as he would've liked.

Owners of businesses want to make money.

Owners of sports teams want the fame associated with being the owner of a sports team (and to make money).

Imagine what he went through since he bought the team. After years of being a successful businessman, he operates the team at a loss, every year sinking his own money into this thing after diligently building up his other businesses through thoughtful investment and planning. Others disagree, but it's not like he was guaranteed any particular return in owning the team.

To mitigate that loss, he convinces the city to help fund a ballpark, but finds himself in court for a couple of years. I'm not sure how many of you people who aren't actually lawyers like being in court, but it is what it is.

And then the ballpark gets made and people start knocking on him for daring to make any money off of it. I find it a little ironic that people complain about the fact that he invested in hotels that are doing well, when building hotels was part of the requirement to actually get that land. The city said that he could have that land as part of the investment long as he could guarantee a certain number of hotels also get built, and then later people fault him for having hotels that (may or may not) make money.

So he's spending all this money. He does something that the popular vote says that they wanted. After he does it, everybody yells at him.

And then, after all of that, he ends his ownership with a divorce, which from what I've read, he's to blame for, but still probably isn't the happiest of situations.

All that time and effort and people think of him as the dick that cheated on his wife, bait and switched sports fans in San Diego and made billions of money off of taxpayer dollars, when in his head, he was buying a team because he thought it would be a good diversion considering he was already pretty wealthy.

So if it you wanted a hobbyist owner, it was probably John Moores. If you want a baseball minded owner, it's probably the Moorad group. If you want Mark Cuban or the Steinbrenners or Arte Moreno, you're gonna have to become a fan of a different team because despite what you think or how you believe an owner should operate, those guys aren't just in it for sh_ts and giggles and neither was Moores.

Of course, there's the possibility that by "bonds" he literally meant Barry Bonds and performance enhancement drugs, which would've been a decent financial proposition for a while, but that's probably another blog post.

Mentor is in the process of re-evaluating the food options at Petco Park. If you've ever eaten at Petco Park, you know that they have food, but I would defy you to say that they have any "signature" items. He's asked Gaslamp Ball to help figure out what brands he should be going after and what he should be emulating.

First on our culinary tour is the hamburger.

If you know Padres history, you know that Ray Kroc loathed hot dogs. Little sausages shaped things packed full of who knows what. Owning the Padres must have been a constant source of nausea for the former owner, having to see thousands (or hundreds as it were) of fans shoving hot dogs into their mouths one or two at a time.

If there was one thing he loved, it was burgers. And as it so happens, it's the first thing that Mentor asked about.

Personally, I've never been to Rocky's but Mentor tweeted a Hodad's photo shortly thereafter. I love me some Hodad's. So have at it. What's the best burger in San Diego?

Other things that Mentor's curious about that we can discuss now or later:

• Margarita
• Pizza
• Craft Beer
• Guacamole
• Tacos
• BBQ

Notably absent from the list... Anything having to do with breakfast. HMMMMMMMMMM...

It's being reported that the John Moores Era is almost over as Jeff Moorad is apparently close to gaining full ownership of the club.

"It's 100 percent done," Moores said in a phone conversation. "I couldn't be more pleased. Jeff's remaining payment of all cash went into escrow in mid-December. I remain impressed that Jeff has done everything he said he would do."

Conspiracy Theorists everywhere are trying to figure out how they missed the news that $500 million was somehow forwarded to Jeff Moorad from Fox Sports without them knowing it, seeing as that was how Moorad had planned on buying the team, assuming you believe the Conspiracy Theorists and UT Forums. Those conspiracy theorists are probably very curious how the team will afford to support a major league payroll going forward considering the assumed fact that Moorad plans on not spending any of his own money and the whole of the 50 year TV contract has now been used to pay for Moores' divorce and a minor league ballpark.

Ignore that last paragraph.

I for one am pleased that we're quickly moving past this whole "layaway" period and into a full ownership. Personally, I don't think the layaway period was interfering with the Padres on-the-field plans, but it was certainly a distraction as people regularly questioned the feasibility of Moorad's ownership group and their ability to field a competitive team (2010 being readily ignored by Conspiracy Theorists as an anomaly, despite it being 1 of the only 2 full seasons that Moorad has been around).

Even though I personally like the blueprint of the Moorad ownership group, it also bums me out a bit to be past the Moores Era. Insiders that I've spoken to all are pretty much on the same page that Moores owned the team primarily as a guy who liked owning the team and the investment was secondary. I'd heard plenty of stories about Kevin Towers just wanting one more piece, asking Moores for just $10 million that wasn't in the budget and Moores just writing a check.

So now we can see what this ownership group can do without handcuffs. Very shortly, they'll have full ownership, a new TV deal, like a billion picks in the draft, a hungry fan base and like 8 Padres blogs. The Moorad+Moores Era produced a 90 win season and a pile of turd. The Moorad Era begins!