Dear San Diego...

Just a note to see if you are still out there. I remember when we first dated, you said that I was cute and that you liked me but you said that it just wasn't going to work out. You said that you were looking for something else, for something that was more like... a winner. I have to admit your words crushed me, you tried to make me feel better. You said that the problem wasn't me, that it was really you but I knew better. I knew that I could be that thing that you were looking for. So I got highlights in my hair and I went to the gym and worked out a ton. I traded in a bunch of my old clothes for some fresh new ones. I knew I could never be like those other girls you date, you know who they are. I couldn't be warm like the beach or intoxicating like tequila shooters or dripping in money like that tramp the Dodgers or that diva the Yankees. But I knew I could be something special, something worth dating. So here I am, all of me, I am young, and talented and hard working and fast (let's be honest, everyone likes fast) and most of all, I'm a winner. I go out and win games all the time. We are about to start June and nobody in the National League Rave Club has won more than me. As of this morning I've won more than those Dodgers and just as much as those Yankees and still you aren't here. I don't know where you've gone.

But I'm not going away. I'm right here waiting for you San Diego. You may not believe in me but I believe in you and I have a special place reserved for you every day in my Petco Park bungalow. I keep your toothbrush here just in case you come back. Give me another chance, I know you'll like it. ;-)

XXXOOOXXXOOO

All my love - The San Diego Padres

-PS, you had me at HOLA. :-)

We've all heard it. San Diego isn't a good baseball town. The Padres suffer because their "fans" are apathetic, too laid back or just have too many other entertainment options in America's Finest City.

What a bunch of crap.

Yes, we have lots of things to do here. We have the beach, the bay, the zoo, Balboa Park, Sea World, golfing, night clubs, great dining, blah, blah, blah. So what? Are you seriously telling me that a significant number of people choose not to go to a baseball game because they decided to go to the beach, or to Tijuana or to see Shamu throw a trainer around? Are these things mutually exclusive?

If you look at the attendance rankings for any particular year (see last years at http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2009) you will notice a very simple trend; teams that drew well were either from one of the very big markets or making a playoff run (or had made a playoff run in a recent year) or both. The teams that did not draw well did neither. Period. There were plenty of markets that had lots of other things to do (New York, Chicago) as well as markets with relatively little to do (St. Louis, Detroit) that drew just fine, thank you very much.

But as to the question of whether San Diego is a "good baseball town" I want to remind the talking heads at ESPN of the following:

• San Diego has had professional baseball since 1936 with the PCL Padres, not just since 1969.

• San Diego has had organized baseball played on a large scale since the 1870s.

• San Diego has been the cradle for some of the greatest players to have ever played the game including Ted Williams, David Wells, Adrian Gonzalez, Graig Nettles, Aaron Harang and Cole Hamels, among others.

• An even longer list of great baseball people have had the wisdom to choose to make San Diego their home including Dick Enberg, Jerry Coleman, Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Bud Black, Trevor Hoffman, Steve Finley, Dave Roberts, Brad Ausmus and (I can't believe I am saying this) Mark Grant.

• Finally, a lot of fans end up moving to San Diego from other parts of the country and two or three of those people adopt the Padres as their team. True, many keep their old home-town teams as their favorites but many of those fans root for the Padres whenever that other team is not in the mix. That is why that one guy at the end of the row who is usually in Padres gear shows up to three games looking like he got lost trying to get to Wrigley Field. But you know what, those folks still love baseball and they love the chance to go to a big-league game.

Our city is not an excuse and our fans do not need to have any excuses made for them. There is a core group of Padres fans that is very knowledgeable and dedicated. Can that fan base be larger? Sure. I do believe that the Padres can and should invest energy into turning some of the "spectators" that come to games into "fans" who are more in tune with the play on the field, turning them more into students of the game. Fans follow every ball and strike and appreciate the nuances of baseball, like a well executed double-play or a successful hit-and-run or stolen base. Spectators just want to be where the people are, it could just as easily be a night club as a ball park. Turn a percentage of the spectators into fans each year by helping them understand what a beautiful game baseball is and you can build a population that will show up to games just because it is major-league baseball. To their credit, the Cubs, the Cardinals and the Red Sox have fans that root for their club through thick and thin. Granted, it has been mostly thick for those guys lately but they have drawn well for a long time.

That could be us. A surfboard or a zoo won't, and doesn't, keep a real baseball fan away.

OK, so everyone is talking about what should be done about the Padres uniforms. Now that we have new ownership a change in threads can't be far behind, right?

Just in case Mr. Moorad and Mr.Garfinkle have become faithful Gaslamp Ball readers (how could they not?) I want to put out there that I think SDFriarFan is right. A little tweaking of the current design is the right way to go. Everyone should take a look at the idea at:

http://thesacrificebunt.com/tag/uniforms/

I know there is a groundswell of support for the early 80's look and I love the old unis too (in fact I am wearing the 1982 Tony Gwynn rookie jersey right now) but trying to go back almost never works. And if we suddenly put the guys in the '84 outfits I think we will quickly remember why, just like parachute pants and mullets, we left that look in the first place. I think more than a new look we need a color that we can call our own. When the Dodgers and Cubs come to town, there is royal blue everywhere. When the Cardinals show up you see red in the stands. When the Giants are here you can spot their fans in orange. A few have mentioned yellow as it is used by very few other teams and that isn't a bad thought.

But there is one color no one else uses, BROWN. Let's make it ours. Let the color brown stand for the Padres and their fans. When we go to the other guy's ballpark, and more of us should, they will know us from the brown we are wearing.  I know a lot of people don't think brown is cool but that can be what makes it cool for us. It is the sad orphan color that you can't even find in the the rainbow. It is the sorry broken crayon that gets left in the box. It is the color that 29 other major league teams wouldn't embrace but we did because we don't care what other people think. WE'RE PADRES FANS! We could have jumped on a Dodgers or Yankees or Red Sox or Cubs or whatever bandwagon but we didn't! WE'RE PADRES FANS! If we cared about what was cool we would never have made that one profound (some say fatal) sports-team choice.

I travel around the country a bit and when I do I always wear my Padres gear and people often look at me in sort of a bemused way like how could I be so insane as to be a Padres fan. I don't care. I am not a Padres fan to impress anyone. I am a Padres fan because they are my team no matter how crazy the rest of the country thinks that is and I say there is a color for that sentiment and that color is BROWN.

So, Mr. Moorad, Mr. Garfinkle, I respectfully submit that you leave the current uniform essentially intact and you incorporate Brown either as the primary color or as the highlight color against the navy blue. You can then safely make the boatload of money that you would like to make from all the new clothing that fans will have to buy. But fair warning, I will probably show up in a certain 1982 Tony Gwynn rookie jersey which happens to already be....brown.

I know I am not the first person to post on this issue, and I am sure that I won't be the last. But I had an experience that I had to share with my Padres brethren. Last year I traveled to New York to see the Padres play the Yankees. It was a chance to see the old Yankee Stadium before they closed it and, more importantly, it gave me a chance to walk into a house full of Yankees fans in my Padres gear. No one could go with me so I went alone and was pleased to run into a few Friar Faithful while I was there. I have to say, the Yankees fans were very polite to us, if a little full of themselves. I suppose that comes along with being a Yankees fan, the sense that your team has been anointed by God to be the only team that matters, God conveniently providing the Red Sox who are hated but worthy and are clearly there to give His team something to do. Anyway, I chatted with a Yankees fan who had a lot of opinions on a lot of things. What caught my attention was his observation that "The Padres will move their fences in because people like home runs."

People like home runs. That stuck with me. Yes, I suppose that is true, fans do get really jazzed to see home runs, but is that what we really want baseball to be all about? Fans also get jazzed by hockey fights and crashes at the Daytona 500 but does that mean that they should encourage them? I know, a home run is an athletic feat and fights and crashes are not so it isn't an even comparison but the truth is they are all spectacles and that is what gets the fan excited. To me this is as empty as needing a scoreboard to tell you when to cheer. If you need a scoreboard to tell you to cheer, you aren't a baseball fan. You are welcome, please, spend your money, but you're not a baseball fan. If home runs are all that matter then let's bring the fences in to the league minimum and just sit back in our seats and watch batting practice.

Baseball is more than that. It is the hit-and-run. It is the suicide squeeze (which we just saw recently for the first time in forever). It is a pitcher toying with a no-hitter. It is a team not giving up and fighting back from six runs down and winning. Baseball is 9 players using their skills to beat the other 9 players. It isn't just one big bat smacking the heck out of the ball and trotting around the bases, as fun as that is for the scoreboard-cheering crowd.

But that is the philosophical reason for not moving the fences. There is also a very practical reason. If we move the fences in, the Padres will get more home runs...    
and the other team will get more.

Not that we can't get some good bats. We have the best home run bat in baseball right now in Adrian "El Titano" Gonzalez. But lets be honest, we are never going to be able to take a big bat on the free agent market. Everytime a proven big bat hits the market, a big-market, deep-pockets team will throw a bucketload of cash at them (can you say Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez?) and we will be left with our spunky guys that are good at station-to-station ball in our newly shrunk park. Sure, we could draft some athletes and spend three-to-five years coaxing them through the minors but more often than not when they get to the show their bat will be mediocre at best. Or we could pull off that genius trade, as Kevin Towers has very ably done many times, to get a bat in. Which is, of course, how we got Adrian. But if we can only get bats two of the three possible ways, and the Yankess, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, Angels, etc. can get them all three ways, where does that leave us? Sitting in our seats watching the other guys smack them out.

Having a pitchers park forces our team to build a team that can actually win. One that attracts great pitchers and uses all 9 players to win. It isn't easy, but it is doable. What we will never be is the Yankees, writing checks to every slugger that we can find. And that is fine. I don't want us to be the Yankees. Because my friend at Yankee Stadium got his wish, the new Yankee Stadium is a home run heaven. The Phillies, who played there recently commented that it was a joke. Think about that, the Phillies, who play in a band box of a park, think that new Yankee Stadium is a joke. And that Yankees fan who knows everything got to watch his boys in pinstripes lose one to the Indians 22-4. I'm not saying that will happen every day but something tells me that on that day he didn't like the home run so much. And I am betting that by next season the Yankees move their fences out a bit.