An Open Letter to the San Diego Padres National League Baseball Club
Dear John Moores:
I have been watching San Diego Padres baseball for 30 years.
When I first moved here with my wife and 5 year old son, in July, 1982, I took in a baseball game, Padres vs Mets while our furniture, on the truck from Miami, was not even moved into our home.
We cheered a young Tony Gwynn who seemed to make a difference as the Padres called him up from Triple A and Gwynn produced the first of what would be a Hall of Fame total of over 3,000 hits.
Those were heady times in San Diego.
We came for the weather, but the baseball team played under that weather, but soon exceeded our expectations and we were hooked!
Lexcano and Carmelo were in the outfield and Templeton was at shortstop.
Soon, the whole town was buzzing about Gwynn, Wiggins and the Goose.
Remember?
And now sir, as you fade from the scene, bumbling along like a drunken sailor, you are doing more damage to the national game here in San Diego than one could ever imagine.
My son texts me each night with details about the game.
Yes, that same son, who was 5 years old in 1982, who now has children of his own.
He asks me for my opinion on the action, but guess what?
Because my cable company still has not come to terms with Fox San Diego, I have no freaking idea what he is talking about.
And you, what do you do?
A city who built a baseball stadium for your boys, a town of passionate fans, who still attend baseball games at Petco Park, even though you have become a sham owner, peddling a group of career minor league players and passing them off as the real thing, when we both know better.
If you had given Dick Williams this miserable crew, he would have walked up to you on the first day of Spring Training and punched you square in the mouth.
You are no better than that stooge in Los Angeles, who became wealthy with parking lots.
You have built up your portfolio with real estate around the ball park.
John, any real fan knows the score and knows you are a fraud.
You are still engaged in nightly comedy with your joke of a team, bobble head manager and sham of a faux owner, who had to walk away from buying the Padres because he was a bigger joke than you.
The mountebank in Los Angeles went through a divorce and yet his team performed on the field.
Television agreements were sustained.
You want us to support your team and cannot even find a way to get that team on television.
And still you issue memos to the public letting them know that the Padres are back on the market and you are actively searching for such a buyer.
Hopefully, the buyer who succeeds in the purchase, will be one who loves San Diego and its fan base.
A buyer who would have found a way to hold on to a natural in this town, a Latin Tony Gwynn and not send this hero and good man packing with a one way trip to the Boston Red Sox.
So, here is my memo to you, Daddy War Bucks.
Before you further enrich yourself, do something for the fan base remaining and get a TV deal done which will put the Padres on TV in all San Diego households.
We are tired at looking at your arrogant, pompous overweight image as you steal from a city which treated you so well.
So before the door hits you in the proverbial behind, do something, one thing that will grease the wheels to a sale.
And maybe, possibly, some of us will return before you sour us forever on Padres baseball.
Steve Tarde
1982 Season Ticketholder at Jack Murphy and proud Padres fan
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