What every Padres fan should know, Part 1

Let me get some housekeeping items out of the way before I start. First, this is not a guide to viewing games at Petco. Truth be told I have never been to Petco Park, I currently live in DC and I haven't seen the Padres in San Diego since 1994. In fact, I think the last game I went to was the first game of the double header in which Tony Gwynn collected his 2,000th hit.

Second, this is not a guide to being a fan in San Diego but is rather the opposite. I have lived among high concentrations of Colorado Rockies fans, Washington Nationals fans and Baltimore Orioles fans since 1994 and as such, your perspective about your team changes when you understand how other fans view your team. That is what I will talk about in this first part so without further delay, here is what fans need to know.

1. The Adrian Gonzalez rule. The player may change but the general rule still applies, and it applies to most teams, most players are not as popular away from home. Take Gonzalez's case - he is the premier power hitter in the lineup, is a hometown boy and put up numbers comparable to a certain Crime Dog when he played in town. But outside of SD, Gonzalez doesn't compare to the league's other 1B's, or does he? Ducksnorts has a pretty good breakdown showing that Gonzalez has put up some top slugging numbers on the road. Which brings me to my second point:
   
2. You will probably never convince opposing fans how good our players are until they see them in person. If you ask people in DC who the next big 3B will be, any Nationals fan is ready to argue that Ryan Zimmerman is a superstar in the making. Ask the same thing on the opposite coast and Kevin Kouzmanoff's name will dominate the conversation. I have seen both play last year in DC and guess what, they both have potential ... and they both have some work to do before they are even in a superstar conversation.
3. Our pitching staff is overrated by us and underrated by almost everyone else. The knocks against our staff by others, Jake Peavy and Chris Young had career years and aren't that good, Greg Maddux hasn't been an ace in 10 years and Mark Prior and Randy Wolf couldn't stay healthy even if they pitched for a team made up of doctors. Well, Peavy is a perennial Cy Young contender, Young is becoming more consistent, Maddux isn't supposed to be a staff ace and Wolf and Prior don't have to carry the load so whatever innings they turn in are worth the (relatively) small investments we have made in them.
4. The fan base actually travels well to some places. Maybe the lack of a team in the area for more than 30 years had something to do with it but for the past two years when I have gone to Nationals games against the Padres, there are just as many (if not more) Padres fans in attendance than Nats fans. We are no Red Sox nation but I know you didn't see any Pirates fans a week later when Pittsburgh came to town (but then again that was the Pirates). I can't speak for many other places but I do remember a decent fan base at Rockies games a few years back as well.

Hopefully I haven't rambled too much but these were the first things that came to mind. So now I turn the floor over to you, what are some other things every Padres fan should know? After I get some responses I will add Part 2, and you can bet there will be some info on helping Dodgers fans face reality.

What draws you to baseball?

With the first game of spring training still over a week away, I thought that now I would pose this question to the audience out there - What is it that draws you back to baseball year after year?

For me, no matter how many times I wanted to just kind of forget about it during the mediocre years of the Padres, I still found myself drawn to the team once the end of February rolled around. While I can't quite decide what it is about the game (probably the strategy involved and the battle of wits between managers when making moves), I still remember the exact moment I became a fan.

I believe I mentioned this when Tony Gwynn was inducted into the Hall of Fame but as a really young kid I began collecting football cards. However, one day my best friend brought over his baseball card collection and showed me this card:












While there may be nothing extremely exciting about this card, for some reason I was drawn to it and Gwynn from then on. Whatever effect that card had on me still holds me to this sport this day and even though my wife can't understand why I will watch full Padres games on TV whenever I get the chance, I personally know it goes back to that first card.

So now I open up the floor and ask, What draws you to baseball?

2008 Previews: Closer

Trevor Hoffman is and always will be the closer until he retires. With that said, how much longer can the aging saves leader keep hitters off-balance with an 85 mph fastball and a changeup as his only pitches?

The key to the changeup is obviously making the pitch look like a fastball in relation to release point and arm speed, but when the velocity drops on your fastball as you get older (and don't use PEDs) how much are the two pitches really different.

Hoffman has always been one of my favorites and to me, signifies the post-Tony Gwynn era Padres but sometimes time just runs out. However I am predicting that will not be this year.

Saves are about as easy to predict as wins with a lot of the actual results dependent on others but I am going to say Hoffman posts another 40+ save season, blows less than 5 and keeps his ERA in the 2.50 range.

However, if the last week of last season really was indicitive of how much longer Hoffman can hold on, I am still confident we will get those numbers out of our closer. The only difference may be that Heath Bell would be the one posting the numbers.

The 'pen will again be the strength of this team and us making the playoffs will once again come down to how much work it can conceivably do without running down.

Will Gossage be next?

Last year we saw Mr. Padre inducted and a second former Padre fall short. Will this year be the year Goose Gossage finally gets the call?


With a class that doesn't feature any first time locks, this could be the type of year Gossage needs to finally be voted in. And with Dick Williams already earning a spot because of his election by the Veterans Committee, this could be a big year for Padres fans. Granted, neither guy was exclusive to our club but they are still two of our own.

The announcement of the Class of 2008 will be on mlb.com at 1:30 ET.

Welcome to the Hall "Mr. Padre"

When I was 8-years-old, there was only one sport I paid attention too - football. But one day my best friend came over and showed my his baseball card collection (which consisted mostly of Padres since we lived in San Diego).

Going through his collection, he proceeded to tell me about the players and handed me some of the cards he already had. Then he came to the card of a Padres outfielder and proceeded to tell me how good this guy was. He then gave me this card, and I was hooked:


After watching Tony Gwynn play, I became amazed by the way he could put the ball where ever he wanted. He didn't hit the ball the farthest, or even over the fence very often, but there was always something about his approach and the way he always made contact that really resonated with me. When I watched him I knew I was watching someone special and his induction into the Hall of Fame Sunday justifies what I thought all those years ago.

While most kids my age spent their time reading comic books, choose your own adventure books or figuring out how to play Nintendo without the game freezing on them, I woke up every morning to read the Sports page of the San Diego Union so I could see how Gwynn was doing in his pursuit of his latest batting title. Reading the paper even became a game with my dad as I would see if I could wake up and get to the paper before he could, meaning I was a 10-year-old up at 6 a.m. reading baseball stats.

As the years went on I became more engrossed with Gwynn and the fact that he seemed to play a different game than every other player on the field and in 1994 I was sure he was going to be the first player since Ted Williams to hit .400 (Ironically I actually lived off of the newly opened Ted Williams Parkway before I moved from San Diego in 1994).

Upon moving from SD to Colorado, I still managed to follow Gwynn's pursuit of more batting titles and hoped that he would again flirt with batting .400. But as the year's carried on, so did Gwynn's health and it hurt me to see him struggle to stay healthy his last four years. He was never a 162-game player like fellow Hall inductee Cal Ripken Jr. but he never passed 130 games in any of those last four years.

The thing I appreciate the most about Gwynn and his career is the fact he never left SD, even though the Angels would have paid him a lot to come to Anaheim and be their DH. He probably could have prolonged his career as a DH but it was so important to him to finish his career in SD that he hung up his cleats while he could probably still contribute. That to me is the greatest attribute an athlete can have, is a loyalty to his team that he will play for less or retire rather than play for another team.

Upon Gwynn's retirement I found it harder to follow baseball the way I used to, however I did find another "underrated" talent to root for in saves leader Trevor Hoffman. But as Gwynn and Ripken prepare to enter the Hall, I find myself drawn back to the game, thankful that Gwynn's playing style is getting the true recognition it deserves.

It's because of Gwynn that I am a baseball fan. And so to Mr. Padre, I want to say thank you and congratulations. You truly deserve it.

West Coast fan in an East Coast city

As I have mentioned a few times, my San Diego days are long behind me even though I am still an avid Padres fan.

And having been born into a Washington Redskins family (my dad grew up in Northern Virginia) I know all about trying to show your loyalty for a team on the opposite side of the country. Even though I haven't lived in SD for around 13 years, I have always lived in NL West country and because I was still getting settled in from my move across the country last year, it didn't seem to hit me as hard but the East is a hard place to root for a team.

Whether it's because the games don't start (mostly) until after 10 p.m. or just the simple fact that West Coast teams have no media exposure out here, I have to say that following the Padres has been hard this year. I have MLB Gameday and all the wonderful data it provides but it still isn't a TV.

But thinking about the scenario, this is what has made me a dedicated fan. With a Redskins obsession on the West Coast, I constantly had to defend my team to people who didn't watch them much and only knew what they saw on ESPN. It's not necessarily a position I love being in but being more than a fair weather fan means rooting for your team even when the situation is less than ideal, and this is one of those cases.

So as I am surrounded by Nats and O's fans, I proudly let my friends know that I root for SD. And after explaining my long history of growing up during the Tony Gwynn era, I have another thing to take solace in, my team can beat theirs. And with both teams trying to get rid of the mess previous GM's left, I think I can safely say the Padres will be better than them for a while.

So while I may not be able to catch my team on TV or the radio most nights, it's still a good time to be a Padres fan despite losing 2-of-3 to Arizona to start the second half off. Because in the end, you could be a fan of the Nationals.

Baseball Tonight

Just saw the highlights from Sunday's game on Baseball Tonight and two things stuck out:

1. Loved John Kruk's comment about Tony Gwynn Jr. striking out, saying "his daddy never did that." Classic. Just another reason why there will never be another Tony Gwynn.

2. They interviewed Jake Peavy after they showed the highlights and I loved Jake's comments about the team not having any superstars. During the highlight of the Red Sox game before, a graphic was then shown comparing the combo David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez and the combo of Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell. Peavy said the team has no guys like the Sox's duos, but that they have scrappy guys, praised Adrian Gonzalez's reaction of the bunt DP and said Gonzalez will eventually be a super star.

You've got to love when the Padres can get some pub for great play like in Sunday's game.

Hello blog readers

Two weeks into the baseball season and I'm finally ready to become a blogger. For those of you checking this site out, yes it is basic. But as I get off the ground I hope that the quality of my content will outweigh the design until I can truly get into it. Now for a little about me.

I am currently a sports writer for a group of newspapers in Southern Maryland and I have started a blog for two reasons: One, it has always been a dream of mine to be a sports columnist and be able to give my views on national and important or quirky stories. Two, in my current position I am unable to do that but because the internet now allows anyone to write, I have decided to put my two cents out there.

Now I bet most of you are asking what a Maryland resident is doing rooting for the Padres and to keep the answer short I grew up in San Diego and got into baseball right as Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn was in the midst of his Hall of Fame career. There are two teams I am passionate about and as far as baseball goes, the Padres are it.

I hope that as I write real comments and posts that people will enjoy reading my point of view and maybe learn something in the process. While the second one isn't necessarily a given, it is a reason why a journalist writes. So enjoy and feel free to comment. Let's go Padres.