XX Sports Radio: Kevin Towers Interview (MP3) with Darren Smith

• Kevin Towers is doing "not too bad".  He's cleaning out his office and headed off to Catalina soon.  He's getting the opportunity to do a lot of things that he hasn't been able to do since he entered baseball.
• "I'm a competitor, man I love to compete".
• "I'll still root for the Pads."
• He'll definitely be working for a club as a GM by Spring Training.
• Moorad has the right to bring in his own people and Towers thinks that's the main reason. "Ultimately he wanted his own guy in there"
• "I hope they pick the right one because I want these guys to be successful."
• Moorad spoke with Towers 3 weeks ago telling him that they were going to do a GM search.  "If your not sure you probably should be sure, I don't want to be the fall back guy."  Towers was a little stunned at first.  He hopes that this is a move that benefits both parties.
• Towers always thought he was being evaluated by team owners on a daily basis.  Jeff Moorad and Tom Garfinkel are really the only ones that know why they wanted to make the change.  "I understand it, I'm good with it, I'm in a good place right now."
• Reading the Sunday paper really made Towers feel validated.  It's almost as good a feeling as he had in 1998.
• He doubts he could have done anything different this year to be able to keep his job.  He thinks that Moorad had planned to replace him from the beginning.
• Whoever takes over the GM job is in a real good spot.  "Good things are going to happen to this organization going forward."
• Towers would have had no problem going into his last year without a contract extension.  Moorad didn't have a problem with his Manager being a lame duck, but did with having his GM as a lame duck.
• Towers isn't bothered being called a "gunslinger" since decisions have to be made fast sometimes.  He can watch a pitcher and decide what to do with them without looking at stats.  He has a lot of confidence in his ability.  He doesn't look back on his trades with regret.  His decisions were planned out.
• Wally Joyner for Bip Roberts is one of his favorite trades.  Trading Derek Lee for Kevin Brown was the reason why we went to the World Series and Petco was built.  Towers also traded a player for a treadmill and some weights.  Andy Sheets for Phil Nevin was his most lop sided trade.
  
• Towers got a voice mail message from John Moores.  He'll be forever indebted for letting him sit in the GM chair for 14 years.  They are going to get coffee later.  Towers talked to Bochy too.
• Towers has been getting calls from GMs asking him to be an advance scout.
• Towers got a Rolex watch and a Padres jersey from the team.
• On Matt Bush: "I'll take the bullet on this one."  They narrowed it to Stephen Drew or Jered Weaver and Moores asked if they were worth the $6m or $7m.  Towers said they weren't because they were unproven and he doesn't think any unproven player is worth that much.  He answered the question honestly and he should have fought for the money more and instead he ended up with Matt Bush.