FanPost

Jerry Hairston Jr. May he be remembered

Nick Laham

As a very young fan I've never gotten a chance to witness a Padres playoff team. I've been going to games since I've been really little, but only became a fan back in 08. The closest I've really ever gotten to seeing a playoff team was back in 2010 when we had that end of season collapse by the first Padre team I loved.

Hairston wasn't that great a player, he hit .244 with nine steals mostly from the lead off spot, but I still remember watching every game that season, and not recognizing which brother was hitting. To me, every player on that team was amazing because I didn't know any better, I wasn't a baseball fan, but a Padres fan.

This might seem like it's just an excuse to talk about that team, that's because that's what it is. With the Padres currently stuck in a seemingly never ending rebuild, that is just bad move after bad move, I need something to cheer me up and games 1-140 of that season provide it for me. Obviously the moment I start looking at the last 22 games I get sad again, but at least it's memories of having a contending team.

Despite the losing streak that wasn't the most depressing thing about that team to me isn't the collapse, which I've recently stopped crying myself to sleep to, but it's the amount of players who joined the Dodgers soon after. Hairston joined the Dodgers, Tony Gwynn Jr., the son of the greatest Padre of all time, joined the yucky Dodgers. San Diego native Adrian Gonzalez is "Bleeding Dodger Blue," Jon Garland who tied for the team lead in starts wore blue the next year. Miguel Tejada, who wasn't a Padre for long, is wearing blue. The Dodgers took our entire team then signed all the free agents just to make us sad (Until you prove that making us sad isn't why they traded for Gonzalez last year I will believe it).

Now that I've made myself and everyone else sad, I'm going to go back into my little crying hole and give the role of making people sad back to Josh Byrnes.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Gaslamp Ball community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gaslamp Ball staff or SB Nation.