I saw this story about Social Cycle on DiscoverSD.com and thought how great this would be for a Gaslamp Ball meet up.

Or better yet we could start a Gaslamp Ball Lecture Series where we continually ride circles around Petco Park for 2 hours (the minimum rental time) and try to pick up Padres employees who are willing to be our guest speaker for 15 minutes or so.

They could tell us about their job, their daily duties and any interesting stories. Then when we're finished with them we'll drop them off in the sketchy part of the East Village and pedal frantically away.  We'd then circle Petco Park again in hopes of picking up someone new.

That'd be rad.

[UPDATE]

Actually now that I read their website I realize that they won't let you pick up or drop off passengers.  They also don't allow alcohol.

The Social Cycle is not a bicycle that is “for hire” to the general public.  That being said, we can’t pick up any passengers off the street and/or drop passengers off at different locations.

No alcohol is allowed on the Social Cycle. The Social Cycle is a “dry” bicycle.

• Garfinkel says no radical changes for Padres uniforms
  You might have be caught up in the Brown and Gold vs. Blue and Gray debate, or be offended that you've been called a "vocal minority" but this Tom Garfinkel quote is what caught my eye. I think I'm just as interested in this new program as I am in the new uniforms. For reals.

  we have another program that we're very excited about that celebrates and links our past with the present that we'll introduce tomorrow as well.

• insidethepadres: Brown
  I was at the USC / Stanford football game a couple weeks back and there was a guy sitting in front of me wearing a blue MLB hat.  I was pretty sure he was a Brewers or Mariners fan and had to wait until he turned around to see that it had the interlocking SD logo to know he was a Padres fan.  The lesson here is that when you wear Brown and Gold, people will not mistake you for any other fan.  Tom Krasovic has it right:

  Any baseball team can wear blue or red. The daring and distinctive choice is brown. What can brown do for you, Padres? It's earthy vibe can set you apart from the pack, yet not seem a gimmick. Choose Padres brown, and connect to your funky past.

• Tenth & Island: I'm in the "I'm In" campaign
  This is a cool story of how a Padres blogger and season ticket holder teamed up with the Padres marketing department to become a star.

  Now, anyone in line for nachos had a 7ft picture of me staring at them. Scary!

• PADRES: Team's audience drop in 2011 biggest in MLB
  It shouldn't really surprise anyone that the broadcast rating dropped in 2011 by 41%. The winning percentage dropped a good amount and let's just say that Dick Enberg isn't exactly a draw. I really tried to tune into some of those games late in the season, but they were pretty much unwatchable after a few minutes.

• The Sacrifice Bunt " Are you saying "boo" or "Boo-rnes?"
  The SacBunt thinks Byrnes has more in common with Towers than Hoyer, which isn't necessarily a good thing if you're the SacBunt. The most shocking part of this blog post is that he considered following another team after Hoyer left.

Ever the vigilant, I just caught Tom Garfinkel updating his Facebook profile photo with THIS:

And this JUST after I posted my admittedly angry, pre-morning-coffee tweet:

OK Fine. So maybe the Padres look OK in blue.

If you're a new Padres fan, you may look at the team's current relationship with the Cubs and never suspect there was a time when the Padres didn't go out of their way to help them in an attempt to keep up good relations.  You see, long before the Padres agreed to swap their current General Manager and their Assistant General Manager in a overly friendly business deal, the Padres and their fans HATED the Cubs.

Let's go back in time to July 7, 1987.  It was an afternoon game at Wrigley Field.  Future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson hit the second home run of the first inning off of the Padres' starter Eric Show.

By the third inning the Padres had fought back, scoring two runs off of Greg Maddux, making the score 3-2 Cubs.  Eric Show found himself facing Andre Dawson again.  For whatever reason, Show threw inside and beaned Dawson in the face.  Whether it was meant to be a strategic move to get Dawson off the plate or a more calculated and cold blooded act of revenge, I don't know.

In the game summary it looked like this:

On the YouTube it looked like this:

A brawl broke out as Dawson lay at home plate unconscious. Rick Sutcliffe obviously attacked first due to his fiery red hair and disposition.  John Kruk bear hugged him from behind in an attempt to protect his own pitcher until reinforcements arrived in the form of Mark Grant.

The benches cleared and at some point the melee settled down and both teams stood around Dawson.  It was then that Dawson regains consciousness and without warning shoots off the ground towards Show.  The brawl turns into a full scale war. 

In the end Show was ejected and escorted off the field by umpires.  Dawson was wheeled out of the ballpark on a stretcher holding a towel to his nose.

Eventually the game resumes and in the 4th inning Greg Maddux evens things out by softly plunking Benito Santiago on the hip.  He was ejected for the crime.

The Cubs ended up winning but that's neither here nor there.  The point of this story is that the Padres and Cubs used to exchange blows instead of blow J's.

We've had many conversations with many a person about what the new Padres uniforms are going to look like. They are going to be unveiled this week! We've seen all the same rumors at this point and it's probably good to round up where we're at with some ODDS! PLACE YOUR BETS, BITCHES! 

Incidentally, I believe the waiting period for getting a uniform change in is over a full season. The new uniforms to be introduced this week would've had to have been submitted to the league over a year ago. Sorry, bandwagon Bring Back the Browners. If you only just got on board, you're efforts are influencing 2013, at the earliest.

Bring Back the Brown: 40-1
Unless something drastic happens and the Padres have been purposely misleading us, there will NOT be any brown in the new uniforms. The thinking is that Padres blue is the thing to do, not the color of poo or used up chew.

Re-Introduction of orange: 8-1
One historical color that never gets mentioned is orange. Orange has featured prominently in the past, and doesn't get talked about in the front office. I would've thought that this would've been a good choice for secondary color, but the recent introduction of the Marlins uniforms makes me think that the Padres are NOT going to go to orange. If I didn't know about the Marlins uniform, I would've imagined as high as 6-1 that orange would be brought back.

Redesign of the Primary Logo: 2-1
If there's one thing that I think we've complained loudly enough about, it's the fact that shampoo bottle logo sucks. Last year, the Padres shifted to emphasize the interlocking SD. This year, odds are hopefully GREAT that shampoo will be abandoned, or maybe that's just me being extra hopeful. More than bringing back the brown. More than ditching the unreadable Padres script font. I want to get rid of the Padres wave. 

Sand sucks: 3-2
Word on the street is that sand doesn't quite make sense. The team ditched the road sands this past season and there's a good chance that the color will be phased out completely. The San Diego Tourism Board is freaking out about this I'm sure. "How will people know that there are beaches in San Diego!? We need the Padres to highlight this fact for us through their baseball uniforms! PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THAT SAN DIEGO HAS BEACHES."

Pin Stripes: 6-1
The front office LOVES "classic" baseball, which basically means baseball played before 1969 when the Padres didn't exist in any other form, but a practice squad for the Boston Red Sox. Now, obviously, the Padres aren't a practice squad for the Boston Red Sox, but actually a practice squad for the Red Sox, Rangers, White Sox and a number of other American League baseball teams. So if the Padres love "classic" then they must love pin stripes. Kinda like a junior league Yankees. However, to me, pinstripes would be a pretty drastic change and word on the street has been that this is an "evolution and not a revolution".

You say you want a revolution? Well... You know. We all want to change the world.

I'd like a pony.

Piping: 5-1
Piping though. That's some classic without drastic. If having a pullover jersey screams 1970's minor leaguer to you, then you gotta emphasize the fact that the jerseys have buttons and one way to do that, short of really big buttons, is to add some lines. Because nothing says major leaguer than some nice clean lines on a baseball jersey.  

New Font: 6-1
I hate the Padres font. The one that spells "Padres". When done right, it screams "shampoo". When done wrong, it's unreadable and only shouts "shampoo". The road jersey font I don't mind as much with the San Diego "bowtie" effect, but it too doesn't make much sense, unless of course you're a member of the San Diego Tourism Board and you want to once again highlight the "Sand" in "San Diego". Like, "WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO TO PROVE TO PEOPLE THAT SAN DIEGO HAS BEACHES!?!?! THIS IS A CRISIS!" 

New Font is the Old Font: 12-1
This one I will leak some info to you. We've talked with people who tell us that the old school 70's font was being strongly considered, which reflects in the Tucson Padres branding. Will it show up on the new uniforms? I'd like for it to, but I'd bet 12 to win 1 that it doesn't.

Jeff Moorad's face will be incorporated on the Swinging Friar: 35-1
Perhaps inspired by Gunjasufi's take on the Swinging Friar, there are rumblings that the current Friar looks a little too pervy all clean shaven and wearing a dress. How do you fix that? Add a beard. However, adding a beard to an imposingly large and balding mascot? That's leaving you with a Jeff Moorad caricature. 

Padres will shift to Red, Black and White: 40-1
You know what's hot right now? Aztec athletics. You know what else is the new hottness? Old school Padres PCL where they once upon a time wore themselves some red. Also, I hear they like red in Arizona, and red is just about the only color the Padres haven't worn.

New Padres Military Uniforms to Feature Tie Dye Peace Symbols: 38-1
There is a minority voice that is very outspoken about the fact that the Padres associate themselves with the military and, in a way, glamorize the very violent and deadly job that our armed services are often asked to do. To placate those voices, the Padres may be considering a rainbow colored tie dye jersey to show that, in addition to supporting our servicemen and women, they also support peace and hippies. As a matter of coincidence, Saturday evening start times will be moved to 4:20 to give the hippies a chance to hit the dispensary after the game.

And that's it. Me? I like the color blue, because I have a lot of blue in my wardrobe. I also like the color brown, because it too goes well with my personal palette. Orange though? That would be sick.

• Padres chat with U-T columnist Bill Center
  Rumor has it that the Padres will unveil their uniform changes on Wednesday.  As we were told before the uniform changes won't necessarily be drastic but they will make all the different uniforms more uniform as far as colors and fonts are concerned.
  

  I don't want to spill the club's unveiling. I will say I like them a lot more than the present uniforms, although the colors are much the same. The now uniforms will be bolder with some traditional trimming. I think club president Tom Garfinkel will get kudos for the uniforms -- from all but the "bring-back-the-brown" faction.

• MLB Team Jobs
  The Padres are hiring a new DJ.  If I were the Padres, I wouldn't hire a DJ. But if I was the Padres I would be hell bent on hiring a DJ. But I would switch DJ's every year and not let them carry over any music from their predecessor.  Also I would hire someone with absolutely no knowledge of "clap tracks".

  Responsible for creating and maintaining a fun, lively atmosphere in which fans are engaged through the use of music, clap tracks, organ and crowd engaging prompts

• insidethepadres: Q&A, Jason McLeod
  Tom Krasovic asked McLeod if he and Hoyer were planning on stealing all the best Padres scouts.  His response: 

  But at the same time, the Padres aren't going to let you raid their organization of the best and brightest.

    Aren't they?  Isn't that exactly what the Cubs just did?

Continue reading this post »

So, Yoan Alcantara has possibly lied about who he actually is. I'm trying to figure out if this is really a problem and if it is, what needs to be done about it.

The big negative about this sort of thing is that it's a way for people to enter the country under a fake identity, which is bad, because if you lie about your name and age, you're probably a terrorist, according to internet news site comment sections. I guess the thinking goes, If this person isn't really named Yoan Alcantara, 16 year old, but actually Marcial Castillo, 19 year old, then he could be ANYBODY.

So that's bad, but it seems to me that there should be some higher authority than the MLB's International Investigation unit figuring things out then. 

So the next bad thing is that the Padres are investing money in 16 year olds, expecting them to burn out at 29 and figuring that, at 16, you have 13 years to burn out instead of 10 years to burn out if you were 19.

I'm just joking.

The thinking actually is that if you're 16 and you're as strong as a 19 year old, then, by the time you're 19, you'll be as strong as a 25 year old. By the time you're 30, you'll be as strong as like a 43 year old dude. And then when you're 50, you'll have the strength of 100 years under your belt. 

But let's face it. As long as Major League Baseball considers players to be "in decline" after age 27, it will always behoove players to claim to be younger than they are just to hold off the eventual countdown to when you are no longer relevant. It just happens that it's easier to lie about this stuff in other countries than it is in the US.

Petco Park was featured on "The Next Iron Chef" last night.  Their mission is "To raise this already top notch chow to an even higher level."  Shouldn't be too hard.

• The challenge is about "transformation", each chef is supposed to ask themselves a simple question "How would an Iron Chef create food for a ballpark?"
• Here's a good quote from Chef Burrell "I feel like an Iron Chef is like a professional athlete." The best part is that she gives no explanation.
  
• They're talking about the Food Network Cart and their disgusting blue cheese covered steak sandwich.  I can tell you that right after I finished it, I felt like I was going deconstruct the $13 sandwich and present it in a bowl of white porcelain.
• The rules say they have 15 minutes to gather the ingredients that they need from the concession stands in the Mercado.  That's where I buy my pizza.
  
• Oh look it's Randy Jones, he's introduced as "the purveyor of fine barbecue offerings".  That sounds so much better than Cy Young award winner.
• The overweight chef gets a head start and it's a good thing because apparently he already rolled an ankle earlier in the competition.  Iron Chef's are like professional athletes!  Who knew?
  
• The chefs are now gathering food from concessions.  Dex says "These ballpark concessions people are moving SOOOOO fast. This is fiction.  Ain't nobody ever moved that fast worked at concessions."
• I wonder if anybody will just panic and create a Jalapeno Handshake.
• None of these chefs know anything about sports or baseball.  "I'm not a sports person at all, so I don't get it."  Psst, you don't need to know anything about sports for this challenge.
  
• The crazy haired Chef Burrell says she needs to spend more time on the treadmill after racing up a flight of stairs.  She needs to spend more time with a hair brush too.
  
• I'm not sure they actually have these ingredients at the ballpark.  I defy you to find one radish at the there on any other day of the year.
• "Gimme some wine!  Gimme some wine!" Geez, quit whining!
  
• I like how this guy pronounces "Fish Taco" as "Feesh Teko"
• Dex asks "I wonder if Randy Jones was PISSED that none of the chefs thought to grab any Randy Jones BBQ sauce?  Like one chick stocked up on generic lemonade. People were like, "Shit BBQ sauce? PASS!"
• All the chefs rush out to the Park at the Park.  Dex likes the camera work "I like the shots of the Tony Gwynn statue overlooking the chefs, like, 'I approve... hungrily.'"
• This chef is making blue cheese ice cream.  I'm making throw up in my mouth..
• It was just a matter of time before someone used that quote. "If you can't take the heat then get the hell out of the kitchen." 
  

Okay that's the first commercial break. You watch the rest and let me know what else happens.

• During the World Series, Fox was showing the MasterCard Stand Up To Cancer commercial featuring Tony Gwynn.  Gwynn is standing there wearing a very serious look on his face and an over sized yellow t-shirt.  When he speaks his face shows signs of paralysis and his eyes show the burden of months of chemotherapy, radiation and worry.
  
  

  Denis Leary apparently thought it was a good time to kick him while he's down:

  @denisleary
  Denis Leary Tony Gwynn looks like he ate Tony Gwynn Jr.
  Oct 28 via WhoSayFavoriteRetweetReply

  
  Oh, I get it. It's a joke because he's overweight and is fighting cancer. Classic.

• Stephen Strasburg 5k with Tony Gwynn
  Speaking of Tony Gwynn... you can now register to run the 2nd annual Strasburg 5K at SDSU for $35.  The first 1500 people to sign up get a Gwynn and a Strasburg autographed picture among a cornucopia of other free stuff.  I did it last year.  It was fun if you like running 3.1 miles.

• Mat Latos refusing to sign autographs while Logan Forsythe signed for everyone - YouTube
  Speaking of getting autographs... this guy on YouTube hates Mat Latos, but really wants to get and sell his autograph because there is a demand for pitcher's autographs who suck apparently.

  if you think mat latos is nice you are wrong the guy is probably the biggest prick in the league.he stood there and laughed when people asked him for an autograph.it would have taken him maybe 1 minute to sign for the 4 or 5 of us out there waiting for him but he didnt do it.in his eyes he is king kong and on top of the world. in someone like mine or any other fan he is an average pitcher at best who probably will make 1 or 2 all star teams before his career is over and might win 100-150 games.i oftne wonder what makes a person this big of a prick???? even some of the players who signed for us on the team who will remain nameless said he is a piece of sh*t.

  I was telling Dex this morning that there should be a rule that you shouldn't be allowed to ask for autographs from people that are younger than you.  He tentatively agreed, but said he would still probably ask for Phillip Rivers' autograph if the situation presented itself.
  

• 

  Come Help Dallas & Mat Latos Save Animals! | LobShots
  Speaking of Mat Latos autographs... you don't have to stand outside his hotel, interrupt his dinner or beg him on film to get his autograph.  You can just attend this charity event that supports SNAP San Diego.  You'll just have to pretend you're an animal lover instead of a stalker for about an hour.

  Mat will be signing autographs for a $10 minimum donation to SNAP from 12pm-1pm. If you don’t have anything of your own that you would like signed, pictures and baseball cards will be available for an extra $5 donation.

   

XX Sports Radio: Jed Hoyer Interview with Darren Smith (MP3)

• Hoyer became GM of the Chicago Cubs as a result of a perfect storm.  "I think in the end it's a great thing for all parties involved.  It's a great move for me career-wise.  I think it's great for the Padres in that Josh is obviously a very accomplished GM.  He's got a terrific relationship with Jeff." 
  
• "I think if I'm a Padres fan, I think it's a good thing knowing the closeness between the owner and the GM.  It's probably the most important relationship in the game, maybe tied with the GM / Manager relationship."
• Hoyer thinks everybody got what they wanted in this deal.  "I don't think there is any injured party here. Certainly, I know that I'm thrilled to be here [Chicago]."
• "I think the Padres are headed in the right direction.  There's a great staff there.  For me that's the hardest part about leaving."
• There were talks with Moorad about Hoyer staying because he does believe in the direction of the club.  Moorad did leave the choice up to Hoyer completely. 

  "Jeff certainly wouldn't have done it if Josh wasn't there and I wouldn't have done it for the same reason.  Because I do feel strongly about the Padres organization and I definitely wouldn't have left them in the lurch.  Jeff wouldn't have let me go and I wouldn't have left if it would have hurt the Padres."

• Josh Byrnes gave Jed Hoyer's resume to Jeff Moorad before he was hired with the Padres. "I wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for Josh."
• Two years ago Moorad had tried to hire Byrnes before Hoyer but Arizona wouldn't let Moorad talk to him.
• Hoyer never felt it was inevitable that Josh Byrnes would be the Padres GM.  He didn't think Moorad was just waiting for him to leave.  Hoyer always thought Byrnes would get a GM job somewhere else.
• Hoyer did have talks about an extension with Moorad.  The extension was not offered and that factored into his decision to leave. 
  

• "The Cubs situation and working for Theo was incredibly appealing. I'd be lying to say after 2004 in Boston, that the Cubs weren't always sort of in the back of my mind because of the rare chance to do that twice."

• Hoyer feels good about the position the Padres are in right now.  The farm system is really good.
• Hoyer isn't worried about Theo Epstein getting the credit for any possible success.  "Would I have done this for another person?  No."

• "Hopefully we play 1984 over again and it ends up differently."

• The resources are great in Chicago, but they have to build up the farm system.  Hoyer is most proud of his success with the farm system of the Padres.
• The Cubs are going to let the media interview managerial candidates as well.  They did that in Boston as well.
• On the Cubs hiring Bud Black: "Yeah, I think that's unlikely."  Hoyer will miss him.  "He's a good one and San Diego is really lucky."
• This wasn't an easy decision for Hoyer to leave.  "I'll never have a single negative thought about my 2 years in San Diego."