Gaslamp Ball, a San Diego Padres community

"It's crazy," Los Angeles outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. said the other day in Dodger Stadium. "Three guys who are a part of Padres history at one point or another all get cancer within months of each other.

Ellsbury approached the Red Sox table and congratulated Gonzalez on coming to Boston.

Without missing a beat, Gonzalez smiled, accepted the congratulations -- and then congratulated Ellsbury.

"And my place is going to be open, so if you need a place to stay in San Diego, let me know,"

At his current pace -- and if pitchers remain insane enough to continue throwing within three ZIP codes of the plate -- he will finish with 69.

The way he's going, it appears he also can catch a speeding bullet in his teeth, while taming the lions at the San Diego Zoo in his spare time.

"This is a historic moment: Never before have we asked multiple players to handle one Anti All-Star position. But there simply is no adequate way to put into words a major league team allowing 114 stolen bases in 132 attempts."

"And -- this is key here -- the NL West is taking its dinner out of Alpo cans this summer."

But even in baseball's U.S.S. Titanic division, where Arizona's 40-40 mark topped the motley crew on Saturday, the Padres are playing possum-crossing-the-road to everyone else's 18-wheeler. For Maddux to even be associated with this stink demeans him and should humiliate the Padres for an incompetent philosophical shift. The front-office computers projected a 90-win season? Can you say, "virus"?

The Padres, sources say, continue shopping third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, who missed a handful of games with a bad back last week, and one rumor making the rounds is of a Kouzmanoff-for-Jason Bay deal with Pittsburgh. Bay, a former Padres farmhand and subject of San Diego rumors off-and-on for the past year, is signed through 2009 and is due $7.5 million next season. One long-time scout scoffs, though. "Pittsburgh will never even be .500 if they do that," the scout says. "That is not a fair trade. They're too smart for that. They won't do it unless it's a money thing."

The Padres embarrassed their franchise with the team they fielded last week in Yankee Stadium. No power, no speed, no defensive range, no bullpen, no ability to keep the opponents' running game in check. So far this season, San Diego opponents have stolen a staggering 100 bases in 114 attempts. No team in baseball has more than 85 (Tampa Bay). The Padres could turn John Kruk into Carl Lewis.

"A lot of fourth and fifth outfielders and some extra infielders," says one NL scout of the '08 Padres. "That's what that team is made of."