He would be the anti-Garvey on the retired numbers list -- all of his best years were spent carrying our weak expansion team.  How about Nate Colbert's American journey?  Come on, Colbert nation!  

Isn't it strange that, with all his acumen in identifying and bringing in serviceable major league catchers to the Padres, Kevin Towers has not brought it in a backup for Bard, even though the prognosis on Barrett is not good?  Even while Bard struggles in grinding it out because the second string catcher is really thought of as an emergency catcher in the event the starter played 22 innings the night before?

It's a strange move for KT not to make.  C'mon, show us you care with another serviceable catcher.  Either that or let Colt play.

CF Hairston
2B Iguchi
RF Giles
1B Gonzalez
3B Kouz
SS Greene
C Bard
LF Headley
P Peavy

I know, Giles is more likely to lead off.

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A defensive catcher.

Yeah, I know Bard can hit pretty well for a catcher.    We know he can block the plate.  He doesn't throw pretty well for a catcher.  Isn't this still a glaring hole?

I can live with him starting 120 games for us, but he should be treated as Piazza was, taken out of games we are leading after his 3rd plate appearance.
The defensive catcher can be a pro hitter as well.  

One intriguing name: Miguel Olivo.  Love the second-tour-of-duty Padre.  KT will just as likely pull an unknown out of the aether.

Managers like Bobby Cox and Tony la Russa bug the hell out of me with their over managing,like taking a pitcher out after a third of an inning for supposed matchup advantages.  Yeah, I know they're fairly successful, but I don't have to like it.

The Padres braintrust has really been taking the over-managing upstairs lately.  As discussed in another thread, sending Hensely down (and out of the rotation for at least 10 days, if I understand correctly) is dumb.  How is he not in the rotation now?  The other move is putting M Giles on the DL.  It was time to reinsert him in the starting lineup batting 8th.  He was getting some hits and we need his defense up the middle.  But, while they will wait a week with Morgan Ensberg apparently not ready to play, they DL Giles before even looking at an MRI; now he says he feels fine (see today's UT) and he's out for two weeks.  If they needed to bring up an infielder, why not put Ensberg on the shelf retroactive to his last appearance and get him back a week later?  

Great road trip, til yesterday, but the rotation is absolutely in shambles.  What's the answer?  

It is a little sad to see all these ballplayers released midseason.  Especially if it's David Wells - I've loved the guy since 2004, but always wanted to love him before that.  Should last night in St Louis have been Boomer's last start?  Afraid so.  His contract -- $170,000 per start -- doesnt help things with the cadre of number crunchers in the front office, and given that contract structure, it wouldn't surprise Wells too much, would it?  But the bottom line is I don't think we can trot him out there every fifth day in what figure to be long, tight division and wild card races.

One thing you gotta give Boomer though, he stayed healthy.  

Long distance Padres fans are familiar with mlb.com's weird pacman and pong like screensaver graphics between innings this year.  It was much better in the early days when they let the stadium cameras roll, and Mark Grant and the cameramen could be heard trawling the crowds for women.

Now, they still have the pong between innings, but everytime you log on to mlb.com there is a really obnoxious Dick's Sporting Goods ad.  It features mostly fat and unshaven white guys wearing team gear and cheering for their teams.  One guy shoves a hot dog into his mouth and yells - "Never give up!"  or something like that with his mouth full of hot dog.  Then another guy in a redsox jersey follows up with "nevah evah give up!"  

Maybe this is an east coast feed - and they have other ads in the West?  Last year they played the same few bars from a new Tom Petty song over and over again between every inning.  I love that song now.

I admit I still like the pong screensaver.  It calms me.  But Dick's ad doesn't jive with baseball.  Give up on Dick's.