Dex and I went to SDSU basketball game last night. I was telling Dex how the AAA team has been named the Tuscon Padres. We both agreed it'd be cool if the team wore the original PCL Padres uniforms from 1936. It'd be perfect with the team's 75th anniversary being celebrated in 2011. Their mascot could be this old timey time Friar. Look at him - he's like the Steamboat Willy to the current Friar's Mickey Mouse. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next week.
The team logo and website are currently in the approval process with Minor League Baseball (MiLB). They should be unveiled in the next 7 – 10 days.
After watching the SDSU Pep Band, Dex was really eager to start a Padres Pep Band in which he plays first clarinet. They could play classic Padres songs like "Life's Better With Baseball", "Hell's Bell's" and Tim Flannery's "Secret World". As it stands now the Petco Park entry policies do not allow musical instruments without the permission of the team. Maybe we can get a temporary waiver.
With all this rain, it makes me wish that the Padres sold rain gear. They could use that Swinging Friar logo where he's swinging an umbrella instead of a bat. It's really hard to find that logo since it never rains here, but Channel 4 puts in the corner of the screen during the rare Padres rain delay. I'd definitely buy that Padres rain coat.
I literally ran into John Weisbarth last Satruday. He was the Master of Ceremonies for the High School Cross Country National Championships. I was jogging a few miles myself over at Morley Field and decided to stop in to watch real runners. I heard his iconic voice coming from the PA speakers and tracked him down. I found him sitting high above me in the announcer's booth. I started reciting lines from the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet to get his attention. When he saw me he slipped out of the booth for a moment to chat and quiet me down. I've been getting a lot of face time with him recently, I think I've almost convinced him that we're friends now. In fact when Jonny Dub and Kev dropped out of our Guys Night Out trip to the Basketball game, Dex suggested we invite Weisbarth and/or Mentor. When it came time to actually invite them we got real shy.
I really like the acquisitions the Hoyer has made recently with the Orlando Hudson and Jason Bartlett signings. The only thing that still bothers me is that we could have had these guys and kept Adrian Gonzalez for 2011. Sure we don't get those prospects but I feel like no matter how well we play in 2011 that we probably could win another 3-5 games if we still had our mopey first basemen. Ah well, C'est la Vie.
Dex and I had an entertaining conversation last week comparing the Padres, with and without Adrian Gonzalez, to the Teen Wolf franchise, with and without Michael J. Fox. The 2010 Padres were Teen Wolf and the 2011 Padres will be Teen Wolf Too with Jason Bateman. The 2015 Padres with all those recently acquired prospects will be like MTV's upcoming Teen Wolf series. You can probably tell but I've obviously forgotten now what made the conversation so entertaining.
I talked to a friend who knew someone that recently saw Hall of Famer Tony the Gwynn. As you know he was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer a few months ago. He's been doing radiation treatments 5 days a week and chemotherapy once a week for the last 2 months. If you know anybody that's been through that, you know that it's hell. She told me that Gwynn had lost some weight but seemed to be in good spirits. Keep Mr. Padre in your thoughts and prayers this Holiday season.
Speaking of Tony Gwynn... Probably my favorite Tom Petty album is Echo. Every time I hear Petty sing the lyric "Well, the attorney grins..." from the song "Accused of Love", I think he says "Well, the Tony Gwynns..." like he's speaking about Sr. and Jr.
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