Padres Owner says uniforms don’t mean much to him and it shows

The Mighty 1090’s Kevin Acee interviewed Padres owner Peter Seidler last night. Seidler responded to the social media outrage that stemmed from the horrifically bland uniforms. His response was the same disheartening response we’ve heard from the Padres for at least a decade.

I have no fashion sense as you can probably tell by what I’m wearing tonight and what I usually wear. On top of that I’m color blind, so the uniform style and color don’t mean a lot to me personally.

At least he’s self aware about his fashion sense, but his personal fashion sense doesn’t concern me in the slightest. His total disinterest in returning the Padres to their true colors and at very least improving the soul-less uniforms they now wear, shows me that he’s not interested in improving all aspects of the Padres, including fan engagement.

But I love the passion of fans, there are people that absolutely love the brown and there are people that don’t want to go anywhere near the brown and everything in between.

And there it is, the dismissive Padres’ slogan the leadership has chosen as their trademark, “we appreciate your passion”. Ugh.

I do respond to the fans and I listen. I’ve talked to this with my partner Ron Fowler, whether we agree or disagree on a particular point or not. I think what I really believe what the fans care about is that we have a strategy to bring a winning baseball team to San Diego and that’s really the vast majority of emails and communications I get from the fans. Other than the day or two when we make an announcement on uniforms.

If we decided to put pink and yellow striped uniforms out there, there would have been a bunch of people that said that’s magnificent and some that said it’s awful.

Seidler and Fowler are lucky that fans don’t only care about winning because if we did their team would have no fans. It’s also not true that fans will always be on both sides of the uniform debate. The newly introduced bland uniforms were universally panned. There’s no need to make a straw man argument out of pink and yellow stripes, the Padres already have the worst uniforms in professional sports. The real shame is that with proper leadership they could have the very best.

After last weeks uproar it should be clear to all Padres leadership that fans are not happy or even satisfied with the current set. If they don’t get that then they are completely out of touch. And that’s when Seidler decides to tell us that the team is going to stop changing and tweaking the uniforms.

Yeah there is a theme there and we’re going to stop that. We’re going to settle on a uniform. Our club — and I believe that in our executive offices at Petco — and our team believes — that our club on the field is going to grow into that uniform and we’re going to win in that uniform. It’s going to become popular because it’s the Padres uniform. We’re just not going to change it as frequently as we have in the past. That’s a valid point.

The team could have the most popular uniform in baseball now, if they were smart. And no amount of winning will ever make these uniforms less bland.

Acee tries to clarify if Seidler is talking about sticking with the uniform that was just announced. I audibly gasped “Oh please no”.

I think you can expect stability in our uniform decisions. I’m not a voice in that decision. There are much better qualified people than me to choose the uniforms.

After this conversation I’m thankful that Seidler is not a decision maker in the team’s apparel. And it’s true that there are much better qualified people than him to choose the uniforms. Unfortunately he does not employ these people.

I’m much more versed in what we’re doing to build a winning baseball team than the apparel that team wears.

I think we’ve settled on we’re going to have the Friday night brown, you know Bring Back the Brown games like we did last year.

Acee asks, why not every game? And Seidler avoids the question instead asking Acee what side he is on. Acee, rightfully, is in favor of the brown uniforms because of their distinctiveness and history.

Seidler responds that “the points well taken.” I hope so.

UPDATE:

Fowler followed up Seidler’s comments with his own. They’re probably the most backwards and incoherent I’ve read from ownership and that’s saying something.

Fowler on Uniforms:

“I like tradition,” Fowler said. “We don’t have any tradition except brown. We’ve done a lot of research on brown. A lot of people like brown, but it’s not the majority. My belief is we need to find a good, sustainable uniform and let the team grow into it. Whether this is it, I can’t say right now.”

So he likes tradition and the Padres don’t have any tradition except brown but he doesn’t like brown. Ownership doesn’t get it and they still look at brown as a novelty. Ugh.