Dear Padres Fans: This Is Curt Flood's Fault...

I have a friend who has lived in San Diego county for over twenty years but who has never come around to following the city's sports franchises. The two teams he follows are found in locations in which he has never lived... and of course both of those teams have won championships so he's a happy fan. He has his father to thank for this bit of indoctrination.

From time to time I will write a post regarding the San Diego Padres' choice in uniform colors. Invariably this friend of mine will joke, "...another piece on fashion. That's all San Diego has to talk about."

But to think that what I'm writing has anything to do with fashion is to ignore your ability as a functioning human. To ignore your capabilities as an evolved member of the species who can read and think critically.

You see, I don't believe in fashion statements...

If I believed in fashion statements you would probably catch me in something other than flip-flops and jeans. I just can't be bothered by fashion.

But when I begin to wax nostalgic about the Padres in brown it has nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with the team's history as a Major League Baseball franchise in the city of San Diego.

Before we talk about the Brown though, we need a little history lesson...

The Padres were but a fledgling MLB one-year old* when the landscape of baseball would be forever altered. In 1970, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood decided that it was inherently unfair to be the property of the team who drafted you for your entire career. Flood's decision to challenge Major League Baseball left behind a powerful legacy for players: free agency.

It is free agency that has robbed the smaller markets, like San Diego, of marquis players playing the duration of their careers as Padres. Any player that came along before Curt Flood was an indentured servant of that organization. It sucked for that player but boy did it do a lot for establishing a team's identity. Players who were bound to a team did a great deal to bolster the recognition of that team by compiling Hall of Fame careers in one uniform. Identity tends to breed credibility.

This all began to crumble as the Padres came into existence and consequently the Padres have had very few identifiable players in their history: Randy Jones, Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman.

So where do fans hang their hat absent Cooperstown busts and the flashy names stitched to the back of a jersey?

Imagine this team here in San Diego as a tree. A tree's life is only as good as the strength of its roots and those roots are wrapped up in both the city's name and the team's name. If those two things remain constant an organization can remain operational and identifiable. But there is one additional root that provides the strength, identity, and above all, credibility: the team's uniform. 

It matters not what the uniforms look like, only that there is some level of consistency across the years. Teams that achieve this consistency also achieve credibility and with that trait, fans are created and most importantly retained. Absent the faces of recognizable superstars team's must rely on this consistency to provide a credible product.

Would you date someone who has no sense of identity? [rephrase] Isn't it difficult to date someone who lacks their own sense of identity? Yes it is difficult as I'm sure some of you are well aware... and you're probably all Padres fans**.

The Padres have run away from this notion of identity, a tree thinking it can survive without roots. Own who you are and don't change based on the whims of market research that eventually becomes outdated every six seasons. Own who you are and don't apologize for it.

This was all a very long winded way of saying that you should sign the Bring Back The Brown San Diego petition.*** Sign up for your heritage... and own it! Bring Back The Brown also just did an interview over at Gaslamp Ball. Read it.

*One year old as a MLB franchise. But you know your history... that the Padres were in fact born in 1936... which means they were really old, like an old maid... or maybe Reese Witherspoon-ish.
** We're gluttons for punishment aren't we? 
*** It was also a long winded way of attacking Curt Flood's legacy, may he rest in piece, and its consequences of preventing recognizable faces in a good many of baseball's modern franchises.

Padres Uniform Decisions In A Vacuum

I'm not saying the Padres need to use a vacuum to clean up the mess that is their new road gray uniform; although there are others who would gladly volunteer for the job. The title of said job could be called, Sucker of Suck.

Hmmm...... maybe I would volunteer for this fantasy job. Whoa, this analogy is coming undone at the seams. Let us move on...

The new away gray jersey is actually pretty awesome looking... if I were living in a vacuum... void of any real context of the game of baseball or the geography of southern California and its teams.

Sometimes I think Jeff Moorad et al. make their decisions while living in this vacuum. He has talked before of this desire to see people traversing the grounds of Petco dressed in Padre Blue.  

"Padre Blue" is actually a euphemism for "Good morning. Allow me to throw monkey feces at you!" Doesn't make any sense does it? Nor does the idea of Padre Blue because it is Padres who are brown and Dodgers who are in fact blue.

Moorad is so hellbent on this notion of Padre Blue that he introduced a nice looking away jersey that fails to consider the miserable similarity to our rivals in Los Angeles.

I have unfortunate news for Mr. Moorad. Many other teams in Major League Baseball wear blue uniforms including our next door neighbors... who we tend to LOATHE!

I love the color blue but when it comes to the Padres I am more than willing to concede to the team residing in Los Angeles. The Dodgers can have blue. As a franchise their history is more steeped in tradition than ours and we should defer to them on the matter of uniforms (I will make no other concessions to this franchise, however). Let them have blue. It's theirs.

Let us have brown. It is ours.

***
I never had a big issue with the away Sand uniforms. I didn't think they made the Padres look like they had urinated on themselves like others have suggested. But I do understand the desire to be traditional and gray is nothing if not traditional.

***
Here's some commentary(and pictures) of the other uniform changes in San Diego this week, courtesy of RJ's Fro.

***
Everyone had given an opinion on the uniforms this week and this is mine, for what it's worth. I am like Jeff Moorad in that I appreciate tradition. It is respect for tradition which always brings me back to the Padres inaugural uniform of 1969. Enough brown to establish a connection to a Padre/Friar without being too over-the-top. Let's save the over-the-top for Throwback Thursday's... another tradition of which I am fond.

I Could Only Afford to Throwback to 1984.....at least I didn't wear red

The Padres are wearing the 1978 Brown Away jerseys for the remainder of midweek day games this season.....so.....I felt moderately douchey on account of being decked out in my 1984 gear. On the other hand, I feel as though the spirit of the day was maintained as I went retro by 25 years. Surely I cannot be thought ill of based on such efforts. A home white 1978 Dave Winfield/Gaylord Perry jersey may be in my future.... 

THE GAME
Padres lost. Eleven whole runs scored. Cardinals averted the sweep. I scribed an open letter to a misdirected faction of Padre fans.

Dear Misdirected Faction:

My name is Mike. Some address me by the handle Avenger-in-Chief but the choice is yours really. I am compelled to point out to you that Padres fans are a mottled lot, adorned in nearly every spectrum of gear that has been introduced since the glorious incarnation.....the year of our lord nineteen-hundred and sixty nine. As such there tends to be a general lacking of fan cohesion at home games. The fan-gear color patterns are so disparate it can be difficult for the casual fan let alone those of the die-hard ilk to decipher the locale when watching on television.

Let there be no mistake however, that when the TV is turned on to a torrent of red there is little doubt that the St. Louis Cardinals are one of the teams involved. The same goes for Cardinal games on the road. A virtual Red Sea of fans. During the yearly Cardinals series at Petco this Red Sea will often find itself being parted on Tony Gwynn Drive only to reconstitute itself within the confines of Petco Park. Its an ugly sight to find yourself not only vastly outnumbered by the opposition but to see that they have come to a consensus on a common color (red) thus heightening the effect of their presence. I do not like red. I do not like it in our park. I do not like it in the dark. 


Don't wear RED YOU IDIOT PADRE FANS!!!!In front of me to the left was a fan wearing a Padre hat and a BRIGHT RED t-shirt. In front of me to the right was a fan wearing a Padre shirt and a random BRIGHT RED hat. Don't wear RED YOU IDIOTS!!! Even if its not the Cardinals in town.....DON'T WEAR RED YOU IDIOTS!!! For the Love of Scott Brosius, it's a Padres game!!!
Respectfully
A Non-Red Wearing Padre Fan

I'm serious. Don't wear red into Petco Park.....and a giant F-U to the dude decked out in the Russell Martin Jersey and LAtrine hat. F-U!!!

Better Recognize....the SD on my hat!

Long, long, ago I went traipsing through the United Kingdom. While there, I left no stones unturned in England, Scotland and Wales (gross exaggeration). In Wales, I made my way to a ferry and hopped over to Ireland, as well. Through it all I wore my San Diego Padres hat (navy blue with orange and white interlocking "SD"). The mother country is a damp place and the constant precipitation (not to mention perspiration) turned that hat into a dank mess. But I cared not for appearances. I wore my SD with pride. I was representin'!

I wonder how Padres owner Jeffrey Moorad feels about the ol' "SD"? Oh, hey....there's an on-line copy of the San Diego Metropolitan magazine with an article on Padres owner Jeffrey Moorad......I wonder if he has an opinion:

Whenever Jeff Moorad speaks, you’ll see him proudly sporting a new Padres logo: “SD” it reads.
“There aren’t many cities in the country that are known by just their initials,” Moorad told members of Rotary Club of Coronado in April. “There’s LA, NY and maybe SF. We should market San Diego: SD. It’s got great cache around the world.”

Hey there you go, Mr. Moorad! I knew that he and I were simpatico. The "SD" is pretty explicit whereas a hat with an interlocking "CR" (a la the team in Colorado) is a concept that just leaves foreigners dazed and confused, the world over. Alright for the "SD"!

Ever since those days of travelin' around representing San Diego I've started to notice how many different Padre color schemes there are adorning this city's fans. It's a pretty disjointed fan-base and the roots of this disunion seem to have been sown when blue was introduced as a primary color. (click "Read More" to continue)


I suppose it makes sense to choose blue from a marketing standpoint......it's a cool color....people dig it....people buy it. But blue, in and of itself, is antithetical to the idea of a Padre. The monks who would have once been found constructing missions along the coast of what is today California did not cloak themselves in robes of blue but that of the color brown. When the Padres were introduced as the newest National League entrant in 1969 there was brown in the uniform.....and it made sense.....because Padres/Friars/Monks wore robes of brown.

I envision the fans of San Diego arriving at Petco Park all under one banner......that of our team's heritage. One team; one city; one color. I have a feeling that Jeff Moorad feels EXACTLY as I do.......a return to our roots, if you will. Let's see what Mr. Moorad had to say in the SD Metropolitan magazine:

Part of his vision for branding the Padres was to give away 40,000 Padres blue T-shirts on opening day.
“I want the fans to wear blue,” he said, “and for the team to look up and see that support in the stands.”

Uhhh........more blue, eh? No brown? But Padres are......supposed to be.......well, brown. Well [applause] I do like that "SD" concept. Good on ya, Mr. Moorad!

Is the discussion on "Brown" closed? Yes....no.....get back to me. No? Ok.

[cheers to Gaslamp Ball for link]

Avenging Jack Murphy Meets 619 Sports

The two things in this world that I would classify as effed-up repugnant sh*t, are goat cheese and the recording of my voice. I'd like you to experience both, however it's too arduous a task to transmit goat cheese through the internet. You instead get my voice over @ 619 Sports.

Go there and listen to me overuse the type of adjective (silly) that no adult male should ever even use once. I try to give one fan's viewpoint on Padre baseball. One which was first inspired here (The Sacrifice Bunt) and then extrapolated on over here (Gaslamp Ball-but that link is down so try this redirection).

It was fun. It was cool. Then I thought of a bunch of things I should have said after I listened to the podcast. Maybe I'll write about them. Thanks Craig and Chris.....hope the loose association with me doesn't hurt your business.

Avenging Jack Murphy meets 619 Sports [The Podcast]

Donavan Tate Wears Brown and I'm Playin' Ice Cube

This is 1st round draft pick Donavan Tate who signed for millions upon millions of dollars and shrewdly negotiated into his contract that the Padres return to BROWN!!!!

Knowing that the Padres must stock their farm system to compete in the future and hearing today that the Friar FO spent the big bucks to get their 1st, 2nd, and 4th round picks signed makes me think of.........well, Ice Cube of course: "Today was a good day."

The Video [YouTube]
Padres Sign Tate, Williams and Sampson [Padres Rundown]

....and then Padres' CEO Jeff Moorad Described John Moores Blood

Jeffrey Moorad was on XX1090 this afternoon and he talked about a good many things:

1. Firing front office personnel/Economy is not good.
   
2. Why the Padres suck/One day they wont, promise (they have a plan, shhh)!
   
3. An Extension for Bud Black/Would have fired him earlier this season.
   
4. If we fail to sign 1st round draft pick Donovan Tate, it's alright/We'll get compensation next year/Uh-oh, here we go!
   

I'll go ahead and stop. He said a lot of stuff and if you want to listen to it I'll provide a link: Jeffrey Moorad with Darren Smith Thursday July 23rd [XX1090]

Now perhaps I should be thinking about the above talking points or focusing my consternation on the Moorad assertion that the organization WILL INCREASE PAYROLL IN 2010......IF THEY SEE SUPPORT IN 2009......HELL'S BELLS! The team stinks and attendance is down! I guess we know where payroll is going next year.

The above comments are worrisome but really, it was the Moorad quote about John Moores' blood that was the most glaring and deserving of scrutiny:

Darren Smith: "What does John Moores have to say about this team?"
Jeff Moorad: "......he hurts and bleeds Padre Blue just like the rest of us."

Doesn't that just sound wrong? Dodger Blue, yes. Padre Blue, no!

Padres are fucking Brown. Maybe that's where Mr. Moorad should start....by getting this organization an identity.

What say you? Are Padres brown?