The Man Behind The Curtain

By Nick McCann

Last night the Padres evened the series against the Cubs with clutch hitting from Khalil Greene, and some bright moments from their new breathe of fresh air, Jody Gerut. Jim Edmonds has been gone for almost a week and it feels like it was the right move (opposed to starting a centerfielder who can’t walk).

However, this morning when I looked on MLB.com for extra info on the game, I noticed that Jim Edmonds is still on the All Star Ballot. When you turn to the Padres recap section of that mega site, you see all of San Diego’s candidates listed out with their faces next to their names, and Mr. Ed, our favorite disappointment of the month, is right there among them.

Ultimately, the universal complaining that comes along with the All-Star Game every year makes the game, and the build up to it, unbearable: The media thinks the fans are stupid, the players think the fans are stupid, but they can say it, and the fans believe they are legitimate evaluators of talent, even though they will probably vote Ken Griffey in this year again because he was so cute when you used to take BP with his helmet on backwards in 1993 (I will be one of these people).

A huge part of me wants to see Jim Edmonds voted in the game this year. Not because it would be ironic and completely fucking rad to celebrate a huge mistake made by a front office that keeps itself interesting by making interesting mistakes, but because if he made it, the national baseball audience would catch a glimpse of what is going here. Jim Edmonds basically signed a contract and then went on the DL before the ink was dry. He missed spring training, and when he had enough time to heal from his injury (I guess), he had no bat speed, and he couldn’t run.

A bad signing is a bad signing, but has anybody noticed that there has been absolutely no talk of firing Kevin Towers from the front office? This should be a deal breaker if he is the real reason for the moves being made.

If you look at the All Star Ballot, you will notice that there is only one Padre, which was drafted by the Padres, eligible for this years' midsummer night’s dream, developed by the Padres. Khalil Greene is the only one and he is hitting in the low 200s.

Kevin Towers should be fired at the end of the season, but he probably won’t be because he is not the one calling the shots. Who is this Sandy Alderson? Why did he not fire Kevin Towers when he came on board a few years back? Usually when a new president comes in, they fire everybody and fill positions with people they can control. Sure, Boch is gone, but Kevin has stayed and made moves that don’t seem plausible for someone who is widely considered to be one of the top baseball minds in the business. Is this because he loves San Diego and he doesn’t want to move his family? Did the man who has dished out the San Diego discount for over a decade take one himself?

At the end of the Wizard of Oz, we finally find out who the man behind curtain is, and we realize that every thing about the Wizard was a lie. After moving into Petco Park, padre fans should be able to say, “We aren’t in Kansas City anymore,” but this year we all know that the Royals are going to give us one hell of a series.