By Nick McCann
The Padres’ 2008 season is officially no longer a concern for San Diego Sports fans. Finding a way to make 2009 better is the only thing that really matters at this point.
Next year, the front office will make a few improvements and the disappointing players from this year’s squad that stick around will not feel as bad. This will leave the Padres at the end of next season somewhere around 500, and the organization will be able to sell an “improving young team with a future” all year long. The attendance at Petco will rise, while the Diamondbacks’ young talent will mature. The Padres will not be in the playoffs in 2009 and it will feel like an achievement even though it won’t matter.
However, this time is strange for San Diego because while the 2008 Padres are likely to finish in the bottom 4 of the teams in Major League Baseball, The 2008 Chargers are likely to land in the top 2 or 3 at year's end. Everyone in the world is picking the Chargers to win the AFC West again, half of those people are picking them to go to the Super Bowl, and half of those people are picking them to win it.
The overwhelming adoration from football pundits around the globe towards the San Diego is comforting, but in the back of my head, I feel like they are just looking at our roster on paper and not realizing the simple fact about San Diego in the context of sports: we are a Cinderella city at best. And even if we make it to the ball and put on the glass slipper (or however that worthless story goes), our misguided expectations will probably weigh us down enough to cause the glass slipper to shatter and slice up our feet in 23 different ways.
Sorry, for being negative. 23 is the amount of points the Chargers lost to the 49ers by in Superbowl 29. This Padres season feels like we are re-living the afternoon of that superbowl with every day, week, and disappointing young talent exposed, that goes by.
Training camp has begun!
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