Greg, We Will Always Love You

By Nick McCann

(Warning: I realize this will be a really stupid post if Greg Maddux ends up staying)

This weekend Greg Maddux pitched really well for seven innings, gave up one run, and lost another game because the Padres can’t hit. Now trade rumors with the Dodgers are heating up again, and it seems very appropriate.

Maddux might never pitch after this season, and he deserves to play on a good team one last time. The Dodgers are not going to win the World Series this year, but they are going to finish the season with every game being important.

It is sad that the Padres are a team (wait, I could stop right here and finish probably the most accurate and complete blog of the season. Well, right now I am in a public library computer lab sitting next to a black guy watching an Alicia Keys video on Youtube. He is bobbing his head, rocking back and forth in his chair, and pumping his fist. I look at him and his eyes say Mind your own business motherfucker, so I do. I love female R&B videos that feature hardcore rappers as non-speaking love interests. This guy is watching one with Method Man where he apparently lets Alicia Keys down in what looks like a severe snow storm. She is crying and fed up. It looks like he isn’t scoring enough runs for her, and she is over it) that leaves its fans (or maybe just me) wanting its rent-a-vet players to be happy in other places.

As a fan, I feel like a person in a relationship who dumps the other person because I know how fucked up I am. This is not a place anyone wants to be. The Pads weren’t happy at Qualcomm, so they tried to fix things by moving their location by pulling, what therapists call, “A Geographic”. Essentially, the Padres were in a new place (Petco) when Maddux came into the picture, but they were in no place to be serious. They were trying to figure things out, and they wanted somebody to go places with, like happy people do. Maddux had been through it before, and he tried, he really really tried. It wasn’t about him.

Greg, we will always have 350. We just want you to be happy.