Looking To The Draft

By Josh Elwell

As a Padre fan desperately trying to keep the faith in the midst of a losing season, the future state of the team is what I’m holding onto. With the least exciting draft in professional sports (baseball’s) coming up on June 5th, what’s on the horizon for the Padres is on my mind more than usual.

Since the only Type A free agent who was offered arbitration, Michael Barrett, stuck around last off-season, the Padres only get their own first round pick, at #23. Even with the mini-turnaround for Kevin Towers’ offense, I’d prefer sticking as the worst team in baseball, and get the #1 pick next year. Who knows? Maybe Matt Bush’s little sister will be available. Just kidding – Matt Bush’s little sister is always available! Ouch!

Even if baseball’s draft is sport’s least exciting, it’s in no way inconsequential. More excitement is put on other drafts – like football – because in baseball, players need time to develop. No matter whom the team drafts, these guys won’t be helping until 2010 and beyond. In football, you can draft a Reggie Bush and turn your franchise around that same year. Tim Beckham, on the other hand, is nowhere close to being a household name, even though he’s the likely #1 pick. (Not that any baseball player becomes a household name…unless he does steroids.)

Looking at our own farm system, we have guys bursting at the seams in AAA, ready to make an impact. By ’09: Chase Headley (LF), Matt Antonelli (2B), and Nick Hundley (C) could be leading our offense with Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Kouzmanoff. Maybe even Will Venable in CF, too.

On top of these position guys, strong pitching waits below AAA, in Matt Latos & Will Inman. These are two guys who could join Peavy and Young in the rotation, by the end of next year. As much respect as I have for Greg Maddux – I’d much rather have Peavy as the veteran in the rotation.

What’s even more exciting is that the future could be soon. Greg Maddux, Trevor Hoffman, Randy Wolf, Brian Giles, Tadahito Iguchi, Michael Barrett and Tony Clark have some heavy (multi-million dollar) contracts being erased this fall. Investing in our youth, plus one or two impact free agents (Adam Dunn, anyone?), could serve the Padres well, moving forward. I wouldn’t mind having Milton Bradley back either. Now that he’s staying healthy and hitting bombs in Texas, maybe he’s reaching his potential. Is it too much to ask Kevin Towers to sign a free agent as he reaches his potential, as opposed to after? Dunn will still be in his 20’s next year, maybe Petco is where he can come to get away from Dusty Baker forcing him to bunt. Bud Black won’t do that to you, Adam, I personally promise. For anyone who missed that random Reds game, after pulling back the bunt, Dunn homered on the next pitch. Take that Baker.

Anyway, even with the recent solo HR parade, watching Towers’ articulately put-together offense struggle this year, forces me to look to the future and hope for the best. With the draft coming up next week, I’m allowed to do that.

I Liked Indiana Jones, But That's Not What This Column Is About

By Joe Chandler

It’s a great time at The Kept Faith. The Padres are terrible and I have a feeling that it directly correlates to the best thing I’ve got going right now. Hockey is having a resurgence and while many of you have been suffering through Albert Pujols injuring Friars willy-nilly, I’ve been watching the greatest show on earth. Nor have I been alone: The first game of the Stanley Cup Finals was the highest rated finals game in several years. The fall of the Padres may seem unrelated to the rise of hockey, but I assure you, it is not.

For the last several years the Padres have been “good.” You’ll notice that good is in quotes, the reality of whether or not the Padres were ever really competitive is questionable. During the Padres run of upper level mediocrity hockey has suffered through a dearth of writers questioning the reason for its existence, a lockout and general lowering of reputation. I’ve of course loyally followed the sport that I grew up loving, much as I followed the Padres through their suffering as a child. While I was following awful Padres teams as a kid, hockey was experiencing unprecedented growth. The playoffs were widely recognized as the most exciting in sports and the ratings were pulling dead even with basketball right around the time I was graduating high school.

Now that the Padres have faltered (in a much more real way than hockey ever has) people have begun to notice how exciting hockey still is. The ratings have gone up and ESPN.com has been running hockey stories on the front page. Sportscentre (that’s how it’s spelled in Canada) has been leading with hockey stories and featuring Don Cherry (he invented Canada). Frankly, it feels like the finals are actually being covered by the mainstream media. The final series features the future of the sport Sidney Crosby (not the next Gretzky (but maybe the next Messier)) versus the Detroit Red Wings, who might be better than they’ve ever been. Things could not be rosier for the National Hockey League and people have stopped looking down their noses at me when I talk about my passion for the game.

There is no way the rise and fall of the Padres and the National Hockey League are not directly linked. The Padres recent “success” was clearly causing the recent “failure” of the NHL, just as the very real failure of the Padres has been pushing hockey into the spotlight. So I invite you to abandon a lost season and watch the last few games of what has been an exceptional hockey playoffs. Channel 7 (in San Diego) is just a few clicks away from Channel 4. The Padres might beat the Nationals tonight, but it won’t matter because Chris Osgood hasn’t given up a goal in the Finals and the Penguins are going to put up a huge fight before giving away the series to the big red machine. Seriously, watch, because you might see something like this:

Indiana Jones and The Canadian Team That Wasn't There

By Nick McCann

Tonight the Padres start a series with the Washington Nationals at Petco Park. I haven’t looked at the entire MLB schedule this week, but I am sure one could make a strong bet that this series is among the worst offerings the sport is putting forward.

Ten years ago, when the Nationals were the Montreal Expos, I would have jumped at the chance to go down and watch the game because the Expos were the single greatest Padre opponents to heckle. If you can get on a roll, making fun of Canada never gets old (especially when you could also make fun of the poor bad team from Canada that basically had the best minor league system run in the last 30 years, only to have it picked apart by the bigger market clubs).

Baseball never worked in Montreal and it will probably never go back there. This last weekend, a lot of people I know experienced something that also never should have been brought back. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull hit the theaters on Thursday, and almost everyone I know saw it, and hated it. Sure, Indiana Jones is far from the Washington Nationals/Expos in the spectrum of quality entertainment, but watching the trailer for that movie, and reading who tonight’s starters are, gave me the same emotional response: I don’t want to see this, because it will never be the same.

Granted, I still haven’t seen the movie, but everything I know about it already pisses me off, and on top of that, I’m pissed off at myself at being pissed off about it. At the end of the day, it is probably just a fun movie that plays to fond memories shared by millions of people my age. But there are three things I already hate about the movie that I know I will not be able to get over: (A) Shia Lebeouf makes me feel like River Phoenix feels today (B) there should never be a repeat love interest in an Indiana Jones movie (although Karen Allen was stunning in her prime) and (C) after the last film, doesn’t Indiana have the ability to live forever? I thought he drank from the cup of Christ, and that meant he was never going to die. Wouldn’t that fact lower the stakes of any dangerous situation he gets himself into, or was that supposed to mean the everlasting eternal life that comes with giving yourself to Christ? What kind of Jew are you Spielberg?

The Indiana Jones movies were not really a saga, so there is no reason to see where the overall story is going. People went to see it last weekend, because they wanted to see Indiana bounce through another adventure and ultimately win. Going in, you know Indiana is always going to win, but you always go back to watching him win because it makes you feel safe. I’m sure if I saw the new film, it would only remind me that I am not a virgin anymore. Think about it, how many people did you know this weekend, who NEEDED to see The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, were also virgins in 1989, the year The Last Crusade came out? This is why most people in our age group hate Steven Spielberg as adults. He is at his best when he is making non-threatening action adventure films that don’t challenge us to stray away from our own childhood innocence. Then when we watch him try to be Stanley Kubrick as adults, we think he is a hack (as we should).

Before I had sex, I spent a lot of time crafting jokes about the Expos. Sure, looking back this is really sad, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the adoration I received from my friends because of my A+ Expo material was a significant confidence booster. In the bleachers behind right field, I was Reggie Miller walking into the Garden just trying to shut Spike Lee up. I was Muhammad Ali, and Larry Walker was my Joe Frazier because I needed him to force me into greatness. Essentially, I was the Indiana Jones of the drunken assholes sitting behind Tony and I hated fellow hecklers who had to curse as much as Indy hated snakes.

The sad thing-besides the current state of the Padres-is that if I actually went to the game tonight, I know I would feel like I belong in a museum. Also, let’s be real, D.C. is a pretty cool town, and I got nothing.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!!!!

We will be back on Tuesday!

It Could Be The Best Worst Season Ever

By Nick McCann

Padres’ pitcher Chris Young left Wednesday's game in the third inning after being hit in the face by a line drive off the bat of St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols. At the time of the injury, the Padres were leading the Cardinals 2-0 after a two-run home run by Adrian Gonzalez in the first inning. Young was then taken to Scripps Hospital in Torrey Pines with a nasal fracture and a laceration on his nose.

And then the Lakers beat the Spurs.

This season is becoming more and more fascinating because we already know it is a train wreck, but we still have a long way to go and more bodies to count in the wreckage. Chris Young is the Padres’ second best pitcher and probably second best player. Now his nose is smashed and there is nothing his Princeton education can do about it.

Where are we going with this disaster? What else can happen that would be bad, but also interesting?

The Top Five Bad Things That Could Happen to the Padres that Would Make The Season More Memorable.

5.
Chris Young Nose Job Night! Everyone who wears medical tape on their nose during Young’s first start back gets two dollars off on their 9-dollar beer. Sorry 7$ beer night, the Padres’ talent on their roster looks and feels like a bad topical comedian, so take a back seat.

4.
The Crucifixion of Kevin Brown Night with a free giveaway of stone throwing stones from The Stone Brewery. He would probably come back three days later and say something like, "I hate Shamu! Give me a Dodger Dog!"

3.
The San Diego Chicken bombs on his only performance of the year. Few people know this but the reason why the The San Diego Chicken, the most groundbreaking pioneer within the mascot genre, was fired by the Padres was because the players, lead by Tony Gwynn, complained that he was stealing from “their” show. AlthoughTony’s show in the late 80s was basically the blueberry scene in Willy Wonka (I had dream once about watching that scene where I was watching it with a bunch of really excited LA Crips), Tony always gets his way. What if the Chicken just came out and tried all of his classic bits and nobody laughed except for Tony sitting in the announcer’s booth? He would probably turn over to Mark Grant and say, “JUSTICE!”

2.
The Padres make a bad trade for Ken Griffey Jr. during this weekend’s series. He is basically Jim Edmonds with a little more pop and he wouldn’t help us at all, but he would allow those of us (me) who grew up in the 90s idolizing The Kid, a chance see him in our home uniform. He would probably complain about the ballpark with the rest of the hacks in the lineup, but with 600 plus homeruns to back him up, I would listen.

1.
Khalil Green has a religious breakthrough during the top half of an inning, takes his clothes off, and walks away from his MLB career. He then goes into the clubhouse and writes a note on his locker that says, this isn’t what I want, but you will see me again. He then travels the world playing baseball in Japan, South America, Europe, and a few pick up games in Africa, all while looking for a common truth within every version of the game. Decades later, at Bruce Bochy’s funeral, a stranger dressed in a black cloak will step forward and reveal himself. It will be Khalil. He will stand there before everyone having not aged or cut his hair, and say, “I found in my travels that striking out too much sucks where ever baseball is played.” Then he will vanish into the night.

A Case For an NBA Team

By Dallas McLaughlin

So, this week I was going to make a new sports minute episode, but I decided that trying to play beer pong every night, going to L.A., San Francisco, and then in turn losing my voice, was a better idea. It was.

WHAT?

I am bummed however; I was in two “rival” sports cities and got no outside opinion on the Padres season. But I think if I did it would have gone something like this: “Excuse me, what do you think of the Padres’ dwindling season going into hell?”
“Who?”
THANK YOU!

So, instead I got to thinking. I have been spending a lot of time watching the NBA playoffs (and wishing they actually aired the NHL playoffs.) because they’ve been kickass! KICKASS! KICKASS! I have never been a big regular season NBA watcher, but this season has gotten me all up in arms about fouls, traveling, horrible acting, and Greg Popovich’s hair doing it’s best to stay down! I have always been a bigger Baseball fan than any other sport, but the NBA is creeping its way into my life as a close second. The storylines! The crime! The cheerleaders! I LOVE THIS GAME.

San Diego has never had itself a reputable NBA franchise and it’s something that has knocked this city into a second tier sports hell long enough. The Rockets went the way of early Mexico and then Bill Walton came to town to destroy Republican views, and the Clippers hopes of competing. Since then, we have had a few attempts at “Pro” Basketball but they have all slowly gone the way of the Buffalo.

My favorite incarnation of this was the ABA’s San Diego Wildfire! Featuring the cheerleading/dance squad known there as the Firestarters and known outside of the arena as the wait staff at Chili’s. My friends and I would frequent the Wildfire games at the Sports Arena that could seat close to 20,000 (these games drew close to 300). We would pay for nosebleeds and walk down to courtside because no one cared. What was so amazing was how we could heckle and the players would hear us – then threaten us – then we’d shut up. But, alas when you draw no fans and become more famous for violence outside the arena rather than your team losing to the Vermont Frost Heaves inside the arena, you go belly up and the fire is no longer wild (It got pretty bad near the end. To the point where at one of the last home games players had duck tape on the back of their jersey’s with their name written in sharpie on the tape).

As a bigger city in America we deserve a top notch NBA franchise! Or at least another shot at one. I mean, even Charlotte has a team and we could draw as many fans as the WNBA right?

RIGHT?

Right now, as San Diego sports fans we are dealing with the possible departure of the Chargers, another terrible season for the Pads, and the fact that the winningest franchise in the our city’s history were an indoor soccer team called the Sockers*! It’s a bleak future and the only way I can see our town’s leaders making it better is by welcoming a new form of mediocrity to our cities scoreboards! We need basketball and basketball needs us! I mean think of all the awesome cut-a-way shots they could do of Charles Barkley at Sea World getting splashed by Shamu during broadcasts! Think of Kobe coming to town (hide your daughters!), and think of that first San Diego Battleships’ (you know that’s what we’ll be called) superstar being hauled off in hand cuffs after driving drunk into a Bennigans!

I LOVE THIS GAME!

So, I am officially putting this issue on the floor. As the campaign for our new Mayor heats up, I want us loyal Kept Faith Battleship supporters to protest and argue and ask the question – why not us? Who cares about who is lying about what Government spending! Tell me when I’m gonna see a lay-up!

THERE, I SAID IT!

Steve Francis for Mayor and you know which Steve Francis I’m talking about. San Diego Battleships 10! We can do this people!

*When I ran spell check it did not recognize the word Sockers and instead gave me the option of changing it to Suckers. It’s like even Microsoft Word knows how much our city sucks at being competitive!

The Final Four Of The NBA

By Nick McCann

There was an explosion yesterday at the new Hilton Hotel being built downtown, Jake Peavy had an MRI on his arm, and the Cardinals kicked the crap out of the worst team in Major League Baseball, our San Diego Padres. As a city, we have had better days.

At lunchtime before the news of the explosion had reached me, one of my non-threatening female co-workers whom I generally like, came up to me while I was scanning over the Padres’ schedule, and asked, “So which game are you going to?” Three seconds after the words left my mouth, I almost regretted telling her to fuck off.

It’s cool, she listens to speed metal and we curse a lot at each other on our breaks.

Although she understood, she knew she had to change the subject, so she started talking about how her boyfriend was really into the NBA and the San Antonio Spurs. I have found that she talks about her boyfriend a lot. They are not living in the same city and at the end of the summer, she will move out to Texas to be with him. Then, they will buy season tickets to see the only major sports franchise in the vicinity of the Alamo, the Spurs (this is crazy to me because they will actually be living in a town that is an hour and a half away from the arena).

I feel no real emotion about her leaving, besides the fact that I have been stealing string cheese from her for four months and she doesn’t seem to have caught on (she actually replaced a girl who I used to steal string cheese from. To be honest, string cheese always tastes better stolen and I rarely eat it any other way). After a few minutes of talking hoops, I decided to lie to her and tell her that I was rooting for the Spurs.

I love that about the NBA. I don’t have to care who wins and I get to root along with people who do care within all the many circles I belong to in my life. There are four teams left and I can root for all of them with different people.

I will root for the Spurs at work because I love stolen string cheese. I will root for the Boston Celtics because I have a Kevin Garnett jersey and my girlfriend is from Boston. I will root for the Lakers because I consider their point guard, Derek Fisher, to be a true friend even though I have never met him, and I generally adore watching Kobe and his storyline develop. And last, I will root for the Pistons because my old college roommate and I can only agree on one thing, we both love Rasheed Wallace for four reasons (A) he was, and probably still is, a productive pothead (B) he truly believes that he is a slave to the man because the NBA is generally evil (even though NBA players are by far the highest paid athletes on the planet) (C) he has a legendary badass temper that he can’t control and (D) he is a very knowledgeable hockey fan from Philly.

I love this game because I don’t have to love any one thing about and it’s almost like I get to be in a one sided relationship that is all about me where nobody gets hurt.

The Kept Faith officially endorses not caring about who wins the NBA Championship, because not caring helps right now.