I’m not sad. I’m just disappointed. I honestly believed the Padres had one of the best playoff teams in the postseason. They proved me right, for the most part, but I truly believed they would go to the World Series. I didn’t think they had enough for the Astros, but maybe the Phillies do. Congratulations to them both on making it to the big stage. I wish it were the Padres.
Being a baseball fan is tough. It’s a humbling sport and it crushes the dreams of every player, front office, owner and fan base save one each year. Being a Padres fan is even tougher. Never seeing your team hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy for fifty-four seasons is brutal. And yet I can’t wait for next season.
I predict the Padres will be back to the postseason next year. I also believe they will be even better. I trust AJ Preller to build up this roster and I trust Peter Seidler to provide the resources to allow Preller to do so. I look forward to the return of Fernando Tatis Jr. And I expect him to be a huge contributor to the team’s success. I’m not sure if I trust Bob Melvin to lead this team to a championship, but hope Preller builds him a team so strong that even Melvin can’t sleep through a losing effort. Think autopilot, AJ. Bob is a regular season manager. Get him the weapons needed to win a championship despite his loyalty to a fault shortcomings.
I’ll spend the off-season debating potential moves on Twitter. It’s a stupid habit, but one I can’t seem to break. I’ll babysit Miss Scarlett, and she’ll be right there with me when Spring Training kicks off. Some might say raising her to be a Padres fan is cruel when we live in Houston and the Astros are right there. They are one of the best teams in baseball! She could have so much fun! Well maybe she will pick her local squad one day. She is a native Houstonian, so she might switch allegiance. But fandom is fickle. Sometimes you love something because that is what your Pop taught you. Or cursed you with, I can’t tell the difference. Either way, I hope she loves this silly sport as much as I do.
Gwynntelligence 
I absolutely empathize with you. I’ve been a Padre fan since I was about 10 years old, living in Northern California for nearly all my years. My old man was not what I would call, a Padre fan. While he was SD based but, he was barely a casual baseball fan. Lots of the fam was from down that way though and I loved playing ball, reading about baseball, looking at box scores, tracking the greats of the era (late 80’s), and also loved mimicking my favorite batting stances (Batting Stance guy on Twitter stole my jam but good on him for riding that shtick to Twitter celebrity status).
I became glued to Tony Gwynn’s remarkable consistency and character so and with lots of family living in the SD area, would eventually decide the Padres were my team.
Now I’m a dad of two beautiful girls, 1 1/2 and 4 1/2 and still living in Northern California. So I too will either encourage them the easy life of being a dreaded giants fan, with World Series rings in the not too distant last, local friends and a robust fan base surrounding them and all that entails. Or the isolated, somewhat lonely, and often times frustrating life as a Padre fan living away from SD. It’s tough but I cannot ignore how awesome it is hearing my oldest say “Go Padres!” while wearing the brown and gold.
Time will tell, for the both of us.
Great post, thanks.
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Thanks!
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