The Countdown is On…
Opening Day is one week from today. At 1:10pm next Thursday, the Padres and Rockies will kick off their 2023 seasons and while I love Spring Training and everything about it…I’m ready. I’m guessing you’re ready, too. Further, I imagine the position players are ready. And some, if not most of the pitchers. But probably not all. And so we wait.
But while we’re still here in Peoria, a couple of other fun Spring things…
With the five exhibitions against the Mariners this year, it’s a good reminder that this is the only time and place where you’ll hear people ask “are we the home team today?” which is always kinda funny.
Pictures circulated on the Padres’ Instagram account the other night of players sitting around a fire pit out in front of the clubhouse area here in Peoria. The kicker, though, is that the fire pit was purchased by Hall-of-Famer Trevor Hoffman, who wanted to help keep the clubhouse staff warm while they cleaned spikes outside during the cold evenings. First—of course he did, because he’s Trevor. Second—he was taking it really seriously. Tony and I passed by him the first night he had it set up and received a very detailed lesson about the wood and all the ways to optimize the flame. Just another piece of evidence that confirms Trevor is the coolest person on the planet.
WBC W-O-W
That was a wonderful tournament and an incredible finish. The Padres were playing the Rockies on Tuesday night, so Tony, DAVE and I were following the championship game best we could while also broadcasting our game.
By the time Yu Darvish came in to pitch the 8th inning, Tony and I were basically broadcasting two games at once, weaving in the action from Miami while staying on top of whatever was happening in Peoria.
The iconic final out—Ohtani striking out Trout on an absolutely filthy slider—actually came between innings of our game so we were standing up and watching in the back of the booth when it happened.
And we were not the only ones keeping track of what was going on in South Florida. Check out this incredible photo from Padres team photographer Matt Thomas of the guys in the dugout watching that final AB:
Baseball players…they’re just like us.
Huge congrats to Yu Darvish on the win and look forward to seeing you soon!
Dave & Emma
I went back and forth on whether I wanted to put this in the newsletter, but the story is too good to pass up.
First, as I’m guessing most of you know by now, comedian/writer/director/great guy Dave McCary is a HUGE Padres fan. He went to Scripps Ranch HS and is a legit diehard. He is also married to Oscar winner Emma Stone, who grew up in Scottsdale, but seems just as invested in the Pads these days as Dave is.
Before the Padres/Rockies game at Salt River last week, those two stopped by the booth, along with Emma’s delightful parents, and Tony and I got to chat with them for about half an hour and it was very, very…very cool.
Anyway! At some point the conversation turned to the famous/hilarious moment in NY last year when they showed Emma on the big screen during what I think was Game 1 of the Wild Card series at Citi Field. She turned to face the camera, smiled, and then pointed to the orange SD on her brown jacket. As you might expect, about 40,000 full-throated boos rained down upon them.
So when we were chatting the other day, I asked for the full story, which they were happy to share and told me I was welcome to use on the air (which I did during that day’s webcast, but if you missed it, here ya go):
Basically, the Mets hooked them up with those primo seats behind the plate and so when they arrived at the ballpark, someone from their office was waiting to greet them and had a bunch of Mets gear for them to put on.
Dave and Emma quickly and politely declined and the Mets person basically said something along the lines of “Oooook, that’s your call, but we ARE going to put you on the big board and you know they’re going to boo you like crazy, right?”
And with big smiles it was acknowledged and accepted and well, now you know the rest of the story. Emma did want to point out that the Mets people were super cool and nice about it all, and just wanted to be sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.
Two of the nicest, most down-to-earth people and Tony and I may or may not have geeked out super hard after they left the booth1.
Must-Read Manny
Along with Kevin Acee, our pal Annie Heilbrunn wrote a really great story last week in the U-T about Manny Machado’s…well, I was going to write “workout regiment,” but that doesn’t do it justice. It’s very much worth your time and includes some previously unknown details about the ankle injury from last June. Basically…a normal guy would have missed two months. Manny was out for 11 games.
Time with Tati
The penultimate episode of “Padres in Peoria” dropped this past week and it included a chat with Fernando Tatis Jr., who was nice enough to walk around the outfield with me and answer some questions.
I think I’ve mentioned in a previous newsletter (and I know I’ve mentioned on the radio) how excited I am to see his arm play in RF and when I brought that up to him, well, his smile would indicate that he is also quite pumped to show it off. Enjoy!
The final episode of the series will release later this week and can you guess which player will close things out for us??
Rules, Rules, Rules
There’s no doubt one of the main MLB storylines this Spring is the slew of new rule changes. We’ve written about them here and discussed them on the broadcast a thousand times already.
And this week, MLB sent what is expected to be the final series of clarifications on the new rules before the season starts.
There are seven points in the memo, six of which involve the pitch timer. You can read all about them here, but a couple that stood out to me:
The clock will no longer be immediately reset when a batter is brushed back or swings so hard he loses his footing and/or helmet
MLB is going to keep a very close eye on bat boys and bat girls and how quickly and efficiently they do their jobs (no pressure!)
When PitchCom malfunctions, teams should now be able to address that without either being assessed an automatic ball or having to use a formal mound visit
And most notable, to me anyway, is that the team at bat can now only challenge an illegally positioned infielder if that’s the guy who makes the play on the ball. So that nightmare scenario we spelled out in a previous newsletter where a fly ball out to the left fielder could be wiped away because the second baseman had his right heel on the OF grass is no longer in play.
Good job, MLB.
HoF
Yesterday, the Padres announced the two newest members of the team’s Hall-of-Fame: 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy and former team owner John Moores.
The induction ceremony will take place before the July 28th game against the Rangers at Petco Park2.
It’s been wonderful seeing Jake around the ballpark a bit more the last couple years. He is an unquestionably great Padre and I imagine if you look back at his numbers, you’ll realize he was even better than you maybe remember.
Certainly a guy you would have liked to see in SD for his entire career, but as we all know, it was a different time in this franchise’s history.
Moores, of course, owned the team from 1994-2012 and oversaw not only four division titles and the 1998 pennant, but also the construction of Petco Park.
Congrats to both men and looking forward to seeing them in July3.
Programming Note
In the first newsletter, I wrote that my general plan was to do this thing once or twice a week during the season. As Spring Training has gone along, once a week has felt about right. I would guess—though I’m not positive—that it’ll be about the same during the regular year, but we’ll see.
Basically: I’ll be sure to (try to) do a newsletter once a week at minimum and we’ll see about anything beyond that. The regular season is obviously more hectic than Spring Training because of the travel, but there’s so much to talk about so I feel pretty confident we’ll be able to pull it off. Thanks for sticking with me as I feel this thing out.
Also, in case you missed any of those first few editions, a reminder that you can read all the back issues right here. Thanks for all of the support—as a reminder—this is free for all—so please tell your friends and family, etc.
One week!!
Guilty
As an aside, I’m so thrilled that the Padres have put more time, effort and money into the team HoF the last decade or so. Celebrating your history is such a big part of being a sports fan and having a formal way to do so is really important, in my opinion.
Btw, how fun is it to think about which guys on the current team are possibly going to be future members of the club? It will likely be a very, very large group.