An Ode to Padres Fans

It must be really hard to be a Padres fan.

In 44 seasons, the Friars have posted just 14 seasons above .500 and have lost 100 games 5 times. Going into this season, the Padres were 511 games under .500 all-time.

Since moving into gorgeous Petco Park in 2004, fans have been mixed on the team’s ability to keep star players and stay consistently competitive. This Yelp! review is probably indicative of the feelings of a lot of Padres fans. For a city that is comfortable in the shadow of Los Angeles, the fans are decidedly not comfortable with a team that will always play third to the Dodgers and Giants when it comes to National League teams in California.

Carlos Quentin was at the center of the baseball world this weekend — for all the wrong reasons. By Dirk Hansen (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

This year, the Padres’ outlook is as bleak as ever. They have lost any star power they had over the past few seasons and their roster is markedly bereft of even a single superstar. Adrian Gonzalez, maybe their best player over the past 5-10 years, now plays for the Dodgers. The same Dodgers whose owners have to be the envy of every Padres fan who has been through the ownership tumult that the dads have been through.

Which sets the stage for the travesty that happened last week at Petco.

Carlos Quentin is the Padres’ highest-paid player. He signed a three-year, $27 million contract at the beginning of this year. Quentin, a San Diego native, is a good player when healthy. He has four seasons of 20-plus home-runs and was coming back home to San Diego. The problem is that, mostly due to injury, Quentin has only played over 100 games three times in his seven seasons leading to this year. Part of the reason he gets injured is because he gets hit a lot — the most in the majors over the recent past. For a team that won’t contend this season, a good clubhouse guy with some savvy with Quentin’s credentials might be worth something like the $9 million he’ll average over the next three years.

On Thursday night, though, Quentin proved he is not that guy when he charged the mound on Zack Grienke after being hit by a 3-2 pitch with no outs in a 1-run game. In a situation that nobody would hit anyone on purpose, Quentin took a graze to his armored elbow personally and ended up breaking Grienke’s collar bone.

An aside about why it was all Quentin’s fault

I’ve heard many people talk about how Grienke was as culpable as Quentin for his broken collar bone. This is a decent article by Ken Rosenthal about it. Here are a few real comments I’ve heard and here are a few of my thoughts.

Grienke should have turned his back. Or had different body language. If he would have shown different body language, it would have been different.

What kind of backwards psychology is this? Is Grienke supposed to not pitch inside because he’s worried about Quentin’s thin skin and his feelings? I just don’t understand.

And who turns their back? Seriously. I wish Grantland or someone would get a video clip together of every batter who was hit last year and the 3-5 second afterwards. Seventeen of these instances would involve Quentin, by the way. I bet less than 30 percent of pitchers make any move to say “sorry.” I don’t think saying sorry is the norm (whether it should be, like in Japan, is an interesting question). I also believe that most of these HBPs were probably worse than Quentin’s on Thursday. Somebody put that video together already!

He shouldn’t have gone shoulder to shoulder

When I first saw the collision, I didn’t think much of it. I thought that, like most baseball fights, it was much ado about nothing. Clearly, neither guy knows how to fight. I wonder how many times Grienke has been charged. I wonder how many mounds Quentin has dashed toward? These would all help people understand this a little better.

Carlos Quentin is a punk…

OK, those weren’t exactly the words, but I’ll put this here verbatim from a former Pac-10 catcher who played against Quentin while he was at Stanford:

We are playing Stanford and they were smashing us. I’m catching, freshman pitcher on the mound. Coach calls for us to drill him. I give the pitcher the sign, he throws a strike on the inside corner. Give it again, fastball inside, fouled off. 3rd time, jams him, pops him up. My coach was pissed at me because he thought I wasn’t giving him the sign.

Why he was a guy the coach wanted to hit? The response was that he was the cockiest player on a cocky team. I don’t think I’m super on-board with college guys playing bean-ball, or having a specific sign to hit the batter, but the story was interesting. Let me put it this way, it wasn’t the first time Quentin has been hit by a pitch.

In the end, I believe that if you want to assign about 10-15% of the blame on Grienke, fine. He pitches inside, he’s hit the guy twice before. Situationally, I do not believe he meant to hit him this time.

Good Fansmanship should prevail

So I’m going to put myself in Padres fans’ shoes for a minute. I went to college at UC San Diego and spent over a year as an intern at a local sports radio station there, so I don’t think I’m completely guessing here. Somewhat like the Giants and San Francisco

If I was them, I would be embarrassed. I would hate the fact that my highest-paid player tried to settle a score that dates back to a different year in a different league. In a season the Padres almost certainly will not contend, this will be the most publicity the team will get. If I was a Padres fan, I would be somewhat ashamed. I know what shame is — I’ve been a Dodger fan through the McCourt regime.

Here’s a twitter conversation I had with a Padres fan I respect regarding the incident.

@owenmain NO…bothered initially when I heard what happened (his knees) yet when I saw the video – Greinke was showing him up in some way

— Ernie Martinez (@ErnieXtra1360) April 15, 2013

@owenmain Dodgers claim he crowded the plate – that @bat he was not. I don’t condone brawl – good to see Padres react every once in awhile

— Ernie Martinez (@ErnieXtra1360) April 15, 2013

@owenmain I said this Friday – Its like lil bro dunking on big bro – W’s & Ls matter, yet so do other things in the game.

— Ernie Martinez (@ErnieXtra1360) April 15, 2013

I understand that when you think of your team as tough and blue-collar, a little fight isn’t a bad thing to see in them. If I was a Padres fan, I could almost understand that mentality.

Almost.

Baseball is a LONG season. It’s a sport where little victories can feel really great. Maybe Quentin had a little victory in the satisfying sound of Grienke’s collar bone snapping or in getting years of pent-up frustration out. But it wasn’t good for the Padres. It made them look worse than they already do.

To still root for a team like the Padres is admirable. I have respect for Padres fans. They are usually pretty easygoing and good times — a lot like San Diego itself. But do not tell me that what Carlos Quentin did was good for anyone or anything. It wasn’t.

So I’m going to say this and then leave it alone:

If anything happens with the Dodgers or their fans in terms of retaliation, I’ll be embarrassed. I’ll be sad that the team I root for cares more about a petty cockfight than the whole season. I will be ashamed if fans at Dodger Stadium do anything to embarrass themselves. All Dodgers fans should want is for their team to take care of business and beat-up on the Padres on the field.

Because, by the end of the season, everyone else will have. It could mean the difference between making the playoffs or not. Isn’t that the goal?