Ink Tea Stone Leaf

It’s America’s pastime, no matter what anybody says. Baseball is the sport that has always suited my sensibilities, and while I never had much talent for it myself I’ve always kept an eye on it, increasingly so for the past five years.

We’re now approaching the end of this year’s regular season and the beginning of the playoffs, where everything customarily gets crazy-go-nuts and the drama of the game approaches maximum tension. At this inflection point I have some thoughts, most of which don’t have very much to do with each other, but I’ll try my best to tie them together and illustrate the weave of baseball thoughts that currently whir around my brain. Let’s take them one by one, before we dive into that peculiar beast that is baseball-in-October and everything that is unexpected can be expected to happen.

For real, it could be the Padres’ year

Having grown up in San Diego county, I am naturally a Padres fan. Having spent most of my adult life in Oregon, where there are no MLB teams (more on that later), I have clung to the Padres as my team for life, a team I will occasionally buy merch from and have it shipped a thousand miles to my door. Though there are currently five MLB teams that play their home games closer to my house, they are not the teams for me. However, as I have been told by local sports enthusiasts when revealing my baseball allegiance, supporting such a team is “an interesting choice.”

The Padres are known for serving a relatively small market (most of Southern California is Dodger country) and for being the oldest team in MLB to have never won the World Series. They have been within reach of that glory just once in my lifetime; in 1998, they were handily defeated by the Yankees in only four games. Being denied by New York at the highest level was a common experience for most teams in those days, but it has always bothered me that the most successful season our team ever had became a mere footnote in the annals of Yankee dynastic history.

In 1998, the Padres won 98 games and were first in the National League West. This year, 26 years later, they’ve won 92, with a decent probability of adding two more in the last two games of the season, against the Arizona Diamondbacks. They’re only second in their division, but they made it close, and they secured their appearance in the playoffs by beating the Dodgers (the number one team) in stunning fashion. Watch this triple play, it’s so beautiful:

Judging only by games won, the 2024 Padres are not quite the best Padres that ever were. Still, this is a vast improvement over 2023, when they finished the season only two games above a win loss ratio of 0.500 and spent most of their time significantly under it. This particular combination of players, however, has demonstrated that they are more driven and more ambitious than the slightly different combination that played last year. They’ve got the likely winner of this year’s National League batting title on their team in Luis Arráez, just as in 1998 they had Tony Gwynn, who didn’t quite win the title that year but had won it the previous four years straight. They’ve got Jackson Merrill, a very strong contender for rookie of the year who certainly does not play like a rookie. They’ve got many other powerful bats in the hands of superlatively talented position players, and they have played very well alongside one another even when one or more of them is having a streak of bad luck. They’ve got a very strong pitching staff, including Dylan Cease, who threw the Padres’ second-ever no hitter this year. They fight back when they’re behind and they make bold plays.

So despite the fact that I’ve spent many more years bemoaning their mediocrity than celebrating their excellence, this feels like a team that could go all the way, if the wind blows right and they keep the faith. They felt that way in 2022 as well, in a playoff tournament that was among the most memorable in memory. They knocked out the Dodgers (who had won 111 games that year), a goose was involved, and everybody had a great time. The Padres didn’t quite measure up to the Phillies the next week and missed their chance to play in the World Series, but like I said: it’s all about where and when the wind is blowing. They’ve earned another spot in the playoffs, and all the faithful of the Friars are hungry to see what they can do with this one.

How about that Shohei Ohtani, huh?

As a Padres fan, my natural inclination is to curse the Los Angeles Dodgers for their successes, and likewise to celebrate their misfortunes, particularly when we excel at their expense. After the end of last year’s season, I cursed them mightily for acquiring Shohei Ohtani as he finally escaped from the albatross around his neck that was playing for the Angels. There was never a great chance that the Padres would be the team to claim his services, but watching him become a Dodger was painful because, like most fans of the game, I really like watching Ohtani play, and I like watching him win.

I count myself lucky to have seen Ohtani play in person, from way up in the high seats at Petco Park with my wife when we were visiting San Diego last summer. He was with the Angels then, and the Padres had one of their fleeting successes of that difficult year by winning all three games in the series. It was a huge relief to watch the Padres win after traveling all that way to see them, but it was also a little bit of a letdown to see how effectively our pitchers kept him in check that day. I joked with Ariele that I wanted to see the Padres win by a lot, because I also wanted to see Ohtani hit a home run.

Now that he’s with the Dodgers, who play the Padres much more frequently than the Angels do, I’ve had more chances to see what’s so special about this guy on TV. While I’m glad that he still doesn’t seem to dominate Padres pitchers quite as completely as he does most others, he’s still been nothing short of incredible. He’s second behind Arraez for the NL batting title, and it’s close; he leads the NL in home runs, and it’s not close. As of this writing he’s hit 54 home runs and also stolen 57 bases, which is not a thing that most people thought a person could do in a single season. I’m not saying he’s definitely going steal three bases and hit six home runs in his two remaining games to make it an even 60 and 60, but given the kind of performance he had in the game where he passed 50 and 50 for both stats, I’m not saying he definitely won’t. And even though it would probably mean two more wins for the Dodgers, it would be really, really cool.

Ohtani is also an extremely talented pitcher, which was vanishingly rare among power hitters even before both leagues decided that pitchers didn’t have to bat anymore. He wasn’t pitching in the game I saw him in last year, and he hasn’t pitched all year this season, as he recovers from surgery. However, I did watch him pitch on TV for Team Japan in last year’s World Baseball Classic, so I know that tales of this magnificent two-way player are not mere rumor. Word has it that his taking the mound in the playoffs this year is not completely out of the question, and all I can say about that is that the poetry would write itself.

I want to see legendary play. Everybody wants to see legendary play. Nobody wants this more than Shohei himself, who has never been to the playoffs, and having found himself a spot on a capable team is now storming into October as an unstoppable force unto himself. The problem is that he’s a Dodger, and despite my great respect for this incredible player, I want nothing more than to watch the Padres do again to the Dodgers what they did back in 2022: knock them out in an earth-shattering upset. I need this man to fail, or at least not succeed enough to put his team over the edge in a five game series. If he could stay off the mound and rest his pitching arm, that would be just lovely. And maybe if we could get some more geese on the field…

Chicago’s having a bad time

At the very least, the South Side is having a bad time. I understand the Cubs have done respectably this year.

Last weekend, the Padres played three games against the Chicago White Sox, winning all three. The Sox’s third loss in the series was their 120th in the season. Since then they’ve lost one more (and only one more, after a surprising three wins against the Angels, who probably feel very embarrassed about that), bringing them to 121 losses and establishing a new record for baseball failure. The last major league team to lose more than 120 games did it in 1899, which is so long ago that it basically does not count (the American League didn’t even exist yet, among other things). The modern benchmark of 40 wins and 120 losses was of course established by the Mets in 1962, and they were bad. Really, really bad.

Going into that series, the Padres were still gunning to guarantee themselves a spot in the playoffs, and still had a realistic chance of even passing the Dodgers to win the NL West. Both of those things depended, at least in part, on winning as many of the three games in the White Sox series as possible. More than that, the potential shock of losing even one game to a team that was on track to set a new record of losses seemed so devastating that we could scarcely contemplate it. Ariele and I agreed that a sweep was not only desirable, but critical.

Watching the games, I have to give the White Sox credit: they did not roll over and resign themselves to an infamous fate. The first game was decided in the 10th inning. They kept it closer than was comfortable in the other two. They, and particularly their starting pitchers, forced the Padres to play hard. Alas for Chicago, their incredible display of heart was also a display of some astonishingly bad play, like when Miguel Vargas tried to catch an extremely catch-able pop fly and simply did not.

The Padres needed those wins as badly as the White Sox needed to not lose, and we cheered our team on, even as it struck me that we were effectively rooting on the White Sox to lose like none had lost before. It didn’t seem sporting of us on reflection, but I had to admit to the darkness in my heart: I wanted the White Sox to lose 120 games; I wanted them to lose more than 120 games; I took pride in the fact that the Padres hastened their way to this doom; I wanted their final record to reflect a level of badness that was truly historic, worth remembering in the full scope of its tragedy.

To White Sox fans, I must say, I am sorry for wanting these things. You don’t deserve this. Padres fans, however, deserve a World Series, and there was no room to show mercy.

If a silver lining for the Sox exists, even at this bitter end, it’s this: they have two games left, and 39 wins to their record. If they somehow prevail against the Tigers in these last two games (and as of writing this paragraph, they’re up 2-0 in the 8th!), they will have a final record of 41 and 121, meaning they will have both lost more games and won more games than the 62 Mets. That’s one for the books.

Oakland, somehow, is having a worse time

As of the last few years, the MLB schedule has required that every team face every other team at least once in the regular season. Back in the 90s, however, regular season games between the National and American Leagues was still a novelty. I remember going to one such inter-league game as a child, when the Oakland Athletics came to San Diego; I don’t remember who won.

The A’s didn’t have a great season this year. Their record wasn’t White Sox bad; they lost fewer than 100 games. They have lost something worse, however: their home in the city of Oakland. The A’s have now played their last game at the stadium they’ve occupied since 1968, a game they won, affording them perhaps one last moment of dignity before they face the next stage of their history.

It doesn’t look to be a promising stage. They are supposed to move to Las Vegas, but they don’t yet have a stadium to play in there. So in the meantime, they’ll be playing ostensibly Major League games in a Minor League ballpark in West Sacramento, presumably because West Sacramento is not Oakland, and god forbid they spend another few years in Oakland, as for the next few seasons it seems they have determined to play without any city’s name. A’s fans (and most other interested parties) have almost unanimously blamed the team’s owner, John Fisher, for not only abandoning their city but for spending decades degrading the team’s quality and destroying its relationship with its supporters and with the city. Screw that guy.

Interestingly, it appears that the effort to move the A’s to Las Vegas was opposed by Peter Seidler, the late owner of the Padres, who reportedly attempted to organize other owners to block the move before he suddenly died last year. How hard Seidler tried and how likely he would have been to succeed is impossible for me to know, but it’s nice to think that somebody cared, and that this somebody had at least a chance to move the needle.

I happen to hold the opinion, which I understand to be somewhat fringe, that professional sports clubs should be publicly owned; that is, they should be the property of the people of whatever city or state they claim to represent. I don’t like the idea that some chucklehead billionaire or corporation can uproot something that is a core part of a place’s culture without the people’s consent, all for the sake of short term profits. If somebody could kick Fisher to the curb and hand the A’s back to their city, that person would be a true hero. Unfortunately, nobody who cares enough to keep the A’s in Oakland today has the power to do more than write an editorial or wave a sign on TV.

The Oakland A’s lasted for 56 seasons, and won four World Series titles in those years. If this can happen to them in this day and age, it can happen to any team, no matter how ensconced they are in their home setting, no matter how well they are doing right now. The future is inherently uncertain, but it just isn’t right that fans have no recourse to preserve their team if they want it.

In all the home games I’ve watched this year, the Padres have managed to pack the house, repeatedly selling out at Petco Park. When I’ve watched the away games, I haven’t failed to notice that the stands in other teams’ parks are usually much emptier. It warms my heart that the city of San Diego loves and believes in its baseball team, and I like to think that they’ll continue even when the years grow lean, as they have been lean before. Reading about what has happened to the A’s, however, fills me with a quiet dread.

As for the A’s, I have a modest suggestion for a more honorable way forward. Las Vegas, having already poached Oakland’s football team, hardly deserves to claim the A’s as well. If a series of unfortunate events should derail the effort to build a stadium on the Strip, and if all the bridges back to Oakland are well and truly burnt, might I suggest the team turn its eyes to the north? There is a growing possibility that Portland, Oregon could become the home of a Major League baseball team. Everybody expects it would be a brand-new expansion team, but why not welcome instead the arrival of the Portland Athletics?

Let me just say that if the A’s were playing in a proper stadium that was a mere train ride from my house, I could become at least a part-time A’s fan. The Padres are National League and the A’s are American League, so short of an improbable World Series match-up, there would be little potential for conflict. I believe the people of Portland, and Oregon more generally, would treat the A’s well.