In September, at a Padres game, the team played a video between innings to pass the time. They asked players to say who, in the world, they would want to be just for a day. Jackson Merrill said he would want to be his teammate, Manny Machado, so he could see what it’s like to pick on someone rather than be picked on. Machado said Michael Jordan.
Fernando Tatis Jr. said the soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Arraez said Lionel Messi.
Then came Yu Darvish, the pitcher. Darvish had been out for seven weeks, not because of injury but because of a family situation. He is intensely private, and it was a mystery. The team was so important to him, he had declined his salary during the leave, even, reportedly, when the team’s general manager offered to pay him.
For the video, he said he would want to be his daughter for a day.
“She has a different personality than me. She’s really sociable, always energetic, always smiling. I would love to see how she views the world,” he said in Japanese.
It was moving but also kind of heavy. For a one-minute, throwaway piece of content, the Padres media team and Darvish had rocked me. Making compelling content is not easy. Making a 20-second spot that I’m still thinking about several months later is powerful art.
It felt like yet another example, however tiny, of how the team had decided to pursue excellence and unique experiences in every corner of its operations. Padres executives have relentlessly sought to create something special. They embraced unique uniforms and local, binational culture. I can’t imagine a better experience, from food to ambiance at any stadium in the country.
We have so few excellent community spaces in San Diego, the Padres felt like one of the few institutions in San Diego that were not just trying to succeed but were willing to risk everything to become truly great.
This push came starting in 2015, when the new ownership group came in, first stewarded by Ron Fowler. When he gave way to Peter Seidler, the chairman of the ownership group since 2020, the Padres began investing eye-popping amounts of money in the players and experience at Petco Park. It wasn’t just about investing in players and getting better at baseball, Seidler and his team were taking unique risks. The Padres were competing with the Dodgers and Yankees as big spenders and Seidler was making other owners uncomfortable. And the team was investing a lot in Petco Park.
Every aspect, from the in-stadium announcer to the social media crew, to the broadcasters was the best quality. It was a bet on San Diego, that we would love having a truly great team and company.
The risk-taking, the commitment to excellence, the thrill of building something that was energizing the entire city. It felt special. It felt inspiring – it made me want to do great things. It made the city proud.
They still haven’t won a championship but it at least remains an accomplishment we can legitimately imagine happening. At a time of darkness in downtown San Diego, especially after the pandemic, the Padres were a light.
And that’s why the news this week that the heirs to Seidler’s fortune are fighting about who should control the team is uniquely ominous. Is this the end of what the Padres were building?
After the game where I saw the Darvish video, yet another euphoric event at Petco Park, I wanted to write about all this. I wanted to capture how well things were going and how much of an inspiration — as an institution — I thought the Padres were. But I lost my energy for it. Padres CEO Eric Greupner was too busy to talk. (It probably didn’t help that we had been pestering them about nonprofits running their concession stands and paying people under the table and below minimum wage. I’d still like them to address it even if it is a vendor.)
Writing a big piece oozing with praise for how well something is going is hard for me. I always worry that a delicious meal or great vacation is going to end as much as I enjoy it in the moment. I held off.
When Sheel Seidler, Peter Seidler’s widow, sued Peter’s brothers this week, I felt sad that turned out to be a prudent move. This could get ugly.
On the one side: Sheel Seidler has positioned herself as the caretaker of her late husband’s legacy with the team. She has shared the many well-wishes that have come in from her fans in #teamsheel. To them, she represents Peter and they loved Peter.
She knew the complaint would be public and the plea to the public is pretty explicit.
“The family atmosphere Peter and Sheel created together at the Padres was a significant selling point to signing players, and was a valuable part of the identity of the Padres and something that set it apart from other Major League teams,” the complaint reads. She wants control of the team.
She has accused Peter’s brothers of essentially stealing her assets.
On the other side: The brothers denied all her allegations. They said she long ago swore she would not pursue this option and that she wasn’t qualified and Peter had left them in charge.
“She may be disappointed that Peter did not designate her as the trustee of his trust, name her as the Padres’ Control Person, and/or give her the right to approve the Control Person. Had Peter intended any of these things, he could have easily made that intention clear in the governing documents, which he amended for other matters several times before and after he became Control Person in 2020,” they wrote.
Inheritance battles are bad news. Besides love, is there anything humans have fought more viciously about than what happens after a person with a lot of stuff dies? And that’s what’s scary about this one. Even if you believe, as many do, that Sheel Seidler is taking the side of San Diego, taking the torch Peter Seidler held when he died and that she is the one best capable of keeping this success going, you must acknowledge the ominous potential of this fight.
It could last years. It could create side disputes. It could paralyze the incredible run of investment the Padres have been on, from players to improvements to Petco Park. What kinds of investments could one of the parties in the fight compel a court to halt?
Every successful enterprise must have clear leadership. Even if you trust the executives who work for ownership, will they want to work for an ownership in chaos? Will they have to pick sides? Will they be patient with that?
Look at the Denver Broncos, among the NFL’s most successful franchises. When owner Pat Bowlen, struggling with Alzheimer’s, relinquished control of the team 10 years ago, the momentum of his leadership led to a few successful seasons. But his heirs fell into a vicious dispute. The NFL finally pushed them to sell but not before many years of instability.
This is a family dispute, like countless before it. And it’s been going on privately, apparently, since Peters’ death and only erupted in public when that could no longer be avoided.
Now it’s public. It’s also a public concern. Aside from the team and everything we love about baseball, the Padres are in charge of one of the biggest developments in San Diego on former city land. They still lease Petco Park from the city. They are crucial to our community.
It’s a public dispute about an intensely private institution. Padres staff won’t even say how the team’s ownership structure works.
Unfortunately for their instinct to stay private, the Seidlers will have to deal with the fact that their brother gave us a glimpse of how cool it is when they pursue excellence and take risks to do great things.
We are not interested in seeing it do anything else.
