If you open Wednesday’s San Diego Union-Tribune and turn to the sports section, you’ll see that the top 80+% of the front page is devoted to Barry Bonds’ passing of Hank Aaron on the all-time home-run list. Although Bonds’ achievement — regardless of how he may have gotten there — is impressive and newsworthy, the Giants don’t call San Diego home and are a complete non-factor in a very tight NL West race.
The Padres, who do call San Diego home and who shut out the Cardinals to pull to within a game of first-place Arizona, are relegated to a mere footnote. The entire bit above the fold is a (terrific) photograph of Bonds about to connect with the record-breaking homer, followed by a giant (Giant?) headline that reads, “Move Over, Hank.” If you were a stranger to San Diego and glanced at this morning’s paper, you might not even realize there is a big-league baseball team here.
I have no real problem with honoring Bonds, but for a local newspaper to do so at the expense of the team it’s supposed to be covering disgusts me. People will say that the home-run record transcends any pennant race, but I don’t buy it. Not here, not now. The Padres are one game out with 50 remaining, and local citizens deserve the best coverage possible of their team; instead they are treated to a painfully detailed account of one man’s actions as his team solidifies its status as the only irrelevant one in the division.
Padres fans deserve better than that. San Diegans deserve better than that. Everyone deserves better than that.
by Peter Friberg
The staff over at MadFriars.com visit each of the Padres’ minor league teams a few times every season. Each time they make a visit, we’ll ask a few questions and get their perspective on various topics germane to that team. By the way, if you like Padres’ minor league coverage, you must check them out at MadFriars.com.
This latest installment is from John Conniff, who recently returned from the Padres High-A affiliate, Lake Elsinore [Ed note: Due to my travels, I wasn't able to run this as soon as I would have liked; just pretend it's still the last week in July.]:
PPR: You and I have both seen the reports; some experts say Kyle Blanks has surprisingly little pop for a man his size, others say he projects to be at least a “70″ power guy. What really do the Padres have their hands on in Blanks?
MF: I believe many of these reports were based on what he did last year in Fort Wayne as opposed to what he is doing now in Lake Elsinore. He’s already has more extra base hits with the Storm than he did in his first two years of pro ball.
When speaking with Blanks, he claims he’s not doing anything dramatically different, but is recognizing pitches better and being more aggressive in hitters counts. I know this is not a whole lot to go on, but the simple fact is he’s 6’6″, at least 285 lbs. and when he takes a normal non-tentative swing the ball is going to go far.
He’ll be in San Antonio next year and the Padres are going to have to look into giving Blanks a little bit of time in the outfield with Adrian Gonzalez entrenched at first base in San Diego. We talked to the Padres earlier in the season about it and they seemed a little hesitant to do this, but Blanks may be the best right-handed hitter they have in the organization and in my opinion he has to prove that he can’t play in the outfield before becoming trade bait. With Blanks’ athleticism, arm and speed, I’m a little surprised they haven’t already tried this.
PPR: David Freese is a personal favorite, I think because I was the first person riding that bandwagon. I mentioned Blanks above and of course the Padres have Gonzalez and Kevin Kouzmanoff entrenched at first and third base, as well as several other players I loosely call “corner bats.” Where does Freese fit into that mix?
MF: Good question, but I think we’re going to see this become a bigger issue next year when both are a little closer to the majors at Double- and Triple-A. Chase Headley, as everyone knows, is having a big year, but Freese has been very solid as well, particularly in improving his OBP while maintaining his power. His defense has also been good; the man has a cannon at third. Right now I would give him a slight nod over both Headley and Kouzmanoff defensively.
I think the best indication of how good Freese has been may be in what you mentioned on Saturday night. If you add together Freese’s compilation statistics from last year and the first two months of this year he has the following between Eugene, Fort Wayne and Lake Elsinore:
458 AB, 39 2B, 21 HR, 107 RBI
You put together those numbers, you’re always going to be in the conversation.
It think the Padres have Matt Antonelli penciled in as their second baseman in 2009; the question is will they start two rookies in the lineup with either Headley, Blanks, Freese or Chad Huffman at either left field or third base?
PPR: You’re real high on Matt Buschmann. Talk about him and tell me why I should be, too.
MF: I like Buschmann, I’m not sure I’m “real high” on him, but he had a nice year at Eugene last year and made a pretty good jump straight to the Cal League this year. He’s improved every month that he has been with the Storm in what is a brutal hitters league. He throws a decent fastball, change and slider, and he competes. Buschmann is an intelligent guy out of Vanderbilt and has a chance to be a back of the rotation starter. When I interviewed him I was impressed at his knowledge of both pitching and what he is trying to do to improve on the mound. Right now, outside of Wade LeBlanc and Manny Ayala I like him as much as anyone in a rather starter poor organization, especially at the upper levels.
Overall the most impressive thing about Lake Elsinore this year was that six draft picks from the 2006 draft, Antonelli, Huffman, LeBlanc, Freese, Craig Cooper and Buschmann, not only made the squad but outside of Blanks and Ayala have all been either promoted to Double-A or on the verge.
PPR: Lastly, where in Lake Elsinore should I go for good pre-game eating?
MF: I think both you and Geoff identified In-N-Out as the place to go after the game, the quintessential California dining experience for burgers. If you have a little more time before the game, go up one exit and hit the small Lake Elsinore downtown sections, some nice little Taquerias, particularly Guadalajara. Huge portions, very tasty and made me curse living on the east coast, where don’t get to enjoy that type of food.
. . .
You will not see much… It was a pretty “blah” day for Padre prospects.
AAA
Will Startup: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0 HR
Joe Thatcher: 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO, 0 HR
AA
No games scheduled…
High-A
Kyle Blanks: 4 AB, 1 R, 2 H, 1 RBI; HR – .302/.381/.556
Ernesto Frieri: 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 SO, 0 HR
Low-A
No significant performances…
Short Season-A
Luis Durango: 4 AB, 1 R, 2 H, 1 RBI; BB – .364/.416/.497
Danny Payne: 5 AB, 2 R, 3 H, 1 RBI; 2 3B – .284/.454/.362
Matt Teague: 4.0 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO, 1 HR
Rookie
No game scheduled…
Commentary:
So Matt Teague can get Triple-A hitters out but not Northwest League hitters? I say that tongue-in-cheek… Itts just interesting.
Thanks, Peter. But how did Bonds do?
Here’s a recap of the National League West from a betting site.
http://www.covers.com/articles/articles.aspx?theArt=146354&t=0
It was really nice to see the pads deliver in the 9th with a men on 2B and 3B, with one out, those where the situations that killed us last month, I hope they have turned the corner and will go back to dominance this month.
#1: Cool, thanks for the link. The Rockies have been one of the most surprising teams to me this year. I figured they would be respectable, but I didn’t expect them to be fighting the Dodgers for third place this late.
I’m the first to complain about the U-T. It’s a horrible paper with almost no original reporting that devotes much more space to ads, photos and graphics than it does to articles. However, major sports records deserve huge coverage when they are broken. The Padres’ win was great, but it was one game of 162, and August is a little early to be excited about closing to within a game of first place. I think the U-T’s priorities were in the right place on this one.
(Although if the paper with an actual writing staff to provide articles, the Bonds photo could have been much smaller and left room for more Padres coverage.)
If you get a chance, tune in the Mighty XX – Towers is pretty much saying the Wells has made his last start with the Padres…the only question is does he want to retire, be released or traded.
4: I’m not sure how familiar you are with papers, but they almost always suffer from the problems you’ve identified. Only huge papers (i.e. the LA Times, the NY times, the WaPo, etc.) can really afford to have enough staff writers that they don’t have to run AP or Reuters stories. Typically, you’re staff writers are relegated to local coverage of city events and sports.
Also, most people fail to realize that newspapers make all of their money from advertising, not readership. As such, ads are a prominent piece in any paper, as this is what keeps them alive.
I’m not coming to the UT’s defense here, but you can’t just blast it for using wire stories and ads. Every paper that is not one of the biggest in the nation also does these exact same things.
#4: Interesting. How do you feel about the fact that the U-T kept Tom Glavine’s 300th win off the front page of the sports section on Monday?
5. Blum just confirmed on the radio that Wells told him he pitched his last game for the Padres.
If all of the options to take his place are internal, Clay Hensley could become a very important part of the Padres over the last 50 games.
7: I was just going to mention that. I think UT is just not very good paper and they know that to sell a few more copies, they needed the Barry Bonds HR to be the headline since the rest of the nation are talking about it.
This makes the UT not that different from any other newspaper. The problem is that the UT does this often to the point that somebody, as Geoff mentioned, not familiar with the Padres wouldn’t know they exist for that one day. Fortunately, it’s only one day. And the Tony Gwynn coverage was rather excellent.
As a baseball fan, I’d rather have had Tom Glavine’s 300th win on the front page than Bonds’ record HR on the front page, though.
8: Wow. Boomer is retiring, then.
1, 3: The Rockies are a machine. I remember thinking I thought they would be good (great offense, did not know their pitching well), but they got off to such a poor start, I thought “whatever is wrong with them is still wrong.” I guess I was wrong.
Since May 21, when they slipped to 9 under, winning percentages:
Colorado: .563
SF: .500
Arizona: .475
SD: .474
LA: .465
So they have been quietly playing the best baseball since late May. I kept pulling for them to lose to avoid a 4 team race, but here they are. This ought to be a wild division until the end.
DBacks: have been very lucky, but that luck is in the bank and they are playing better to match their fortuitous record, so they will tough.
Rockies: rolling
Padres: all of the re-tooling is keeping us in the race; if Clay can be decent and Germano keeps it together, we’ll have a shot
Dodgers: full of talent, but poor pitching and too much PT for some veterans, but they can re-bloom
SF: out of it, but no roll over, so those games will be tough
Again, thankful for the smarts of the organization. Our minor league system is getting re-stocked and our major team has locked in a few core players (AGon, Peavy, Young), but this division’s minor league talent, aside from SF, sounds very, very deep. It is going to be tough to stay competitive in this division for the next 5 years. Even though KT did not give up much for the re-tooling, this is probably one of our better years to shoot for the division title, so glad we made those moves.
I realize paper’s make their money from ads (I even place ads in the U-T for my clients). I realize wire stories are common. I also realize that the U-T is a complete embarrassment as the only daily paper for one of America’s largest cities.
I no longer support it with a subscription, so I was not aware of the Glavine issue. It certainly would warrant being on the front page of the Sports, though clearly Bonds’ record is a bigger story.