Lifelong Padres fan Scott Randall always knew baseball to be a world of haves and have-nots.
The New York Yankees? Have. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox? Haves.
San Diego? Emphatically, it has not been a have.
Until now.
“Growing up, it was like you knew those big free agents were going to the Yankees,” Randall said. “But now, look at us. We were in play for Aaron Judge.”
These are the 2023 Padres. There’s no comparison to your dad’s Padres, or your grandfather’s Padres, because those teams’ payrolls never neighbored the behemoths.
Sure, there were good years and fantastic players. There was 1984 and 1998. There was Jake Peavy, Adrian Gonzalez, Nate Colbert. Dave Winfield, Trevor Hoffman and Tony Gwynn, for crying out loud.
But nothing compares to the current roster. All at once.
“It’s All-Star, All-Star, All-Star, All-Star,” Randall said.
Television analysts are gushing about the Padres. In Arizona, usually sleepy spring training practices required added security, as autograph seekers and selfie takers crowded ropes and railings as players file by. More national media showed up in Peoria in a week than had been to the Padres’ complex over entire spring trainings.
This year’s FanFest at Petco Park, typically a lightly attended affair, was so congested that people had to be turned away.
The Padres, who have yet to win a world championship, who have only made the playoffs twice in the last 16 years, are now the hunted, the team with a target on its back. Expectations are high. How can they not be, with the nearly quarter-billion dollar investment in players made by team ownership?
“It’s World Series or bust now,” said Padres fan Mike Fernandez.
Wearing a T-shirt with Tony Gwynn’s face and the words, “Mr. Padre” splashed across it, Joe Clark and his wife, Joan, made their way through Peoria Stadium last month for the sixth spring training game of the season.
That day’s matchup against the Rangers had Xander Bogaerts leading off, followed by Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Nelson Cruz.
“It’s crazy,” Joe said, shaking his head. “Look at the lineup. It’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Padres fans since the early 1980s, the Clarks remember attaching themselves to players, only to see them leave or be traded.
“In the old days, we knew we weren’t going to get whoever it was,” Joe Clark said. “All we knew is that we’d find somebody good -”
“That we loved,” his wife interjected. “And then they would get rid of him.”
But these are no longer the days when there wasn’t enough change in the coffers to buy the Swinging Friar a new robe.
“It’s surreal as a fan now,” Joe Clark said. “It’s exciting.”
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“The football team that used to be here that moved away, who cares?” Joe said. “It’s all about the Padres. The Padres are all about San Diego.”
The Clarks enter each Padres season with optimism, no matter the payroll or lacking rosters of decades past. But until recently, they’d usually tap out by July or August.
“It’s like, we can’t do this,” Joan said, throwing her hands in the air and hanging her head.
This year is already different. Instead of listening to music like they normally do, they’re tuned into sports talk all day, absorbing every piece of news they can about their hometown team. They chatter excitedly with other fans about what has transpired and what’s possible.
“I’ve never been so excited for baseball in my life,” Joe said. “And I’ve been a baseball fan all my life.”
