Sez Me \u2026<\/p>\n
What\u2019s in a name? Not much \u2014 especially if you have one of little consequence, one not even immediate family members may recognize.<\/p>\n
Randy Elliott, Mike Ivie, Jay Franklin, Mike Lentz, Brian Greer, Joe Lansford, Jeff Pyburn, Frank Castro, Jimmy Jones, Ray Hayward, Jerry Green, Thomas Howard, Kevin Garner, Robbie Beckett, Scott Sanders, Greg Anthony, Dustin Hermanson, Matt Halloran, Kevin Nicholson, Vince Faison, Gerik Baxter, Omar Ortiz, Casey Burns, Mike Bynum, Nick Trzesniak, Mark Phillips, Jake Gautreau, Cesar Carrillo, Cesar Ramos, Kyler Burke, Nick Schmidt, Kellen Kulbacki, Drew Cumberland, Mitch Canham, Corey Luebke, Danny Payne \u2026 OK, I\u2019m stopping here.<\/p>\n
Know who they are?<\/p>\n
These guys \u2014 minus many for space purposes \u2014 were all drafted in the first round by the Padres. And the great majority of them never made the big league club.<\/p>\n
Padres drafts date back to 1969, and they have taken one great player in the first round. That was Dave Winfield, who left for the Yankees when San Diego could no longer pay him.<\/p>\n
My favorite remains Ivie, a catcher who couldn\u2019t throw the ball back to the pitcher.<\/p>\n
In the history of drafting by the four major sports, no team can match the Pads for upper lottery ineptitude. Face it, no franchise comes close.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pathetic, is what it is. Even former Pads scouting director\/great guy Bill \u201cChief\u201d Gayton once told me it was \u201cembarrassing. I mean, you luck into players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granted, among all sports drafts, baseball\u2019s is the greatest crapshoot. And the Padres have drafted a few good players in the first round \u2014 and in other rounds (Tony Gwynn was a third-round pick). They also took current center fielder Jackson Merrill in the first (as a shortstop), and although currently slumping, he has promise.<\/p>\n
They did draft C.J. Abrams No. 1 \u2014 before trading him to the Nationals, where he\u2019s been on an All-Star Team.<\/p>\n
President of baseball operations A.J. Preller, who made his bones with international players, recently took high school right-handed pitcher Coleman Borthwick in the first round.<\/p>\n
Coleman is 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds, a big kid with a lot of promise. I hope he does well. I hope he makes the trip to Cooperstown.<\/p>\n
But, judging by this team\u2019s history, if I were Coleman, I might think about running an El Paso Chick-fil-A in five years. \u2026<\/p>\n
The Pads\u2019 playoff drive ended Friday night in Kansas City. Just awful. \u2026<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe Major League Baseball players should compete (for the first time) in the 2028 L.A. Olympics. Shut down the sport completely for 11 days? \u2026<\/p>\n
Will there still be an All-Star Game, when players get about four days off? Still at 162 regular season games? The World Series will end with people watching Thanksgiving football. \u2026<\/p>\n
MLB Players Association interim chief Bruce Meyer calls baseball\u2019s ad to promote a salary cap \u201cperverse.\u201d I don\u2019t know about \u201cperverse.\u201d But I know it isn\u2019t going to do any good. \u2026<\/p>\n
The union exists to get as much money as it can and benefits for the players. Owners exist to make as much money as they can for themselves. Call it a stalemate, but the MLBPA ain\u2019t throwing that cap chip back onto the table. \u2026<\/p>\n
The Home Run Derby was on Netflix. Just had some painting done. I didn\u2019t have to pay to watch it dry. It was better. \u2026<\/p>\n
Sorry. Maybe you aren\u2019t a fan, but I am. The Derby has had no power since Chris Berman provided the real entertainment. \u2026<\/p>\n
I still don\u2019t know who Jordan Walker is. \u2026<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven strikeouts in an All-Star Game. Fifteen of the 30 NL batters struck out. Baseball in 2026. \u2026<\/p>\n
The All-Star Game is a dinosaur. Pete Rose seemingly was the last player who cared about it. It has one foot in the grave and another on black ice. \u2026<\/p>\n
Wide receiver Stefon Diggs: \u201cYou can\u2019t name a No. 2 better than me.\u201d OK. We\u2019re just a few weeks from the start of camp. Why are you still a free agent? \u2026<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot of teams who don\u2019t think he\u2019s the No. 1 No. 2. \u2026<\/p>\n
The NFL has suspended Cardinals director of college scouting Ryan Gold for allegedly leaking 2026 draft information and making parlay bets. A good job you worked years to get isn\u2019t good enough? \u2026<\/p>\n
The Seahawks have been sold to a group headed by 49ers\u2019 part-owner Vinod Khosla for $9.612 billion. In 1997, Microsoft magnate Paul Allen paid a then-extravagant $194 million for them. The NFL is the new oil. \u2026<\/p>\n
In case you\u2019re wondering, that\u2019s a 4,854.62% increase. \u2026<\/p>\n
Hear tell Josh Allen throws up before every game. Big deal. So did Bill Russell. Bill won 11 NBA titles. Super Bowl titles for Josh. Zero. Puking doesn\u2019t always work. \u2026<\/p>\n
My father didn\u2019t speak French \u2014 close; he was Genovese \u2014 but after losing to Spain, I didn\u2019t hear one Frenchman say what dad always did: \u2018Can\u2019t win if you don\u2019t score.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n
But the French did admit one thing: They stunk. \u2026<\/p>\n
FIFA strongman Gianni Infantino is in favor of expanding the World Cup from 48 teams \u2014 already too many \u2014 to 64 in 2030. He wants everybody in. More teams, more Benjamins, more stupidity, more chaos. \u2026<\/p>\n
It would be something, though, if the Vatican had a team in this thing. Infantino would no longer be the Highest Authority. \u2026<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi took the quarterfinal off. But he usually comes alive \u2014 after standing around \u2014 when he has a chance. He rebounded in the semis. \u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Sgt. Schultzing. I know nothing about the Cup being rigged in Argentina\/Messi\u2019s favor. But the Argentines were better than the Brits in the semis. \u2026<\/p>\n
Argentina had the ball 88% of the time. England mother-henned a 1-0 lead. Did. Really. \u2026<\/p>\n
Tied World Cup matches should not end in shootouts. \u2026<\/p>\n
The only problem I had with Switzerland was that it wasn\u2019t rooting for anybody to win. \u2026<\/p>\n
But the Swiss outplayed the Argentines. \u2026<\/p>\n
Ace goalie Volkmar Gross could kick a soccer ball from \u201chere\u201d to wherever \u201cthere\u201d is. \u2026<\/p>\n
It appears Caleb Wilson is another basketball player whose game was suppressed at North Carolina. And Dean Smith\u2019s not around to do it anymore. \u2026<\/p>\n
Philly\u2019s ace Zach Wheeler felt \u201cdisrespected\u201d when snubbed by All-Star pickers and then refused to go when a spot came open. Reminds me of Garry Templeton\u2019s all-time quote when he was named a backup: \u201cIf I ain\u2019t startin\u2019, I ain\u2019t departin\u2019.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n
Face it. Tennis isn\u2019t the same when the U.S. isn\u2019t good enough at it. Star power speaks a different language. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cGone with the Wind\u201d will be released in 4K. Another way for me not to watch it more than the one time I have. \u2026<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s Josh Kerr smashes the world mile record with a time of 3 minutes, 42.66 seconds. That\u2019s running two 1:51.33 880s back-to-back. Digest that for a few years. \u2026<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care where LeBron goes. \u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not surprising King Charles didn\u2019t call the Royal and Ancient to reverse its two-shot Open penalty on Bryson DeChambeau. \u2026<\/p>\n
Our leader: \u201cThe R&A is absolutely rigged.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n
Vitas Gerulaitis lost 16 straight matches to Jimmy Connors. When he finally conquered Jimmy, he said: \u201cNobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sez Me \u2026 What\u2019s in a name? Not much \u2014 especially if you have one of little consequence,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,74,76,75,127,1326,1696],"class_list":["post-404158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}