The San Diego sports scene has lost its light. Our hope. The candle who was leading us to our way out.
Padres Chairman Peter Seidler has been taken from us, and with him goes a lot of what we dream — and have dreamed for so many sunrises, despite knowing all too often they blew into nightmares.
Let me just say from the gate that Peter Seidler was a helluva man, husband and father, businessman, and the most gentle and yet, oddly, daring among all of the owners of our teams.
Peter had a spine. He was unafraid. He was loyal (maybe too loyal). He spent hundreds of millions chasing a championship, maybe because, coming from the O’Malley family, he knew the feeling of success.
I won’t say Peter was a friend, but he was above an acquaintance. We didn’t see that much of one another, but we talked frequently. Shared things. He wanted to be a San Diegan, and he became one — totally dismissing the Dodgers, his family’s team, the team of his youth.
He told me more than once he couldn’t stand the Dodgers, which wasn’t just elevator music, but Sinatra to my ears.
I knew his sincerity from the day he and his group purchased the team in 2012. He took up a whole lot of the picture, but preferred to be air-gunned out in the early going. He remained in the background until partner Ron Fowler handed him the reins.
Peter, who had battled cancer and diabetes for years, left the introductions to Fowler, who didn’t need one himself. I had yet to meet Peter, but prior to the proceedings, he walked over and sat next to me.
He knew I had been here since Cabrillo dropped me off at Point Loma, and he began to pepper me with questions. About San Diego, but he began with: “I want to know everything about Little Italy.”
He already had grown to love the area of my birth. I grew up on India Street in a fishing community that was decimated by Interstate 5, sank into disrepair, and then made this town’s greatest comeback. Little Italy now is more than a destination. It is the place.
He was fascinated by the area’s rise. I told him that, many years ago I was positive this was going to happen, that downtown would grow north to Laurel Street. But I didn’t have the money to cover my vision.
He wanted a personal tour, so we met one day and we walked some, as I pointed out some still-standing places of my youth — where Italians lived in most every home, where you could walk down the street and smell the garlic, but a neighborhood that was seafaring, hard and territorial.
Peter seemed honored to be a part of it all. He passed at 63, but didn’t marry until he was 50. He said: “My in-laws didn’t like me until we had our first child (of three).”
He never pulled back from his goal, which was to bring a World Series championship to San Diego, and predicted one would come once the 2020s came around. He began to spend money — untold money for these parts — but then came COVID, and then, this year, came extreme disappointment.
I never got the chance to talk to him about 2023. And when his brother and team partner Tom returned my emails, only saying Peter was ill, I had a feeling we were in for the ultimate disappointment.
I’m just trying to give you a measure of a man I knew, a man I didn’t know well enough, a man who took midnight strolls in Bird Rock, a man who devoted so much time to civic problems, especially the homeless, a man, who, despite coming from wealth, was self-made, a man easy to talk to about anything, a man who really cared what you cared, a man who looked so meek and yet remained strong until the preposterous ninth inning ended.
I’ve dealt with every owner of a San Diego sports team since Gene Klein. Some I’ve liked (Gene was one), some I tolerated, some I couldn’t stand. But Peter was different. He cared so much, and his passion for success was unequaled.
Rare did we talk about his baseball team when he wasn’t positive. Make that very rare. He had been a silent owner, but when Fowler bowed out a few years ago, Peter took over, even took an office at Petco. He got into it.
Klein was straightforward and could flat enter a room. He was terrific, but he always spoke of football as entertainment without mentioning rings. Donald T. Sterling bought the Clippers to move them. Alex Spanos and I had our differences, but we mostly got along — probably because I was used to Mediterranean crustiness and he adored my wife. His son Dean didn’t have his father’s strength — I’ll always believe Alex wouldn’t have allowed the NFL Team That Used To Be Here leave town; too much Greek pride. But Dean and I didn’t spar much. I liked John Moores, who personally saved baseball here, but found him a mystery, hard to figure out.
I don’t know what will happen with the franchise now that Peter’s gone. My only hope is that it will be run by someone with a heart and soul close to Peter’s.
Forget about those saying Peter knew he was dying, which is why he went on his famous spending spree. Not buying it. He still had a family and other business concerns. His life was more than baseball.
The cover was off Peter Seidler’s book and laid wide open for anyone to read. What he wanted was to bring a champion to San Diego, which never has owned a real one.
It’s such a shame that his goal never was reached. Maybe from up there, where he is sure to be, he can slip off into the bleachers, dressed as everyman, and one day get a good look at the ultimate result of his labors.
All I know is the torch has been doused. A great man has left us. We are at half-mast. And I am deeply saddened for his wonderful family, myself, and San Diego.
Dammit.
