Padres owner Peter Seidler was champion of baseball fans and the game he loved

In the fall of 2022, San Diego Padres owner Peter Seidler led the team’s traveling group that went to visit Trea Turner while Turner was evaluating free agency offers. Turner was drafted by San Diego in 2014, and eight years later, his time with Seidler confirmed what Turner felt at the time: What a great guy, Turner thought, warm and engaging.

Seidler wasn’t just there to visit; he was serious about signing the shortstop: he accepted an offer in the range of $350 million, well above the competing proposal from the Philadelphia Phillies. A few days later, the Padres made it clear that if Turner needed a higher offer, Seidler would as well.

“I was really impressed with him,” Turner recalled Tuesday afternoon, after learning of Seidler’s death at age 63. “What he was willing to do to win, he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.”

Turner was already leaning toward making a deal with the Phillies, but Seidler’s humanity and enthusiasm for bringing the Padres a championship weighed on him. The idea of ​​turning down Seidler was heartbreaking for Turner, who ultimately conveyed this message: Please don’t make another offer.

It was typical of the influence Seidler had on people, thanks to his friendly and discreet character, his sincerity, his love for the game in which he grew up. The grandson of the late Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, he was a baseball fan who became a champion of baseball fans in San Diego, effectively spending his own money in an effort to win the nation’s first title. this franchise. He was the kind of owner every baseball fan dreams of — a notion that’s especially important this week, as MLB owners prepare to vote on whether to move another California team. Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher is ready to pry his East Bay team away from its fans. Seidler was dedicated to the idea of ​​winning a championship for Padres fans. And with them.

Mark Sweeney, a former Padres player who participates in the team’s broadcasts, said in a text message: “Today we all lost an extraordinary man who left a legacy that went far beyond baseball and of this great city that he loved. His passion and dedication to the game will never be forgotten!”

A few years ago, Seidler stood against the backstop behind home plate at Petco Park and, in his soft voice, spoke with a baseball reporter, sharing stories about the Dodgers teams and players that Seidler has grew up watching, on Padres legend Tony Gwynn. At one point, the reporter asked Seidler about the sustainability of what the Padres were doing, spending big on players like Manny Machado, and Seidler smiled slightly. “Everything will be fine,” he said.

The Padres traded for Yu Darvish, for Joe Musgrove, who was born and raised in San Diego County. Before the 2022 trade deadline, the Padres traded an army of prospects to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Juan Soto and also traded for Milwaukee Brewers closer Josh Hader. Seidler wasn’t worried about the projected long-term value of prospects; rather, he was trying to do what he could to help the Padres win the World Series and to reward the passion of a fan base that responded by filling seats: from 2018 to 2023, the average attendance for games in the The team has grown from around 26,000 to more than 40,000. Season ticket sales have exploded in recent seasons.

Thanks to Seidler, the Padres came very close to the final goal. After eliminating the New York Mets in the wild-card round of the 2022 playoffs, San Diego faced the Dodgers. “They’re the dragon on the highway that we’re trying to kill,” Seidler said earlier in the season. a mic appearance on “Sunday Night Baseball” — and beating L.A. The Padres’ run ended when they lost to the Phillies in the National League Championship Series.

Despite that final disappointment, Seidler had talked in text messages and on the phone about how fun it was to see the outpouring from Padres fans. “The crowds are beyond great,” he said in May. “A true honor for our players and fans who together and organically have taken their relationship to this fun, exciting and intense level.”

He listed a handful of players, then corrected himself. “I guess I could go on and on. It gives me chills when I think of all the positive energy.”

The journalist once asked him to send a family photo for a report; Seidler sent more than a dozen and laughingly apologized for his enthusiasm, while providing context for childhood photos with his grandfather and mother, taken at Dodger Stadium, and for a photo with the team broadcast – “Vinnie”, as Seidler called Vin Scully. .

“Good man, big heart,” one of his peer owners said shortly after the news broke. “It breaks my heart. He had such a big heart.”

“People [in the sport] were mad at him for spending his own money, but he wanted to win the World Series and he didn’t worry about the cost. He did it the right way: he contributed to the revenue sharing, rather than being the beneficiary.”

Seidler is a two-time cancer survivor and his health struggles were widely known within the industry, although little was shared publicly aside from the Padres’ announcement this fall that he had undergone a medical procedure which would keep him away from the stadium.

There are now questions about whether the franchise will be able to match its current spending level without Seidler boosting it. In recent years, the team carried a payroll of nearly $100 million in 2019, more than doubled it in 2022 to $221 million, then climbed again in 2023 to an estimate of $296 million. Machado, Darvish, Musgrove and Jake Cronenworth signed long-term extensions, and executives from other teams quietly speculated whether that could continue. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in September that the Padres needed to significantly reduce their payroll before the 2024 season, to something closer to $200 million, and if that’s the case, San Diego could then being forced to trade Soto and/or other expensive ones. stars.

But there is no doubt about the legacy of Seidler, who was willing to trade profits for pleasure. For the fans.

When Trea Turner made his final decision to sign with the Phillies over the Padres, he felt he owed it to Seidler to call him directly, and the shortstop braced himself for the response. But Seidler worked to make Turner feel better, warmly and graciously accepting his decision, offering some parting words that reflected the perspective of someone who had had a lifelong love affair with baseball.

“We’re in this together,” Turner Seidler said, “to develop this great game.”