Joan Kroc Saves the Play by Halting Sale of Padres

It doesn’t say much for the kind of year the San Diego Padres are having when the club’s most entertaining action is occurring in the front office. To call what has happened a soap opera is to insult soap opera. To wit:

The season began with Joan Kroc trying to sell the team. Her first baseman, a potential political candidate, wanted to buy it, but she didn’t want to sell to him. She found a buyer, but then the deal fell through. Her son-in-law and team president, who is separated from her daughter, announced his resignation. The team’s only star player, who earns $700,000 a year, filed for bankruptcy. The 65-year-old retired president of the National League is hired as team president, but perhaps only for the rest of this year.

Oh, and the only drama about the actual baseball team itself is whether it will set the record for the most games lost in a season.

There is something good to say about the situation, though. Newspaper reports said the reason Kroc called off the sale of the Padres to Seattle Mariners owner George Argyros was that he would not sign a written agreement to keep the team in San Diego. The reports said Argyros felt that such an agreement would limit his maneuverability when he negotiated a new lease with the Stadium Authority.

It is to Kroc’s great credit that she has pledged to refuse to sell the team to anyone who intends to move it from San Diego, and she put her money where her mouth is by ending the Argyros deal.

The Padres may wind up having their worst season ever. All around, it looks like a year folks will want to forget. But win or lose, the Padres are important to San Diego, and we know they will eventually come back.

The community should be grateful for Joan Kroc’s determination to follow the tradition of her late husband, Ray, and do all she can to keep big-league baseball here.