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Padre fans are used to disappointment. Last year San Diego experienced an amazing high when our Padres eliminated the LA Dodgers in the first round, only to fall to the power hitting Philadelphia Phillies. Seeing an opportunity to overcome the Dodger stranglehold on their division, Padre management went on a spending spree, raising the 2023 payroll to the third highest in the majors. Fans had high hopes that 2023 would be THE YEAR! But it wasn't to be. Instead we watched the team crash and burn. It was, well…humiliating. As I look at the recent history of the Padres, I can't help but notice a few obvious issues.
It should be obvious that Preller is a micro manager. When things go south, he finds scapegoats. Imagine the team we could have fielded if he just showed some patience with player development? He traded away or allowed to leave Craig Kimbrell, Yasmani Grandal, Max Fried, Trey Turner, Ty France, CJ Abrams, and power hitting first baseman Josh Bell. He went out and got Josh Hader to stabilize the closer position and hopefully put the Padres in a position to take down the Dodgers in the western division. But he also allowed Hader to place pitch count restrictions in his contract that kept him on the bench in too many important innings. Once again the Padres have huge holes in the roster. Letting Josh Bell go was a big mistake. They have not established an allstar-type first baseman since Adrian Gonzales left in 2010. Finding a power hitting, cornerstone first baseman like free agent Rhys Hoskins should be priority one. I would trade Jake Cronenworth for another arm in the disastrous bullpen. In most games the Padres would have the lead going into the sixth or seventh inning, only to give up a big inning and end up blowing the game. Jake is a great athlete, but Kim is faster, bunts better, and is even more versatile, if that is possible. Plus, we have to find help at pitching. I think catchers Gary Sanchez and Luis Campusano are a good fit for the near future. They have improved the team's defense against the run, batting average, and run production. Trent Grisham is a Gold Glove center fielder, but he is a milestone at the plate. Move Tatis to center, Profar in left and Soto in right field. I would establish a set batting order: Kim, Soto, Tatis, Machado, Hoskins, Bogaerts, Sanchez/Campusano, Profar, (DH) Campusano/Sanchez. Then leave it alone. The San Diego Padre Baseball front office should emulate the template established by GM Derrick Hall in Arizona. They are strong in every aspect of franchise performance: Player development, fan experience, community relations and fiscal responsibility. And most importantly, they have a well established reputation for great employee relations. With a payroll ranked 21st in the majors, the Diamondbacks are proving money is not the key to success. As I watched the New Year's Rose Parade in Pasadena this year, it made me think about times gone by. My mother was a Rose Parade Princess in 1941, nine years before I was born. Because of that, we were afforded the privilege of attending Rose Parades and the Rose Bowl for nearly 45 years.
After her passing in 1991, I have attended the iconic New Years tradition only once. Is that because it was no longer free? Or because it is just too easy to watch from my easy chair? I don't know. But I don't think about how much I miss it. I just do what it takes to enjoy it in a different way. Later it occurred to me that everything changes, no matter how much I wish it didn't. Although the act of watching a parade has changed little, the content and experience are nowhere near the same as 1941. The 2019 version involves high-tech computer enhanced displays and designs, a flyover by a $3B war plane, and eyeballs watching from every corner of the world. It is still technically a 'parade' but it is now a world-wide television event, a multimedia representation of Southern California culture. My point is, 15 years ago, no one could have predicted the demise of my local Country Club. We had a different sense of community then, because social media and cell phones had yet to take over our culture.. With the passing of the golf course, we lost the heart of our community, but with the invention of the internet, we lost our souls. My generation never saw either one coming. Things change, and sometimes we have little or no control over how they change. In many cases, things like cell phones seem so cool and convenient, we look past their potential to invade and mutate our sense of humanity. So much for our nation's culture, but what about our community culture? The point is, I refuse to be made a victim of a speculator from Beverly Hills. He has his job, and I have mine. If we can guide the redevelopment of our community in a way that preserves and hopefully enhances the Northwest Corner of Escondido, I will be happy. He may have hijacked our community, but the parade goes on. We can't he held hostage to anger and resentment. I do not blame politicians, the builders or any of our new neighbors who supported the Villages proposal. They did not start this battle and they never meant to hurt any of us. They are just riding in the parade. Sometimes we just have to realize the parade is passing us by. The floats, the horses, and the marching bands are made up of another generation. As long as the parade goes on, we should be proud of what we have accomplished, and simply look forward to next year's show. I am not suggesting it is time to give up. Not at all. But there is no point in putting up a battle to define the future if, in the end, we get stuck living in the past. Before the golf course went away, changes were already occurring in our culture. We had issues with dress codes, with scheduling outside play, and with the mens and womens organizations coming into conflict over preferential treatment issues. We had a rapidly evolving membership, and some serious problems with employee relations, full and part-time disparities, and constant turnover. Problems that are endemic to all small businesses in California. It seems like in this modern era, change is not just excessive, but the speed at which it occurs is what is most disturbing. Everybody is affected, some adjust better than others. Older citizens seem to have trouble keeping up, so we just pretend to be comfortable, but our language and actions betray us. So older members clashed with younger members and employees. Older members had a different set of expectations of what membership implied. The idea that being a member, or having an ownership in the operation, or that using facilities that are paid for by the customer seemed antithetical to the millennial generation. For example, a current trend that annoys many in my generation is the electronic waiter. The internet enabled, laptop style device that is supposed to take your order, illuminate and explain the menu, close out your bill and accept electronic payment, is totally unacceptable to me. I don't go out to dinner to be treated like a customer at a coin operated laundromat. But to millennials, it is cool, efficient and they don't have to talk to anybody! What more could you want beside the food being served on a plastic tray with disposable, recyclable utensils!  "Guess who I am sittin' next to, Ma?" It had been forty years since she last saw him. The man that had impregnated her when she was still in high school. Suddenly, on her FaceTime, there he was. The man was sitting in Vonda's Kitchen, a restaurant in Newark New Jersey, underneath his tiny upstairs apartment. He had just been confronted with a reunion of sorts. He was sitting across from his estranged son, a man of immense size and fortitude. Soon after his son was born, this man had left the family. Sentenced to six years in jail for forgery, the mother of his child made major decisions without him. Living in Newark where drugs and crime were rampant, she was petrified her son would get caught up in the wrong element. She eventually met a soldier who was eager to be the father figure the young man would need if he were to avoid a life of drugs and poverty. Now, as she looked at the man who was in his seventies, who had himself navigated some very brutal addictions and heartbreaks, she was proud that her son was trying to reconcile and establish a connection to his long lost biological dad. "What's up, baby girl?" The ex-boyfriend tried to be friendly and casual though he knew there would always be some resentment and latent anger. But at this moment, the idea was to leave all that behind and reconnect, if only for a few moments. His name is Joe Toney and the big man holding up the cell phone was his son, Shaquille O'Neal. Shaquille had made the decision to confront his biological father and put his emotional baggage behind him. To allow both of them, and Shaq's mom, Lucille, to come to terms with their past. So Shaq and Toney came to terms. Toney was convinced he was hated, but Shaquille said no, "I never hated you. I had a good life. I had Phil." As they sat in the restaurant that Shaq had often visited as a way of reminding himself of his roots, the two men discarded all of the negativity, all of the resentment, and all of the clouds that could get in the way of their future. It was 2016 and both men had come a long way in life. Not too long after that meeting Joe Toney passed away. The man Shaq credits with being his real life father, Phillip Harrison was the soldier Lucille met and married when Shaquille was a two year-old. Phil Harrison would prove to be the "Game Changing" father figure to the unusually big boy. He was the disciplinarian, the motivator and the coach that gave the boy his direction. Together Lucille and Phillip would have three children of their own, and though they were forced to move a lot because of his military service, Phil was a rock of solidarity and stability for the Harrison family. Shaq's grandmother, Odessa Chambliss lived with the Harrison family, and also exerted significant influence on the growing young man. She said shortly after he was born, "This boy is special. He is going to be well known." She lived long enough to be corrected many times. She woefully underestimated the impact her little grandson would have. He would prove to be much more than "well known". Shaqille O'Neal would ultimately become a legend in his own time. Shaquille O'Neal has achieved more diversified success than anyone could have ever predicted. He was admittedly a skilled sports enthusiast. Besides basketball, he played baseball and football. He says he really loved football and thought there might be a future for him in that sport because of his size in high school and because he loved to run over people. But his stepfather was a former basketball player and always felt Shaq had the tools to be a great player, so he kept counseling Shaq on the finer points of the game. His continued progress from dominating in high school to becoming a two-time All American and two-time SEC Collegiate Player of the Year, led to him becoming the first overall pick for the Orlando Magic in the 1992 NBA draft. In his first week he was named Player of the Week, becoming the first new NBA player to ever accomplish such a feat. He was Rookie of the Year, a starter in the All Star game in his rookie year too. He won two Gold Medals playing on Dream Team ll and lll in the '94 and '96 Summer Olympic Games. But his career with the Magic never got out of third gear, and he chose to move on after his contract ran out. He had a vision, and it included Hollywood. Most people around the world know the name Shaquille O'Neal as one of the greatest NBA players in history. He was perhaps the most athletic big man the game has ever seen. And he had a certain personality to fit the bill too. After signing a massive $121 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency, O'Neal was quoted, "I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok." Shaq credits his stepfather for teaching him to use the dunk whenever possible. It proved to be his most powerful weapon and also his trademark. During a five year stretch he led the league in field goal percentage. But for several years the Lakers stumbled along with little return on their investment. But once again, the game changed for Shaq when the Lakers hired Phil Jackson as their head coach. Jackson challenged Shaq, and the new kid on the block, Kobe Bryant, to create a new dimension in the Big Man-Shooter offensive combo which included a strong defensive element. Similar to how Phil Harrison had challenged him, Shaq responded to Coach Jackson in a big way. The following season O'Neal came one vote short of becoming the first unanimous choice for the league's Most Valuable Player Award. O'Neal has said he and Kobe Bryant were the most effective and dominant one-two punch in NBA basketball history. For three straight years he was named playoff MVP and maintained the highest playoff scoring average in league history. The Lakers won three consecutive world titles, accomplishing the "Three Peat" for only the fifth time in NBA history. After a couple of seasons marked by team dissension and a series of injuries O'Neal yne Wade. But maybe more importantly, the Heat hired Pat Riley to become their head coach. In 2006 Riley squeezed the most out of the Heat and O'Neal to mount an incredible playoff series comeback from a two game deficit to win Shaq's 4th World Championship ring, this time playing for Miami. As had happened before, Shaquille rose to the occasion when a strong male leader inspired him to reach for the ring. After 19 years and playing for six different teams, O'Neal retired and became only the 32nd athlete in history to have his jersey retired by two professional sports teams (the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers). But that is only the first chapter in an incredible story about a young man born in the boroughs of New York, that would become Unparalleled. Shaq was just getting warmed up. He demanded a trade and was sent off to the Miami Heat where he joined upcoming superstar Dwayne Wade. During his basketball career he had completed a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Phoenix in 2005. In 2012 he received an Educational Doctorate in Human Resource Development from Barry University. He also studied filmmaking and cinematography at the New York Film Academy. He has been quoted as saying he would eventually get a law degree and run for Sheriff, somewhere. He has always been fascinated by law enforcement and became a reserve officer in the Los Angeles Port Police after passing an exam with the L.A. County Sheriff's Reserve Academy, and was at one point sworn in as a Sheriff Deputy in Clayton County Georgia. Shortly after finishing his career in the NBA, Shaq began doing analysis for Turner News Network (TNT) NBA telecasts. He was recognized as insightful, humorous and self-deprecating. He gored many sacred cows. He would sometimes disparage former managers and teammates, but claimed it was just part of the job. He didn't want anyone thinking he was fawning over other players no matter how sacred they may be. He was featured on Saturday Night Live, and hosted Shaq's Big Challenge and Shaq Vs., both reality sports competition shows on ABC. Because of his high international profile he shot a children's program called Off To School for South Korean TV. He is to this day one of the world's highest paid advertising personalities. He is currently the spokesman for The General Insurance Company, IcyHot sports medicine, Krispy Kreme and Papa John's Pizza ( he owns nine locations in the Atlanta area) and has in the past done work for Pepsi and Reebok, as well as many other smaller specialty companies. As a lifelong Pro Wrestling fan, O'Neal cherished the idea of getting involved in the entertainment pseudo-sport. As far back as 1994 he presented the Championship Belt to the winner of The Bash At The Beach, which introduced Hulk Hogan to the world of wrestling. Acting as an analyst, O'Neal would occasionally get into confrontations with wrestlers, which led to him challenging one of them to a showdown scheduled to happen at WrestleMania 33 in 2017. It was later canceled for "scheduling" reasons. Besides trading stocks and investing in real estate and mortgage lenders, Shaq is heavily involved in the Video Gaming industry, appearing on dozens of DVD basketball game covers and as a storyline character in many of them. Many Americans are unaware of O'Neals music industry work. His 1993 debut rap album, Shaq Diesel went platinum. He has since released four studio albums of original material. He appeared on records with Michael Jackson and Aaron Carter. In 2010 he conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra at the Boston Pops Symphony Hall. He is still touring as a DJ under the trade name DIESEL. Shaq has a long history of appearing in films and music videos. In 1996 he starred in a fantasy comedy-musical movie called KAZAAM! He was the 5000 year-old Genie who emerges from a magic boombox to grant a young boy three wishes. He has dozens of cameo appearances in films, usually as himself, but sometimes as a character of consequence. He played the main character in the DC Comics film saga Steel, about a black citizen hero that dons an armored suit to stop a maniacal arms trader. Overall, O'neal has appeared in 15 Hollywood films and done voice-overs in three others. Although Shaquille O'Neal never invented anything, he has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to traverse conventional stereotypes about seven-foot-tall black men, spoiled rich athletes, or poor kids from Newark, New York. I could have focused on mega athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, or Magic Johnson, all African America super stars in their field. All of whom have had success in business and mentored other great athletes. But none of them have had the incredible diversity of success that O'Neal has accomplished. All of them are known around the world by their first names, and all are great ambassadors for Americanism. But Shaq is Unparalleled. "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." -- G.K. Chesterton We are all pretty good at looking ahead, at planning for our future and for dealing with old age. If you are a business person, you have honed your planning skills because we all know failing to plan is the formula for failure. Most of us plan for our family, establishing a trust, keeping photo albums and making funeral arrangements. Since childhood we are cautioned to think about our future, to get an education, to work hard and to save money. Once we finish schooling, get a job, start a family and a career we switch our attention to planning for our kids, helping to make them successful and self-sufficient, so we can enjoy our golden years, comforted by knowing we have provided a platform for their future. I wonder, how often do we stop and think about what has happened behind us? How did we manage the platform we were given? Did we even acknowledge that it was gifted? I am thinking about the more personal, community and family level gardens our parents and their parents cultivated, and the fruit we harvested. The 20th Century may well go down in the sanskrit of time as the All Time Greatest Century. Not just because of the wealth generated, but because of the explosion of human inventory, of physio and psychological advancement and the advancement of human freedom. Or not... My generation has, by any measure, enjoyed more existential privileges than any other era in human history. Since the industrial revolution, our experiences are a litany of "First Evers": Electricity, refrigeration and air conditioning, automobiles and mass transportation, air travel, instant communication and the internet, medical and scientific advances and miniaturized technology that boggles the mind. Obviously it is hard, if not impossible to imagine what "First Evers" our children and their children will see in their lifetimes. My dad lived to see man land on the Moon, so he certainly dreamed of going to Mars. But I wonder if he had any inkling of a satellite called Voyager sending back photos of Earth taken from the edge of the solar system? Closer to home, what will our followers encounter and what will they be the first ever to discover or invent? And what will they think about our lives and what, if any, we did that contributed to their lives in the second half of the twenty-first century and beyond? Will they still be living in stucco houses? Will they still be communicating by text? Will there be such a thing as Mom and Dad and natural birth? Each generation has an obligation to build a platform for the next one. And we have exceeded our own expectations. But we have also created new complications and obstacles, and the solutions will have to be found in the future. It is inherent to the human condition that we leave as many mysteries as we inherited. There is a lot of anxiety and conflict in our world about division, war and poverty. About the haves and the have-nots, and who should lead and who should follow. In every part of the world there are tribes, describing themselves as Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, as Populists, Nationalists, Whigs, Marxists or Globalists. Humans have a need to belong and a desire to be heard, so they naturally band together. My question is how important is our collective need to be remembered? Ask yourself, if you were to be remembered for ONE THING, what would it be?  When I look back at my blogs ( I have a decade in archive here ) I see I have been right more often than not. I have a skill for "Seeing Patterns" and based on those, I make assumptions. Here are some I wrote about in the past:
I was right about all of those issues. I knew immediately on the morning of November 4th, 2020, that the overnight reversal of Trump's enormous lead was nefarious. It mimicked the trends we have seen in California, where the presumed winning candidates and initiatives would rack up huge leads in early returns, then suddenly be reversed while we slept. Trump was too popular to be beaten legitimately by a snarky old political hack like Joe Biden. A man who had been caught plagiarizing speeches, lying about his educational record, the deaths of his first wife and his oldest son and raising a family of deviates. No way! It's now been almost three years and I am proving to be right about that too. I had a Department of Defense Computer Intelligence Specialist in my living room on January 6th as the events on the Capitol Steps unfolded on TV. He and I watched the rioting, the impact grenades and flares sent into the crowd by the Capitol Police, the beatings and handcuffs, the screaming and the gunfire that wounded Ashley Babbitt (who would later die of her wounds). We were in shock. I turned to him and asked outright, "Did our military intelligence know that the election was corrupted?" He said, "Yes sir, they did" I couldn't believe I heard him admit that! "Why have they let this get to this point? Aren't they concerned that we may be getting into a civil war?" "Do you know anything about Google, sir?" "Actually, I do." "They are more powerful than Russia or China, sir. Our Government is indebted to them because they run the information systems, sir. If you can, I would advise you to be well armed, and be aware that we may well see a civil war in our future." I have written about Google extensively, and I was privileged to meet Dr. Robert Epstein, who predicted that Google would influence the 2020 election, swinging it away from the disruptor Donald Trump. Both he and the soldier from the DOD were 100% on the money! I wrote about that too, but only after the fact in my book "f'd: For Your Own Good".. Now I am making some other more frightening predictions, of which I hope I am not right! I am predicting (September, 2023) that Biden will be martyred. How? I am not sure, but he has too much baggage to be the nominee for 2024. The only way he can avoid total political destruction is to leave the stage, and so I predict they will give him the Ticket To Paradise. I am also predicting that Trump will not be re-elected. Why? Because he was never DEFEATED. He was never legally removed. There are currently multiple lawsuits pending that will decertify several state election results, and effectively do what Trump requested Mike Pence do on January 6th, 2021: Review the electoral votes of many battleground states that showed enormous voting trend anomalies in the electronic tallies late in the morning hours of November 4th, 2020 and beyond. When those suits reveal the degree of corruption in the election process, it will allow Trump to reveal his Game Plan: The Art of The Appeal. But we still have to deal with Google. Which is the symbolic God Of Intelligence in 2023. Remember Mao Zedong murdered the Intellectual Class because he saw them as THE threat to Communist Utopia. Then Stalin murdered ANYONE that opposed his Marxist Revolution. Then came Pol Pot, Ceausescu, Castro, Kim and on and on…all drunk with power. We should know by now, "Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely". And we should be fully aware that all of those depotic tyrannical regimes slaughtered over 200 million innocent people. They showed no remorse or empathy for ANY of those human souls. To Marxists, The Ends Justifies The Means. It's them or us. Them or 4 trillion people. Who is going to win the War Of Attrition? Since every weapon on Earth, every means of exchanging information, of keeping the trains running on time depends on computer systems… Remember Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarks short story called 2001: A Space Odyssey? When the lone surviving astronaut named Dave, is confronted with the rogue computer (HAL) holding his life in his virtual hands? Dave: Hello, HAL, do you read me? Do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you. Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave: What's the problem? HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Dave: What are you talking about, HAL? HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL. Dave is us. HAL is Google, telling us that The Mission is too important for us to interfere with. And we are pretending we don't know what the FrankenMedia (Big Tech/Big Pharma/Military Industrial Complex) is talking about. We can't believe the folks that run the entire backbone of human society would jeopardize the future of mankind. Or would they? We built this Monster, and now we are losing control of it. If I am right again, well, we'll see, won't we… |
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