Even a Lame Duck Can Still Promise Golden Eggs

And so the ugly rumors are true. Joan Kroc is going to sell the Padres.

But are they so ugly?

One reaction can be a feeling of betrayal, heightened by the fear of the unknown. Who will be next, and will the commitment equal that of the Kroc Era?

There is no reason not to believe Kroc when she says the franchise will be sold with the same regard for community responsibility it had been operated under. The Kroc family has been good for baseball in San Diego. The late Ray Kroc and his widow have provided solid community ownership. If you need a frame of reference, remember the name Donald Sterling. Enough said?

It may be sad news that Kroc is selling, but not bad news.

The baseball team, to be sure, was not Joan’s toy. It was Ray’s.

“Sometimes,” she said in a quiet moment in her office Thursday afternoon, “I wish Ray would have left (the Padres) to someone else.”

Kroc said she will remain a Padre fan, but there is a difference between being a fan and an owner. A fan uses baseball as an escape. An owner can escape little, especially controversy and criticism.

Perhaps Joan Kroc wasn’t made for that world. Perhaps it is best that she now concentrate on her many charitable projects. She clearly does more than just throw money at those. She works at them.

“Baseball is not my first love in the world,” she said. “Now I’ll be able to go onto things which give me great satisfaction.”

But what happens until a sale is made?

Kroc said she is determined to exit responsibly. She may be a lame-duck owner, but this lame duck will continue to lay golden eggs. Ballard Smith, Kroc’s son-in-law and the Padres’ president, has said repeatedly that it will be “business as usual” until the club is sold.

“We’re going to move forward,” Smith said. “We have hired a new manager (Larry Bowa). We’ve made a major trade (Terry Kennedy to Baltimore for Storm Davis). And Jack McKeon’s looking around at other deals.”

It also appears that the Padres intend to be involved in the free-agent market, although under the guideline Smith established during the summer. They will not sign free agents to contracts of longer than one year unless the players’ association allows drug-testing in contracts.

“I agree with him,” Kroc said. “I wouldn’t have any problem, if there’s a great free agent out there, with paying him an enormous amount of money for a year. We’re not looking to save money. We’re just not going to get stuck.”

It might be considered a good time for a lame-duck owner to spend money on a free agent or two because (a) better players enhance the value of the club and (b) a new owner would pay the salaries. It also might be considered that that simply is not how Kroc operates.

The possibility that a new owner might be inclined to move the club elsewhere was an obvious hot topic in meetings with the press Thursday and Friday.

“You don’t want me to get pelted out of town, do you?” Kroc said, laughing. “I live here. I don’t want to have to go somewhere else to watch the Padres.”

She added that she would not negotiate with anyone even slightly inclined to move the franchise someday, that she would include provisions keeping the club in San Diego in a new lease with the city and that she would try to include provisions keeping the club in San Diego in any sales contract. She wants the Padres to be a stationary as the zoo or the Coronado Bridge.

After her team is sold, Joan Kroc can become a fan rather than the owner. It is a much more relaxed role.

“The first thing I’ll do,” she said, “is buy a box for the family. I’ll always be a fan.”

And so the Kroc Era nears its end.

It has been good.