Padres Need New Ownership, but Not Under These Conditions

So you think the Padres are a mess on the field?

OK, you’re right. They are.

However, contrasted with the ownership situation, the on-the-field Padres are a marvelously wondrous aggregation playing with sleek efficiency.

Yes, that’s how discombobulated ownership is.

The Padres were in disarray when the late Ray Kroc bought them in 1974, and they are equally disheveled in 1987 as Kroc’s heirs attempt to sell them. I say “attempt to sell them” because it would take an off-road vehicle to travel the path this sale is taking.

How could this club be responsibly sold into a quagmire such as this? How could it possibly be sold to an individual who already owns one of the most tumultuous franchises in the major leagues?

It couldn’t have been responsibly sold in such circumstances. Irresponsibly, yes, but not responsibly.

Joan Kroc is still the Padres’ owner because of how and to whom this club was sold, and she may be the owner for quite some time. I assume this predicament might be distressing to her, but can’t say for sure because Ronald Reagan is more likely to return my telephone calls. Distressed or not, Kroc may be the owner until she is able to put the club back on the market and do a more orderly job of making a sale.

This proposed sale, the one to George Argyros, does not seem likely to fly within a time frame that would be fair to the fans who have enthusiastically supported this franchise through all of the Kroc years. Remember that not too many of these Kroc teams have been very memorable. I can think of one.

More than 1,000,000 fans per year have visited largely mediocre Padre teams during the Kroc years, excepting the strike season. If attendance sags this year, it will not be caused by fan indifference. Disillusionment is a more appropriate word, and Padre followers are as disillusioned with the ownership muddle as they are with the won-lost record. Maybe more so, because they rightly place blame at the top.

How can this club get better?

It only can happen with interested and committed ownership. Because of this tangled travesty of a sale, these franchises are, of necessity, in a state of aimless drift. Day-to-day operations can be routinely handled, but major decisions, the ones most likely to have impact on a ballclub, are the province of ownership.

So who makes these decisions now? Who knows?

Thus, this disarray is destined to continue until Argyros sells the Seattle Mariner franchise, his previous toy. He has it on the market, and he insisted this week that he is very close to making a deal. He may be close to making a sale, but he also may be attempting to deflect the criticism attracted by this tap-dance from Seattle to San Diego.

Seattle undoubtedly hopes Argyros does, in fact, have a sale pending--to a local buyer, of course. Folks thereabouts seem to believe they need Argyros like they need another cloudy day, and, in fact, regard Argyros’ presence as a cloud of another sort. His stewardship of the Mariners has been beleaguered by controversy upon controversy, from bankruptcy to debatable escape clauses in the stadium lease to the buffoonery of leading cheers from the dugout roof. What’s more, the penurious manner in which Argyros has operated the Mariners has done little to endear him to either the community or potential buyers.

Thus, what we have is one individual in the midst of two transactions, the first complicating the second and the second probably complicating the first.

These two teams could be in limbo for so long that two constituencies of fans are denied the leadership their teams deserve. Commissioner Peter Ueberroth has estimated that it would take 90 days from the day Argyros found a buyer for the Mariners to present the new ownership for approval.

Obviously, barring a bona fide sale of the Mariners in the next few days, nothing will be resolved in time for the June 11 meeting of major league owners. It was at this gathering that Kroc and Argyros had hoped this deal would be completed.

I have a suggestion for what the owners can do at that meeting. Regardless of what happens between now and then in Seattle, there is not enough time under Ueberroth’s guidelines to confirm new Mariner ownership. Rather than postpone consideration of the San Diego transaction, I would propose that National League owners reject it.

That’s right, flat out reject it.

Let’s not call this a rejection of George Argyros. Let’s call it a rejection of this particular deal.

The National League should tell Kroc to put the Padres back on the market. If they’re still there when Argyros sorts out the sale of the Mariners, let him come back with the same offer and get on with it again . . . only this time under reasonable conditions.