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I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I just can’t help it. Some things are just hard to keep quiet.

It’s going to happen tonight.

The Padres are throwing a nice little function for the inaugural showing of their 1989 highlight film, which will presumably start slowly and then finish just before it is done.

This will be the perfect venue for making my announcement.

No, I am not part of the program. I won’t get a turn at the microphone.

I’m not sure if I will do it at an hors d’oeurve table or maybe at one of those portable bars.

You know, lick the cocktail sauce off my fingers and lean over to the stranger next to me and say: “Don’t tell anyone where you heard this, but I’m putting together a group to buy the Padres.”

Then I would lean back, take a tug of beer from the bottle and smugly wait for the hot news to spread. I might even get my name in one of the Mission Valley gossip columns.

Hey, don’t laugh. I’m serious about this. Joan Kroc is trying to sell this club and buy a little time for herself, and I don’t blame her. I want to help.

The problem is putting this package together.

To my knowledge, no one has yet been able to do this. You see, it’s a little matter of coming up with a check for $100,000,000 to buy the club and still having $300,000,000 million in working capital in the checking account. Even the diet gurus, Jenny and Sid Craig, did not have enough financial heft. When most folks say they have zeros in their checkbooks, they’re not talking about eight zeros and two commas with a number in front of them.

I wanted to check on the progress of the sale this week, so I called Jerry Kapstein, Kroc’s aide de camp and son-in-law. His secretary asked what I wanted, and I told her I wanted to talk to him about the Padres.

“The sale?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“He’s not commenting about that,” she said.

After we hung up, I wondered how he could sell the club if he wasn’t talking about selling the club. How did the secretary know I wasn’t calling about buying the club rather than writing about it?

And then it struck me.

Why not buy the club?

Out came the legal pad.

I would need to put together a group large enough that it would be affordable for everyone. What we would need, essentially, would be $400,000,000.

Not having two friends, colleagues or neighbors who could kick in $200 million each or four who could kick in $100 million or even 400 who could ante up $1 million, I decided I would have to put together a group of 600,000.

Suddenly, owning a major league baseball team has become very affordable.

Each of my 599,999 colleagues will have to put up a modest $666.66. There are people who blow that much on rotisserie league teams or, for that matter, baseball cards. This would be a chance to own the real thing.

Hey, this might work.

My little group would own a major league baseball team and have $300 million in the bank. Invest that money wisely, and we can cover the payroll with the interest.

And my little group won’t have to waste money in frivolous areas such as scouting and player development. We will abandon the farm system and go entirely with free agents.

How?

Easy. My little group, for example, would never have lost Mark Davis. It would cost each of us $5 a year for five years to keep the guy. If he hurts his arm, no big deal . . . at least to us. What’s a measly $5 anyway? We’d have Mark Langston, Eric Davis, Robin Yount and Kent Hrbek, too. We’d be so strong we’d platoon Hrbek and Jack Clark at first base.

We need a utility infielder? Cost us 50 cents each.

Under my scheme, the Padres would be a juggernaut forever.

Attendance might be a problem. If each of the 600,000 owners goes to two games and takes one friend to each, attendance would be 4,800,000 . . . or 60,000 a game. This would be a problem in that only owners (or their friends) would be able to get in.

The solution? Cable television and even more income for my little group.

Why, pray tell, hasn’t anyone else come up with such an enlightened idea? We’d have our $666.66 investment back in almost no time at all and, in a few years, we’d have enough World Series rings to start a jewelry store. George Steinbrenner would be emerald with envy, and Connie Mack would be tossing in his sleep. The Detroit Tigers would be wondering why in the world they hired Bo Schembechler instead of me.

There might, of course, be an ever-so-slight problem putting together a little group of 600,000 people, but I’m not worried about the trivial stuff. I know how frenzied it will get once word gets out.

It will all start tonight, though you have heard it first.

The only thing I’m wondering about is if it maybe would look better if I was sipping on a cognac rather than tugging on a beer.