Holiday Cannot Pass Without Dressing Down a Few Turkeys

Some Thanksgiving thank yous . . . and no thank yous:

Thanks . . . to the Padres’ new administration.

This, in truth, is on behalf of erstwhile season ticket-holders. From everything I have come to understand, the 1991 baseball season is being kissed farewell. I know this because of what the front office is saying.

This organization is talking about a Jerald Clark at first base, the best of Shawn Abner, Thomas Howard and Darrin Jackson in center field and the survivor among Derek Lilliquist, Atlee Hammaker, Calvin Schiraldi and Dennis Rasmussen as the No. 5 starter.

Gasp.

This is because this organization apparently has no interest in investing money in any sort of decent free agents.

What’s it going to do? Build through a barren (at least at the top) farm system? Or make trades when it has no superfluous marketable players to trade?

To put this in perspective, the Padres are doing things like changing trainers and public relations directors and scouts and minor-league managers and uniform colors and coaches and coming back with the same sad cast of players . . . minus Jack Clark.

All this, and one more change.

Increased ticket prices.

Yes, thanks again to the Padres for making it perfectly clear this is will be a solid last place club before the folks went out and wasted money buying tickets.

Fill those Christmas stockings a little fuller instead.

No thanks . . . to the community for its “support” of San Diego State football.

Conceded, it was a long shot that the Aztecs would get a bid to the Independence Bowl, but this team could be 9-2 and going nowhere.

In bowl parlance, San Diego State wouldn’t figure to travel well. In English, this means that a chartered Cessna might hold the San Diegans who would follow the team to Shreveport, La., for the Dec. 15 game.

The team itself is attractive, because the offense is one of the best in the nation and easily the best in the history of the university. (Yes, better than the Coryell “glory days” offenses. Look at the schedule.)

But this exciting team has played four home games and drawn three crowds under 20,000 and figures to make it four-for-five on the apathy index Saturday night. Even the season finale against nationally ranked Miami is expected to attract a modest gathering of 35,000.

Bowl officials--and this sentiment would not be restricted to the Independence Bowl--would theorize that people who will not get into their cars to go to a game never will get onto a plane to see the same team.

Thanks . . . to the Chargers.

Alas, the local heroes suffered a little relapse in Kansas City, but not before they managed to make Sundays interesting again hereabouts.

No one would have moaned and groaned about a loss like last Sunday’s a year ago at this time, because no one cared by then. Another loss was just another yawn.

In truth, this team had not awakened from its 1-4 start as the 49ers South. After playing for a few weeks exactly the way they had to play to succeed, the Chargers lost to the Chiefs because the stumbling and bumbling in the opening minutes made them veer from their strengths. Games like this will happen.

However, the 1991 season is no less interesting. Playing for a wild-card playoff position is not as big as playing for a division championship, but it’s much better than playing for nothing at all.

It might not be high voltage, but the electricity will be there Sunday evening against Seattle.

No thanks . . . to Jack Clark.

So he feels badly about about the controversy of the 1990 season and how he couldn’t get along with Tony Gwynn and how things will be different in 1991.

They will be.

Jack Clark won’t be here.

If the Padres are going to spend the kind of bucks he is asking, like probably $3 million a year for three years, maybe they could find a younger free agent--excusing the word--who might come in with a better attitude and might even play 140 games.

No thanks . . . to the Gulls.

The International Hockey League has exposed a World Wrestling Federation mentality in San Diego. Let me know the first time a goal by the Gulls causes a bigger roar than the latest in an ongoing succession of skirmishes.

Forgive me, but these people are not sports fans if they do not appreciate the sport they are watching as much as they relish cheap behavior. Their collective mentalities might not be able to pass an Scholastic Aptitude Test.

As one young man in a group (pack?) of four yelled to his chums as they departed one night after the second period: “Let’s get a beer guys. We’ve seen four fights.”

What more could they ask?