"...Even the Players Feel Comfortable In It"

In an attempt to distract myself from the shittastic way I've been feeling these past couple months, I decided to put all of my "we are no longer buying this book back because a new edition came out" textbooks in one place. While doing this I stumbled upon some old high school newspapers. I was shocked to see that I still had them after all this time and that most were in pretty decent condition. In this state of shock all I could think of was to take a picture of them and post them on everything from Twitter to Facebook and Instagram then put them away again. I figured all my high school friends on Facebook would get a kick out of it or nostalgic or some shit and some did. This is where it starts to get good, I promise. One of my friends asked if I could go through them and see if he had written any of the stories. So like the bored little girl I am, I pulled them back out of the storage tub and started going through them. As I was going through looking for his stories I found an article one of the other students wrote from May of 2004 talking about Petco Park. See, I told you it was going to start getting good. There were a few things I found interesting or funny about the article.

The first thing I found funny was the opening paragraph. It reads, "The San Diego Padres have a new, stylish look. They didn't get a facelift, breast implants, or any form of cosmetic surgery. But what they did get is new uniforms. The Padres threw away their dull, navy blue and orange uniforms and went with a more modern look, blue and gold.". They did go on to say that the Padres got a new stadium which overshadowed the new uniforms and acquired talent. I immediately thought of Gaslamp Ball when I read the cosmetic surgery part and could see them or myself using that line as a title for a post describing the remodeling of Petco. Though, I suppose now it would be considered a form of plastic surgery... like liposuction. You know, they went the easy way and paid to slim down instead of putting in the work to get the desired results. BAM, amazing analogy. You're welcome. Fine, it's not AMAZING but I like it.

Another thing I found funny in that paragraph was calling the best uniforms the Padres ever had, dull. The blue and orange is a staple of my childhood just like for some unfortunate D-Backs fans, the purple and greenish tank top uniforms were a staple of their childhoods. The next thing I found interesting was the fact that the author wrote that the stadium was sometimes referred to as "PP". Umm, I don't know where I was when this was happening because I don't remember EVER hearing Petco referred to as PP. Then again, for a period of time I wasn't as devoted to baseball as I am now. You can say we were on a break after the '98 season and began flirting on and off again shortly after high school allowing me to at least be legal the next time they screwed me. It's safe to say we are back on but in a very unhealthy relationship.

The final thing I found interesting about the article was the best line, besides the whole implants line, "...even the players feel comfortable in it". I guess our players now are too prissy and don't want to do the work needed to own the stadium instead of letting the stadium own them. At least, from what I've seen via twitter, it was players bitching about the stadium and some annoying fans chiming in that helped destroy a thing of beauty. *Disclaimer: I never saw actual tweets or statements from players complaining. The tweets I speak of were from everyone else so it may or may not be true that the players were complaining.*

What a difference almost a decade makes. Back in 2004 the Padres were starting the best they had since the '98 season and no one was complaining about the dimensions. Instead, they were in awe of everything the stadium had to offer. Fast forward to the 2012 season and people are bitching left and right for a change. Skip to today and the new fences are almost complete, if not already complete, and it's only a matter of months before the players, management and fans come up with new excuses as to why they can't win. Obviously, we had something going right back then if we were one season away from our back to back playoff appearances. Sure, making it to the playoffs is pretty much meaning less if you don't make it to the World Series but baby steps, guys, baby steps. I do believe the Padres could have found success again without the liposuction. Unfortunately, like 99.99% of Americans, they wanted to take the easy way out and that's exactly what they did.

PS. I was going to attach the photo of the article but in order to read it and giggle along with me, it would have had to be massive so instead, here's the link from my twitter.