In San Diego, Padres ownership dispute tests a | College News

SAN DIEGO — In 2009, because the couple that owned the Dodgers introduced their separation, the legal professional for Frank McCourt stated he didn’t anticipate a legal battle over the group. The legal professional stated paperwork would show the Dodgers have been owned solely by McCourt, not collectively by the couple, and stated there was “not a chance” the group can be put up for sale.

“Speculation about a potential sale of the team is rubbish,” legal professional Marshall Grossman stated then. “Frank McCourt is the sole owner. He has absolutely no intention of selling this team now or ever.”

The paperwork didn’t maintain up in court docket. McCourt did promote the group — however not for one more three years, a span through which the Dodgers didn’t make the playoffs, have been outdrawn by the Angels for the primary and solely time, and have been outspent one season by the Minnesota Twins.

On Saturday, because the Dodgers confirmed off their superstar-studded roster at Dodger Stadium, the Padres staged a fan pageant of their own. The new yr right here began ominously: Sheel Seidler, the widow of beloved proprietor Peter Seidler, ignited a legal battle over whether or not she or one of Peter Seidler’s brothers ought to correctly be operating the Padres.

The Padres set a franchise document for attendance final yr and have already got offered out of season tickets this yr. They boasted what we thought was the second-best group within the main leagues final season, and on Saturday followers proudly wore the jerseys of the core of what stays a superb group: Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado; Jackson Merrill and Luis Arraez and Jake Cronenworth; Yu Darvish and Michael King and Dylan Cease.

And then there was the man strolling across the outfield in a Mookie Betts jersey. Gavyn Wolf lives right here, so he got here together with his associates, dodging the jeering.

“I refuse to wear anything Padres,” he stated.

So who’s going to win the National League West this season?

“Who else is taking it?” he stated.

His buddy, Jack Endicott, shrugged. He couldn’t disagree.

“The Padres haven’t made any moves,” he stated.

The Dodgers introduced back Teoscar Hernández and Blake Treinen and introduced in Roki Sasaki and Blake Snell and Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates and Hyeseong Kim and Michael Conforto.

The Padres introduced back their backup catcher.

“Are we disappointed we haven’t made any moves?” Machado stated Saturday. “Yeah.”

Padres normal supervisor A.J. Preller final winter traded Juan Soto for King, who brilliantly changed Snell within the beginning rotation after working as a swingman for the New York Yankees. Merrill jumped from double-A into the Padres’ outfield and may have received NL rookie of the yr honors.

Preller stated Saturday he needs so as to add a bat “or two” and a beginning pitcher “or two.” And, by this time final yr, the Padres had not added Arraez, Cease or Jurickson Profar, who was an All-Star outfielder.

Profar, who led the Padres with an .839 OPS final season, signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves. He stated he was thinking about returning to San Diego.

“Obviously the Padres have some issue with the ownership and all that,” Profar instructed reporters.

That defined the trepidation within the air at Petco Park on Saturday. Good group, great followers, best ballpark in Southern California – however is an ownership dispute going to paralyze the franchise?

Two springs in the past, I sat within the passenger seat of a golf cart on the Padres’ coaching advanced in Peoria, Ariz. Peter Seidler sat within the driver’s seat.

He needed to emphasise he was spending lavishly to construct a basis to problem the Dodgers yr in and yr out, to not pump up the payroll and attendance after which promote the group.

“Myself and my family, we will own this franchise for the next 50, 75 years,” he instructed me, “hopefully more.”

When Frank and Jamie McCourt break up up, they each insisted the Dodgers would keep within the household, no matter what else occurred. Then the 2 torched each other in court docket relatively than privately negotiate a settlement, and now the household no longer owns any half of the group.

In San Diego, the torching has begun.

San Diego Padres proprietor Peter Seidler speaks during a Padres Hall of Fame ceremony at Petco Park in July 2023. Seidler died in November 2023.

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

In her initial court docket submitting, Sheel Seidler accused the Seidler brothers of “greed and betrayal” by enriching themselves with money that ought to have been hers, of allegedly portray Peter as “a cowboy who was irresponsible with the Padres payroll,” and tolerating her solely so long as Peter was alive.

“After Peter died, they took off their masks and showed their true faces,” her submitting learn.

In his initial submitting, Matt Seidler — one of the brothers — blamed Sheel for “recklessly” torpedoing the Padres’ pursuit of Sasaki by baselessly suggesting the brothers may transfer the group from San Diego and ridiculed her want to run the Padres as a result of her business expertise allegedly is restricted to “a brief legal career and her operation of a single yoga studio.”

According to Matt Seidler’s submitting, “The crux of this case is Sheel’s pursuit of two things that Peter intentionally chose not to give her: control and unlimited money.”

The longer this goes and uglier this will get, the much less the prospect of the Padres staying within the Seidler household, no matter who may control the group.

As a sturdy group with a terrific ballpark in a market with no different main league groups, the Padres would appeal to bidders. That would come later, maybe years later. Until there’s some decision to the court docket case, potential bidders wouldn’t know who the legal vendor could be.

The Seidler brothers say this isn’t an situation. They have “no plans to sell the Padres to anyone,” in response to a particular person conversant in their considering who declined to be recognized. They imagine their paperwork will maintain up in court docket.

In the Dodgers’ case, Jamie McCourt employed an investment banker to assemble a potential ownership group, in an effort to get Frank to promote her the group. In the top, Frank McCourt agreed to settle the divorce by paying Jamie $131 million, and she or he relinquished any declare to the Dodgers.

Frank McCourt then offered the group for $2 billion.

In her court docket submitting, Sheel Seidler stated she had assembled “an impressive roster of individuals with significant baseball and business experience to serve as advisors and executives” with the Padres and stated she was involved the brothers would promote the group.

So has she assembled a roster of financial backers to attempt to buy out the Seidler brothers? Dane Butswinkas, her counsel, declined to say.

“Ideally, we would like to resolve this with the brothers,” Butswinksas stated. “However, for that to occur, it would take some level of cooperation from them. So far, we have seen no signs of that happening.

“The current path towards resolution, unfortunately, is through litigation, which we know can drag on for years and would be in no one’s interest.”

When the McCourts divorced, the lawyer for Frank McCourt needed to make one level completely clear. The contemporaneous divorce of Padres proprietor John Moores had left the group a mess — he needed to promote the group to resolve the divorce — and the Dodgers wouldn’t be a mess.

“This is not going to be another San Diego-like debacle,” Grossman stated.

Here’s hoping there’s not going to be one other San Diego-like debacle in San Diego. The best rivalry in baseball deserves higher. The people who run the Padres day by day, and the people who root for them day by day, deserve higher.