Nick Canepa: Who will buy the Padres? Here’s hoping for someone with deep pockets, passion for baseball

Sez Me…

We have been through this before. We just never thought we’d be going through this again, at least not for a while. Maybe not for years, maybe not for decades.

The Padres were a ship that did not rock with Peter Seidler on the bridge. After the NFL Team That Used To Be Here bailed in 2017, the Pads became an incredible, amazing, impossible story.

Just like that, we became a baseball town. And, finally, a genuine, two-way rival with the Dodgers.

Petco became a city centerpiece, a place to be, with games often selling out. The Pads — if not of world championship skin — contenders every year, sold 3.5 million tickets in 2025, second only to the Dodgers and ahead of the Yankees.

But Seidler, who, along with Ron Fowler, took control of the team in 2012, passed away from an infection in November 2023. And what he had to think would be a peaceful transition of power became chaos; his widow, Sheel, filed a lawsuit in January, accusing two of Seidler’s brothers of “fiduciary breaches of trust” and fraud.

In any event, John Seidler, Peter’s oldest brother and the team’s chairman, has planted a “Team For Sale” sign in the middle of Petco’s field. The Pads are a beautiful trophy, but a lot has to happen before any kind of transaction is complete. And remember, a strike/lockout is almost certain in 2027, when the collective bargaining agreement runs out.

What I’m most concerned about is who gets the prize. Peter Seidler was a great owner and person, with a real toughness beneath his frail veneer. He was a businessman of the first order, and, unlike a few other Seidlers, who were born under Walter O’Malley’s Dodgers blanket, learned to despise the franchise he grew up admiring.

My guess is the asking price will be around $3 billion, quite a bit more than Ray Kroc’s $12 million, and there are people around who use $3 billion as chump change. Stan Kroenke, who owns everything but a baseball team, has been mentioned, as has Steve Ballmer, the Clippers’ enthusiastic boss.

It’s easy to root for Sheel and her kids, but that’s for the courts to decide. Peter always said the team would never leave his immediate family’s safety deposit box.

But, for whatever reason, things got screwed up. Families. Go figure.

All we can hope for now is that the new moneybags comes in with eyes and purse wide open and not, like others, carrying a copy of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” …

One question that will never be answered: How the hell did the Colts lose to the Steelers? …

The NFL Team That Used To Be Here is 4-0 in prime-time games this year. And judging from the crowd, last Sunday night’s game might as well have been played on the banks of the three rivers. …

That was a road game. …

The Judases did not blitz Aaron Rodgers. Derwin James Jr. had three unassisted tackles. Don’t tell me he wasn’t bothered by that ankle. …

The J’s defense ranked last in defense weeks 5-7. In weeks 8-10? First. …

The return of defensive lineman Da’Shawn Hand is worth five fingers to the defense. …

The J’s are the only team that ranks in the top five in third-down conversions and third-down stops. …

Jaxson Dart has been in concussion protocol four times. Because he’s reckless. The coach has to bring him in for a talk. You don’t get concussions sitting down. …

That coach won’t be Brian Daboll, who simply could not find a torch to light his way out of the organizational mess that the Giants have become. …

Nobody is better at avoiding sacks than Caleb Williams. As he was at USC, a magician. …

The NFL has to sit on the “Tush Push.” Officials are now totally ignoring illegal motion, especially by guards. …

The Broncos have punted 53 times, most in The League. They’re 8-2.   What the hell is going on? …

It appears UCLA will leave the Rose Bowl to play home games at SoFi Stadium. Good for both sides — owner Kroenke finally gets some real money from a tenant other than the $1 per year rent Fredo Spanos mysteriously pays him — especially the Rose Bowl, which deserves only the best games. …

Still, SoFi is 12 miles from UCLA’s campus, and the Bruins can’t even sell out Pauley Pavilion anymore. …

Just thinking about it. As much as I’m not a fan of L.A., it houses my two favorite stadiums — the Coliseum and Rose Bowl. …

No building can match the Coliseum’s overall history. And the Rose Bowl Game, as Jerry Magee always said, is the best scheduled annual sporting event in California. …

I think it’s great that the Olympic swimming and diving competition will be held at SoFi. It’s always a tough ticket at small venues. …

But I’m not happy with track and field competition being moved up to Week 1. Removes some of the climactic element. …

I wasn’t speaking of Jesse Owens, but let’s. Did you realize FDR never congratulated him for his performance before Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics? The four-term president feared alienating southern Democrats. Do you know which president did? Gerald Ford awarded Jesse with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1976. Owens passed away in 1980. …

Is Russell Wilson, who will be supplanted at starting QB by Jameis Winston for the Giants, a Hall of Famer? Was he ever? Just asking. …

The Patriots are good. They are not Tom Brady and Bill Belichick good. The teams they’ve beaten have won 37 games. Worst schedule since Pudge first laced them up. …

Brady hasn’t played in three years and has more wins in this decade than the Jets. …

Brian Kelly wants LSU to give him every centavo of his $53-million buyout. Why not? LSU is so screwed up it may eventually give him more. …

How do a pair of pitchers making more money than a president dreams about get busted for throwing bogus pitches for a few thousand dollars? Realize, they aren’t exactly dealing with choirboys. As we continue to see, the underbelly is dark. …

The Pirates aren’t trading Paul Skenes, figuring they at least can enjoy him until the Dodgers give him a billion. …

RIP, Lenny Wilkens, a Hall of Fame basketball player and coach, named one of the 100 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches. He had 7,111 assists — when an assist was a real assist in the NBA. …

Jon Gruden wants to dump Thursday night games. Good for him. Coaches know they produce bad football and, thus, are bad for the game. …

Considering there are 81 home games, Padres ticket prices are worse than Aztecs football. Except people go to Padres games. They had more than $400 million in revenue. Sell that “Padres are losing money” crap to someone else. No sale here. …

Face it. San Diego has two sporting miracles: Aztecs basketball and Padres attendance.