Batting Cleanup, With A Lot To Clean Up

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Photo credit @USA Today, Orlando Ramirez
 "...And now batting cleanup...Jayce Tingler!!...."

Let me explain. To my way of thinking, as things stand right now, here's the order of the hierarchy on the San Diego sports scene right now:

Number One (with a bullet, by the way)...freshly-minted World Series Most Valuable Player Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals. Born and bred in San Diego, the pride of West Hills High School and San Diego State, he is atop not just the San Diego sports world but perhaps the entire sports world altogether.
Number Two....reigning NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Kawhi Leonard, now representing the Los Angeles Clippers. (You know, after all these years, that team name still brings along with it some disgust). But I digress. Leonard, the man who helped put SDSU basketball on the map, is perhaps the most iconic figure in the NBA. How much so? Well, for one thing, because he has now led two teams -- the San Antonio Spurs and the Toronto Raptors -- to NBA championships, it is being widely predicted that this season he can become the first player in the history of the league to lead three teams to the top.
Number Three....Rocky Long's San Diego State football team, now receiving national recognition as the No. 25-ranked team in all of college football. This is no flash in the pan, either. The Aztecs already have qualified for a bowl game for a 10th-consecutive season. And without getting too far ahead of ourselves (oh, heck, let's do it anyway), Rocky's gang is five wins away from playing in its first-ever New Year's Day Bowl game. Oh yes, if SDSU beats Nevada, Fresno State, Hawaii, B.Y.U. and then Boise State for the Mountain West Conference title, that 12-1 record should be enough to ensure that the once-lowly Aztecs are part of the Big Time Bowl picture.
And Now Batting Cleanup (see how that all came full cirlcle?)....new Padres manager Jayce Tingler, not even a blip on the America's Finest City sports radar a month ago when Andy Green was fired and a new skipper was needed, Tingler now has the most important sports job in town. Yet his name, rank and file still lags far behind the first three names on this list. And frankly, that's a little strange.

Hopefully, this is the way the Padres wanted it. But how could they have? The naming of a new manager is supposed to be a splashy proposition. You want to get the fan base excited. You want those not in the fan base to become interested anyway. You want sports fans around the country sporting the name of your team on the tips of the their tongues.

The naming of Jayce Tingler has done none of this. But then again, what could you expect when you put in charge of your city's only real professional sports team a guy who hit only three career minor league homers (one for Pulaski in 2003 and one for Dunedin in both 2004 and 2005)? A guy who then spent the majority of the next 13 years in even more obscurity than that, bouncing around mostly the Texas Rangers organization as an unrecogniazble stagehand, hitting ground balls to guys and standing in the dugout either holding a chart or with his arms folded?

A hire like this, one would figure, would barely be enough to knock the minor league Gulls off the sports pages. In other words, this hire was completely splashless. There is no buzz surrounding San Diego Padres baseball this week even though they (supposedly) just made major news. Don't worry, though, the club will be back in the spotlight next weekend when it unveils its new brown uniforms (not pictured above, by the way, with Tingler or General Manager A.J. Preller).

Uniforms, this town will get interested in. The team wearing the new duds, not so much.

But it's O.K. 

Because, despite all (or actually none) of the blasting trumpets, the hiring of Jayce Tingler doesn't need to be big news. If this guy wins games next season, and improves San Diego from a 70-win last place team to a contender, he and the ballclub will get planty of notoriety. Because, ultimately, it's wins -- not names -- that drive a successful sports organization. The Padres most certainly already know this, having spent over $400-million the last two off-seasons to sign free agents Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer and still finishing last.

In a way, who can blame them for not wanting to spend big again? Just for a manager? Now if you want to add some more good players to the mix, like Gerrit Cole (free agency) or Mookie Betts (by trade), you can make the Jayce Tingler hiring pretty damn smart pretty damn fast. 

For now, however, he's just a clean up guy. And the way the Padres have looked in recent seasons, he has plenty to clean up.