Baseball players get to choose their own walkup music. It only makes sense baseball owners started having some, too.<\/p>\n
Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones entered their first official press conference as owners of the San Diego Padres to \u201cWe All In,\u201d a high-energy dance track by Jones herself, who proceeded to make a proclamation that should be music to the ears of the Friar Faithful:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gonna win. We gonna win! We gonna win it all!\u201d<\/p>\n
Feliciano, following the lead of his better half, was not about to back down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m a lifelong baseball fan,\u201d he said. \u201cI won’t tell you which team I used to root for, but right now I root for the Padres, and we need to win the World Series. It’s that simple. That’s what we’re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
How they make that a reality is a slightly trickier conversation. The new owners paid an MLB-record $3.9 billion for the franchise (and 30% of Petco Park), an estimated $1.7 billion coming from Jones and Feliciano personally. They formally took over on Friday night, then watched their team sweep the Minnesota Twins in front of more than 40,000 fans each night.<\/p>\n
That atmosphere is something they want to keep up, and say winning is the best way to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Padres, this organization, is nothing without the fans. And we’re here for you,\u201d says Feliciano. \u201cWe’re here as part of this community, and we cannot promise that we’re going to win. We hope that we’re going to win, but we can promise that you’re going to have our full dedication, engagement to try to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the topic of payroll and spending money in pursuit of that elusive championship, Feliciano and Jones said their approach will differ year to year depending on the ever-changing landscape of Major League Baseball and how the team is performing, but did pledge to be aggressive with player acquisition when the time is right.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been blessed with a team in a city that is supporting us in a way that is allowing us to invest back in that team, in the stadium, in that city, and we’re committed to doing that,\u201d says Feliciano. \u201cBut, we’re always going to do it kind of with keeping the long-term health of the team in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones and Feliciano donned brand new Padres jerseys at the end of their media session. Feliciano chose the number 21, honoring fellow Puerto Rico native Roberto Celemente. Jones chose something with a slightly different meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number that I selected was double zero. I could have done (number) one like we\u2019re number one, but I did double zero. And one of the reasons is because there are zero limits, that we have zero limits and there are infinite possibilities,\u201d says Jones.<\/p>\n
She was not just talking about results on the field. The other main point they went to great lengths to get across is the respect they have for the work the late Peter Seidler did during his ownership tenure in San Diego. The new bosses say they have every intention of carrying on that legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that sports is much more than sports,\u201d says Feliciano. \u201cSports is just much more than the business. Sports is an integral part of the community. And in this case the Padres are, I think, one of the pillars of this city and this community. And we’re looking forward to engaging in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s family. It’s one of the reasons we said we’re family first, because the lens through which we look at this investment is very, very different,\u201d says Jones. \u201cThe commitment is very different. The outcomes that we know we want, we always want outsized outcomes. But here, we really are dedicated and committed to something beyond just a financial outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baseball players get to choose their own walkup music. It only makes sense baseball owners started having some,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1021913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[591,1266,8037,14420,1306,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1021912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-padres","tag-petco-park","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117152958828902562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1021913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}