Padres Fandom & Keeping the Faith

No miracle is complete without faith. It’s why sports work. The only reason fans pour into stadiums by the tens-of-thousands is the belief they will witness one. Either a chance at a championship, an improbable comeback against a rival, a career milestone, or anything that could define something of a legacy.

Granted, there will be times where the stadium serves more as a mid-week bar or hangout than a place to watch the game, but that doesn’t build fandom. Fandom comes from the consistent ritual of hope.

And as a fan of the San Diego Padres, that ritual of hope is how we survive. My suffering is not nearly as long lasting as some. I’m 20. It hasn’t had the time to be. But this also means the years I was getting into Baseball, I spent watching Chris Denorphia and Jedd Gyorko as the squad standouts while Alexi Amarista got popped for PEDs.

It was a time where you needed to have faith in order to stomach caring. Not faith for the present, but a future where we’re competitive. So Keep the Faith we did. And we followed the Padres motto/psuedo-slogan  into an era that the team has consistently made the Postseason in. October ball has been played 4 out of the last 6 seasons for the Padres.

And no, it won’t last forever.

I hope it will, but the nature of a small market team up for sale is one that is tumultuous. But I’m going to pretend it will.

Otherwise, there’s no point.

Baseball, in my eyes, is composed of a much larger narrative. It’s that narrative which makes the sport interesting and important to me. It’s community-building, generation-stretching, and the magic of it comes from the fanbase. The culture of the city.

One main issue plaguing the discussion of the Padres potential is that they play in the N.L. West. And of course, the N.L. West does include the Dodgers. A team that always seems to be getting better, perhaps because it very much is. Yet that has been the case for the last decade, especially the past 6 years.

And again, the Padres have made the playoffs 4 out of 6 of those years.

But this isn’t to speak on the interdivisional rivalry, it’s to speak on how we still have a team that competes. And that, Padres fandom is tumultuous and unsatisfying to an extent. Again, the nature of a small market team. But the reason to go to Petco Park, the reason to watch at home, to indulge in the game of baseball, is because there’s always a chance. There’s always 27 outs and a chance for nothing you’ve seen before.