Now this might not seem like a big deal to you... but there's a chance my whole outlook on baseball could have been changed forever had they moved to Washington D.C. How, you ask? It's pretty simple.
Anyone who has seen the movie "Butterfly Effect" knows that one small change of events can result in much bigger changes down the road. For example... if both of my parents hadn't left Hawaii to attend college in Wisconsin, there's a strong possibility that they never would have met. Which means... I wouldn't have been born and this post wouldn't have been published. The same rule applies to the Padres staying in San Diego.
In 1981, the San Diego Padres drafted my favorite baseball player of all-time... Tony Gwynn. But had the Padres moved to Washington... things might have turned out differently. New ownership might have had a different draft philosophy. Maybe they would have been somewhere else in the 1981 draft order, which could have led to Gwynn being drafted by another team. Or what if the Washington Padres targeted a guy from the mid-Atlantic region of the country instead of this Southern Californian who attended San Diego State University.
Any of these situations would have changed my life forever... because Tony Gwynn is the only reason I became a San Diego Padres fan. Who knows... maybe I would have been a Cincinnati Reds or Los Angeles Dodgers fan. Wait. That makes me appreciate Mr. Kroc even more.
Thanks Ray Kroc! You literally changed my life.
Happy Tuesday and sayonara!
8 comments:
I have had this same thought many times. SO glad that I'm not a Dodger fan! Although my life might be happier, since the Padres have been so bad for so long. But having Tony Gwynn is still a major bonus.
Cool post. Definitely makes you think...
Very interesting.
Very cool phenomena and great movie...very underrated in my books and I don't care for Ashton so that says a lot. I have many of those moments you just mentioned in your post that have happened in my life. In fact I think we all have if you are introspective enough. Thanks for reminding me of that and the movie!
Love this post. I'm a big fan of sci-fi and time travel and all the paradox problems it creates. Gwynn a Red? Hmm then maybe his HOF Classmate Cal Ripken would have been a career long Washington Senator/National (They probably would have gone with Senators back in '74/75 since it was much closer to the Senators 2.0s exit to TX.
BTW its been ages since I've watched the movie, gotta dig out that DVD sometime to rewatch. I found it fascinating that he (Kutcher's character) time-traveled by thought.
Very thought provoking post :).
I admit that I sometimes wonder which team I'd be a fan of if the Dodgers had never left Brooklyn...
Very good post. What the non move did for me was create another 15 cards I had to collect to complete the 74 set
If the Padres moved to DC, then Ned Flanders might have ended up as the ruler of the world... oh, wait, that was a "Treehouse of Horror" episode.
CaptKirk42: This may be complete fiction, but I'd read before that the relocated Padres were to be called the Washington Stars. There are a couple of photos of Dave Freisleben in a "Washington" uniform floating about the internet, you can see that the cap he's wearing has a "W" and a star on it, so that seems to lend some credence to the "Stars" name.
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