Padres Press Clips Tuesday, January 30, 2018
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Padres Press Clips Tuesday, January 30, 2018 Article Source Author Page Kevin Towers, longtime Padres GM, has died SD Union Tribune Lin/Krasovic 2 Tony Gwynn documentary reminds us why he is 'Mr. Padre' SD Union Tribune Acee 3 Royals make trade involving ex-Padres, clear salary for SD Union Tribune Lin 6 pursuit of Eric Hosmer Former D-backs, Padres GM Towers dies MLB.com Macklin 7 Gwynn's SD impact highlighted by 'Mr. Padre' MLB.com Cassavell 8 Kevin Towers, former GM of Padres, Diamondbacks, dies at 56 ESPN.com Staff 10 Tatis Jr. Leads Bountiful Padres List on 3 Prospect Rankings FriarWire Center 11 Former GM Kevin Towers, who always celebrated his Yahoo Sports Brown 13 todays, dies from cancer at 56 Kevin Towers, former Padres and Diamondbacks GM, CBS Sports Perry 15 dies of cancer at age 56 Former Padres, Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers Dies at Bleacher Report Chiari 17 Age 56 Ex-Padres GM Kevin Towers Dies at 56 NBCSanDiego.com Staff 18 Former Padres, Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers dies at 56 Sporting News Lancaster 20 Former Padres and Diamondbacks General Manager Kevin SI.com Gartland 21 Towers Dead at 56 Former Padres, Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers dies at 56 USA Today Lacques 22 1 Kevin Towers, longtime Padres GM, has died Dennis Lin and Tom Krasovic Kevin Towers, the general manager who delivered the Padres' last National League pennant and three other division titles, died Tuesday morning after a long fight with cancer. He was 56. Towers was diagnosed with anaplastic thyroid cancer near the end of 2016. Towers was the Padres' general manager from 1995-2009. He guided San Diego to the top of the National League West on four occasions, including a World Series appearance in 1998. He was the Arizona Diamondbacks' general manager from 2010-14. Towers was effective at crafting trades with a wide spectrum of general managers and acquired several of the players for the 1998 team that set a club record with 98 victories and beat two 100- win teams in the playoffs before losing to the 114-win Yankees in the World Series. Thanks in part to the upgrades made by Towers — including the acquisition of ‘98 mainstays such as Kevin Brown, Wally Joyner, Greg Vaughn, Chris Gomez, Sterling Hitchcock and Quilvio Veras — the Padres created momentum going into the November 1998 general election in which voters approved funding for a downtown ballpark. Petco Park opened in 2004. Towers' cancer diagnosis did not become public knowledge until October. With permission from the Towers family, Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch displayed Towers' name on a placard in a Stand up to Cancer spot during Game 4 of the World Series. "He means a lot to me," Hinch, a former assistant general manager for the Padres, said afterward. "He's meant a lot to the people within the game for many, many years. He's done everything in the game. I wanted to put someone on there that was a baseball person that has resonated across the game at so many levels for so many years, and we just keep rooting for KT to have a recovery." 2 Tony Gwynn documentary reminds us why he is 'Mr. Padre' Kevin Acee It would have been fantastic if the new documentary on Tony Gwynn was 44 minutes of him laughing. And “Mr. Padre” is replete with a virtual medley of Tony Gwynn giggling. It had to be. Laughing and hitting a baseball were two of his greatest gifts. He did both with almost unmatched virtuosity. That high-pitched chortle, which punctuated so many of Gwynn’s sentences, is still music. Beyond that, there is a dizzying assortment of information in the biographical program “Mr. Padre” that will air Tuesday night (5 and 9 p.m. PT) on MLB Network. Again, there would have to be. There is plenty of good stuff about his greatness, the sweet swing and his pioneering of the use of video as a teaching tool, his love for the game and San Diego and his family. The story of how he first met his wife provides context to their bond. His children speaking of key moments in his life and the days leading up to his death are wrenching. More than anything, “Mr. Padre” is a reminder that the reason Gwynn’s death was such a blow was because he had been so extremely full of life. And in the end, the most substantial gift “Mr. Padre” gives us is recalling one of the game’s greatest hitter’s greatest attributes — his humility. He was a humble, humble man. As the documentary’s narrator aptly describes, the “anti-superstar superstar.” I will take care herein to not spoil any anecdotes or give away the best scenes. Your chuckles and chills and tears should be as spontaneous and unfettered as those who watched the “Mr. Padre” premiere Friday night inside the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center at San Diego State. From the front row where Gwynn’s family sat watching throughout the couple hundred invited season ticket holders, there was a raw reaction to so much of what they saw and heard. 3 “Some of that footage, I hadn’t seen,” Tony Gwynn Jr. said a short while after wiping away tears and addressing the crowd along with Gwynn’s friend and agent, John Boggs. “… It was awesome. I laughed, I cried, I laughed again.” There is a good chance that no matter how closely you followed Gwynn’s 20 seasons as a Padre, you will learn something about the man we call Mr. Padre. Dang, it was so good. Jerry Coleman’s calls of some of Gwynn’s biggest hits are interspersed throughout the hourlong program. It is just about the perfect melding of the two lost treasures. There is so much to capture about Gwynn that a 44-minute running time might not seem adequate. But succinct storytelling such as Tim Flannery recalling what happened before and after a rain delay in Cincinnati in 1996 helped accomplish the task. “He knew what the pitcher was going to throw before the pitcher knew what he was going to throw,” Flannery said. A former Gwynn teammate and then Padres third base coach, Flannery recounts some of the finest stories about Gwynn in Mr. Padre. So does former Padres pitcher Greg Booker, a friend of Gwynn’s since they were drafted together in 1981. Ted Leitner and former Union-Tribune reporter Bill Center, as almost no one else could, encapsulate what Gwynn meant to the Padres and San Diego. A pregame exchange between Gwynn and Ken Griffey Jr. got one of the night’s biggest laughs. The documentary is packed with tidbits you had forgotten and others you never knew. Maybe you are familiar with the story of how Gwynn, a point guard on the SDSU basketball team, was pointed out to Aztecs baseball coach Jim Dietz by Bobby Meacham. But perhaps you never knew the rich tale of how Padres General Manager Jack McKeon first discovered Gwynn. You hear both detailed in “Mr. Padre” in such a way that that they’re new for anyone. And the fact is, Gwynn’s feats with the bat were so preposterous that even the things a casual Padres fan might know — like that he hit better than .350 in five straight seasons — still leave you in awe when you hear them out loud. For any San Diegan who loved the man, which is pretty much any San Diegan who was around from the time he arrived at SDSU in 1977 to his death in 2014, there is no expiration date on hearing over and over Gwynn’s quest for .400 that was truncated by the 1994 strike. There are details of a contract impasse averted because, as the narrator said, Gwynn was “an icon who decided there was only one place he wanted to play for two decades.” The clip from his 2007 Hall of Fame induction speech in which he said he had told the people of San Diego they would be up on the dais with him so he hoped San Diego was as nervous as he was reminds us how much he cared for us. He mentioned San Diego profusely in that speech. 4 And it is the footage of the call informing him he had been voted into the Hall that so perfectly strikes at the core of Gwynn’s character. You see him so nervous and uncertain before the call, so overcome afterward. Tony Gwynn Jr. recalled after the premiere, which was his first time seeing the film, that it was that January day that he realized his dad had been serious all those years when he had admonished people it was no certainty he’d end up in Cooperstown. Now those of us who so revered him can relive some moments along his way to that immortality. And those across the country who maybe didn’t know much more than his batting average will be better for learning who Mr. Padre really was. 5 Royals make trade involving ex-Padres, clear salary for pursuit of Eric Hosmer Dennis Lin The Kansas City Royals completed a trade Monday that involved two former Padres, cleared a decent amount of salary and presumably strengthened their position in a race with San Diego. In dealing first baseman/designated hitter Brandon Moss and left-hander Ryan Buchter to Oakland, the Royals shaved a reported $5 million in payroll while continuing to broadcast their intent. Barely more than two weeks before spring training, homegrown first baseman Eric Hosmer remains unsigned.