Azteca

The improbable San Diego State Aztec basketball team is in the Sweet 16 and play the Big East powerhouse Connecticut Huskies in a few hours in Anaheim. A guy at the gym said that he had two tickets for me but then welched when he saw what they were going for on ebay.

The Aztecs have a great team, long, athletic, tenacious. They are excellent defenders and rebounders. They have a "tweener" player named Kawhi Leonard that is going to be an excellent pro. Their shooting is a bit spotty. Their guards are rather undersized but do not give up turnovers.

The Huskies have a big time scorer named Kemba Walker and a bunch of other guys that like to watch him shoot. Should be a really good game. I am going to split early and go watch it.

As a San Diego native who has followed the program since Tony Gwynn was the star point guard and Michael Cage played forward, I stand behind the Aztecs and congratulate them on a storybook season, win or lose.

Go Aztecs!

***

I rarely write about sports but do have the normal male fascination with them. There is an interesting story out in Forbes about the San Diego Padres and their finances.  Turns out the poor little small market team, courtesy of their skinflint owner Jeff Moorad and his group, are the most profitable team in baseball, followed close after by another tightwad team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

They reportedly had revenues of 189 million dollars last year, while spending about $40 million on talent. Their ratio of salary to revenue is about 22% while most teams pay their players about 50% of revenue.

This is a team that has consistently cried poor while trading their best players away, a la Adrian Gonzalez or Jake Peavy. Hoyer and Moorad, the slick one time player agent, aspire to be a Red Sox farm club and refuse to spend any money, preferring to compete on the cheap.

Adrian Gonzales said it best last month when he said that in Boston, they play to win, in San Diego, they play to compete. Because that is enough for Hoyer and crew. They had a scrappy team last year with a fine manager, Bud Black. They came one game away from the division, thanks to a late august, ten game swoon.

Hoyer rewarded the gutty players by canning most of them. He thought their success was an anomaly. That's gratitude. The man Hoyer replaced was a gunslinger named Kevin Towers who I had total respect for. He was canned, reportedly for mouthing a couple of "f-bombs" during his perfunctory interview.

Fans are suckers for continuing to give allegiance to teams that are only in it for the money, with no commitment to winning.  Who think that finishing in second place is having an excellent season. 

When Petco Park was built, the expensive new ballpark that gave John Moores development rights all over the area, fans and taxpayers were told that the owners would be now opening their wallets. Shame on us for believing them.