You can all come out now. Seriously. The recession\u2014the bane of this country\u2019s existence since the fall of 2007, the many-headed monster that\u2019s fueled such anger at the business sector\u2019s crimes against humanity\u2014has run its course. The conclusive proof isn\u2019t in the recent gains on Wall Street or the big jump in February housing starts. It has its genesis, of all places, at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres. Jeff Moorad, the new Padres CEO and central figure in the club\u2019s much-anticipated turnaround, has pledged that affordability, even in these bleak fiscal times, will become the cornerstone of the local baseball experience. Scott Kaplan thinks this is an “extremely cool” thing. He said so on his Friday, March 27 radio show, the day after the Padres introduced Moorad to the outside world at a press conference. His enthusiasm echoed Moorad\u2019s in its infectiousness\u2014if he\u2019s this jazzed about the new era taking shape in the East Village, imagine his delight when the recession finally does take its leave. But first things first. The Padres\u2019 40th campaign happens to coincide with the eighth anniversary of “The Scott & BR Show,” marked yesterday, April 1, at Downtown\u2019s The Tilted Kilt sports pub. It\u2019s not like many kilts were tilting at that point\u2014the program airs on AM\u2019s XEPRS, branded locally as “XX 1090,” from 5 to 9 a.m. But from the sounds of things, Kaplan and partner Billy Ray Smith didn\u2019t seem to notice, much less balk at the early hour. Padres broadcast co-anchors Jerry Coleman and Ted Leitner; field manager Bud Black; first baseman Adrian Gonzales; USC football coach Pete Carroll; ex-Charger Junior Seau; the Great Friends band of supporters: Everybody\u2019s the focus of a testosterone-driven love-fest this morning, punctuated by trademark sound bites on Councilmember Donna Frye\u2019s supposed untruthfulness and one caller\u2019s alleged relationship with a sheep. “You can\u2019t just say \u2018sausage in the pocket\u2019 and let the thing go. You have to explain that,” Smith quips to former Chargers quarterback Drew Brees, adding that Brees holds a serious grudge for Smith\u2019s role in “ripping your soul out of your body as you had to leave San Diego.” But stuff like that is only a cover. Beneath the fun\u2014and there\u2019s a ton of it every morning\u2014lies a singular commitment to competition as a reflection of the local dialogue. Kaplan and Smith are exemplary ambassadors thereof. For them, sports is as much an art form as great radio itself. Kaplan, the impassioned intellectual. Smith, the extraordinarily affable harlequin. Together eight years in a business legendary for its turnover. The reason lies in the authenticity of the banter and of the men\u2019s backgrounds themselves. Both were in sports long before radio called; Kaplan, 39, kicked the daylights out of the football for the University of Pittsburgh, and Smith, 47, is a former Chargers linebacker and a two-time All-American from the University of Arkansas. Their history has its twists and turns\u2014but the keyword is “their,” with both men holding close to their roots in the sporting life. “I don\u2019t think either of us really try to be journalists,” Kaplan told Downtown News. “There\u2019s a real attitude that seems to come with the notion that \u2018I\u2019m a journalist; I know more; I\u2019m more inside and I\u2019m smarter than you are.\u2019 Neither of us really feel that way.” That trait filters into a sizeable segment of the show\u2019s fan base. “If you\u2019re not a Padres fan or if baseball\u2019s too slow for you,” Kaplan explained, “you may not come [out] for baseball games at night, but you can\u2019t wait to get your dose of Scott and BR in the morning.” The show seeks a demographic of 25- to 54-year-old males. But while the program is apparently successful in that bracket, the overall local sports climate is another matter. “Because you have only two pro sports teams here and you don\u2019t have all four majors [and] you don\u2019t have [many] folks that are generational San Diegans,” Kaplan said, “this is a sports market that is just not anywhere near as impassioned as folks are in other types of markets, like Boston or New York. But that doesn\u2019t mean that this isn\u2019t a good sports town or that the fans aren\u2019t passionate. It just means that they don\u2019t have as many choices. When you\u2019ve got all four major sports-type teams, people live and die with their town and its teams. Here, we just don\u2019t have that year-round, crazed, passionate fans for the local teams, because the teams don\u2019t exist. “Good fans live and die with the Chargers, and they adore the Padre organization. [Beyond that], we just don\u2019t have the numbers.” So how do we get \u2019em? “In downtown L.A.,” Kaplan explained, “[before] the Staples Center, there was nothing around it. It was a beaten-up, old, nasty part of town, kind of the way East Village was before Petco Park came into existence. Now, because of Petco, look at the beautiful development that has happened in Downtown San Diego. Because of the people that go to Lakers games and Kings games and concerts and circuses, they needed to build more amenities. They\u2019ve got \u2019em. [Similarly], I think the city of San Diego could support an NBA franchise. We have the population and the fan base and the money to support another sport. But [the potential investors] can\u2019t do it alone. It requires a facility.” Until the city can find its way out of a $60 million budget mess, those investors\u2019 words may (and should) fall on deaf councilmanic ears. In any event, you\u2019re invited to join XX 1090 for a block party to fete the Padres as they open their home season Monday, April 6 against them stinkball Dodgers. The fun runs along J Street between 7th and 10th avenues from noon to 3:30 p.m. Doesn\u2019t sound like it\u2019ll cost all that much\u2014and that\u2019s in keeping with Moorad\u2019s initial case in point. As he reportedly said during a conference call in February: “It\u2019s critically important, whether it\u2019s concessions, merchandise or the baseball experience itself, that it is affordable, not only to the businesses that support the club but especially to the individ\u00adual families and those who bring kids and experience baseball. Affordability has got to be the theme that rings true, and that certainly will be the theme as the new ownership group transitions in.” One franchise seeking to resurrect itself after a dismal 2008. Two guys that need no such redemption, who\u2019ve come eons from the days they played at sports radio “with a plastic card table,” as Smith said, “and a vice holding the microphone onto that card table.” Amid the April 1 celebration, those days represent a blur not unlike Jake Peavy\u2019s fastball. “Get your skinny marathon-\u00adrunnin\u2019 ass up here,” Smith beckons to show regular “Antarctic Mike,” a world-class endurance athlete who recently ran 26 miles over a Siberian lake. Mike obliges, reciting a litany of his latest feats. Maybe he\u2019d never conceived of such milestones eight years ago, any more than a U-T columnist gave “The Scott & BR Show” a chance in hell. If this is the best they can do, the writer said, “then the sports radio industry is in big trouble.” How dare Kaplan accuse baseball players of steroid use. Heresy. Interdiction. Blasphemy! In his own words, Kaplan\u2019s still waiting for the apology.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can all come out now. Seriously. The recession\u2014the bane of this country\u2019s existence since the fall of 2007, the many-headed monster that\u2019s fueled such anger at the business sector\u2019s crimes against humanity\u2014has run its course. The conclusive proof isn\u2019t in the recent gains on Wall Street or the big jump in February housing starts. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":284391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11556","_seopress_titles_title":"Two of a kind","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11556,11551,11553,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-downtown-news","category-news","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}