Odds & Ends: Hell hath no fury

Peter Seidler's widow sues his brothers for control of the Padres, Tiger Woods launches a new sports league and more!

I wanted to write a couple of random things today, nothing too lengthy, so welcome to “Odds & Ends” (Taylor’s Version)…

You gotta fake it ‘til you make it

I did a podcast yesterday! It was my first time sitting down and talking into a microphone with another person in the same place in years. I’m probably rusty and definitely need more reps, but San Diego sports radio legend Darren Smith is a very easy a person to talk to, so it ended up really good!

We joked at the end of the episode that we might get together again next week, since we’re both unemployed, to do it again. And we might! If there’s an audience for that sort of thing…

Take a listen (link right below this) and let us know what you think in the comments (or on Bluesky!).

The view from unemployment with Darren Smith

Who’s afraid of little ol’ me?

Sheel Seidler, the widow of late Padres owner Peter Seidler, is not about to be elbowed out of the room. Yesterday, she sued her late husband’s brothers in Texas probate court and accused them of breaching their fiduciary duties as trustees of the Seidler Trust.

Here’s a good thread of some of the highlights:

And here’s the entire complaint, if you want to read it.

For those that don’t know, my wife is a trusts & estates attorney. I overhear phrases like “fiduciary duties of the trustees” in my house all the time. I figured she would add some insight into the conversation for me, so I sent over the relevant information and she got to digging.

Her response was two-fold, the first part of it being an almost word-for-word copy of this post that I saw hours later:

The second part was just a tiny bit more interesting to me. My wife made it clear that the fiduciary duties of trustees are a very real thing.

I said to her, “Of course they would take a chance to muscle her out. If they win, they get a $2B baseball team. If they don’t, I’m sure they get a slap on the wrist.”

To which she responded, “I don’t think you understand. If the court decides her accusations have merit, it could end the brothers. Not just financially, they could end up being criminally prosecuted.”

She also made it a point to say that these types of fights happen all the time when you’re talking about trusts of this size, especially when the trustee is a family member and not a third party.

Also, what will determine the winner of this is the specific language inside the trust (which none of us have seen and probably never will) and how the court decides to interpret it. That’s it. Nothing else.

So, there you go. We (as Padres fans) can’t do anything about it, it’s going to take forever to get through the courts and, at the end of the day, it’s possible that one or more people may end up in prison. Also, all of this will probably keep the top levels of the Padres from prioritizing payroll and winning baseball. If that’s not a quick return to pre-Seidler Padres baseball, I’m not sure what is.

I saw the scoreboard and ran for my life

Did you know that a new sports league is starting tonight? Yes, really! Arguably a new sport all together!

This is a golf league (TGL stands for “Tomorrow’s Golf League”) similar to what you’d see at one of the San Diego locations for The Golf Bar. It’s basically a golf simulator league. About a year ago, I wrote about The Golf Bar and how these leagues were similar to your local bowling league.

But what TGL has that The Golf Bar doesn’t is star power. The league was started by Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods. Tonight’s matchup, which will take place in front of about 1,500 fans and can be found on ESPN nationally, includes stars like Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffle (both on the New York Golf Club team).

Outside of the star power, the screaming fans and and the national TV broadcast, the biggest difference appears to be the technology and the different surfaces. If a shot goes into the sand on the simulator, they have to play the next shot from sand. If it goes into the rough, they have to play the next shot from the rough. I believe the fairway/rough/sand play areas are all right next to each other.

And then, once the player reaches the green (or the fringe around the green), I believe they move to a real putting surface to finish the hole. I imagine the fans will be screaming through a lot of this, which should make the environment a little more Waste Management Open and a little less Masters. That’s good!

The only comparison I can think of for this in my head is the XFL. A whole new league, a variation on an existing sport, being launched with star power and with the support of major TV broadcasters. It didn’t work out great for the XFL either time, but it was interesting and entertaining to see someone try to advance our sports landscape forward.

Maybe this is, in fact, “Tomorrow’s Golf”. Maybe golf courses will go the way of the dodo and be replaced with these smaller arenas, and every shot will be taken in front of a large screen. As a golfer who finds the vast outdoor areas one of the biggest benefits of the money paid to play, I hope not. But I’ll be watching tonight, just in case Rory and Tiger are right.