Goose in TV Spot for McDonald’s?

As an avid San Diego Padres baseball fan, I’ve personally had it with team president Ballard Smith.

This season, he has shown that he cannot handle the modern-day major league baseball player, nor the fans.

It was first started with cutting off beer sales after the seventh inning. While there are some people who brought this rule on with their jerky behavior, it penalizes most of the rest of the fans. Then, he cut out locker room beer for the players, thus ending one more baseball tradition. Then he publicly insulted Montreal player Tim Raines, not giving him a second chance after his drug problems. And finally, he banned Goose Gossage for the rest of the season for doing the same thing in public Smith did to Tim Raines.

Let’s not forget that the Padres are in last place (at this writing) and I have to think that the morale of many players has to do, in part, with a messed-up club management. And the Padres’ policy not to sign players to multiyear contracts will leave us with a bunch of dead-end players.

If Ballard Smith wants to protect the morality of the public, let him quit baseball, and join the church, where he can spread the gospel to as many people as possible. Then, the rest of us might get a first-class winning ballclub again. San Diegans deserve it.

JEFF PRESCOTT

La Jolla