Follow the Friars
The desert, Michael King, and cold beers at Petco Park
The first thing you notice after hitting I-8 is the relative emptiness. It’s a beautifully desolate stretch of highway that runs east-to-west from Tucson directly into the heart of San Diego. You can feel the wide expanse of nothingness around you (and the relative lack of cars and 18-wheelers) almost as acutely as you can feel the lack of rest areas and washrooms in your bladder. The mountains you slowly drive up and through are old and weathered, and I-8 meanders its way through them. When you finally drop into California you’re greeted by a sea of sand dunes. You’re so close to the border that, at one point, a sign simply reads: MEXICO - NEXT LEFT.
Debbie and I made great time getting to San Diego and hit the Gaslamp an hour before the first pitch. We met up with a friend's mom, whom I sense might crop up later in our story, and the three of us made our way through security and into Gallagher Square — the huge, newly renovated lawn and concert space attached to Petco Park. Security, it must be said, was tighter here than at any other ballpark I’ve been to; I’m not sure whether that’s the norm or because it’s the playoffs.
Through security, we were greeted with bright, golden rally towels with the words: FOR THE FAITHFUL on them. Everyone there had them and they got plenty of use as the game progressed. Being in a place like Gallagher Square, not even really the ballpark proper, was a little surreal. I’ve seen the place through my television, heard it talked about, and seen thousands of the Friar Faithful on the lawn, but to actually be in the place?
After standing around, a little dumbfounded if I am being honest, we decided to scope out the place. Debbie and I like to move around, see the stadium from different vantages and angels. There are no bad views at Petco Park, only ones a little better and a little brighter than the rest.
We wandered up sloped, switchbacking walkways until we found ourselves in the 300s high in the upper deck. It was there in the stratosphere, after Fernando Tatis Jr. hit the go-ahead two-run homer with the final rays of the bright, golden sun glimmering around all 47,647 of us, that an echo of Field of Dreams comes to mind:
“Is this heaven?”
“No, this is San Diego.”
There’s a reason the place is called America’s Finest City.
When watching a baseball game, one never knows if the game is going to become a Game With A Name. This type of game is one where a single player or moment so defines it in the collective consciousness of its attendees, that it is forever referenced by the incident. During an exhibition match against the LG Twins of South Korea on March 17, Ha-Seong Kim had two homers against his former ballclub and now that game is called “The Ha-Seong Kim Game.” A non-baseball reference would be the Jordan Flu Game.
The game we were witnessing at Petco would become “The Michael King Game.” It’s not every day that your starting pitcher throws so many strikeouts (12) that the strikeout board runs out of room. The roar at each strikeout — when it was clear King was hurling pitches that the Braves proved incapable of hitting and would do so until the cows came home— became louder and louder to the point that a King strikeout was as loud and stadium-shaking as any home run. By the end of the night, King would throw 89 pitches in 7 shutout innings and became the first-ever pitcher to strike out 12 batters (while also throwing seven scoreless innings) in his postseason debut. Not bad for a man who, until August 2023, was a reliever and exclusively a bullpen arm.
But, to those watching the Padres all season-long, the transformation of reliever to starting ace is just one of many surprises the team has been blessed with in 2024. The others being Jurickson Profar, the incomparable Jackson Merrill, Matt Waldron’s early-season knuckleball, and the return-to-form of Tatis Jr. It’s amazing what the power of friendship, and the right coaching staff, can accomplish.
One of the other surprises, one that took some time to become really obvious, was the advent of Kyle Higashioka. One of my Twitter mutuals, Maria, was sporting a Higgy jersey all the way back on August 16. As I told her after Higashioka’s home run in Wild Card Game #1 — and, spoiler alert, second homer in Wild Card Game #2 — her fellow Padres fans just didn’t see him the way she did. Clearly, as chants of “Higgy! Higgy! Higgy!” could be heard loudly and proudly during every Higashioka at-bat, it was clear the rest of the fanbase had since gotten the message.
Another surprise, one that was personally gratifying but one of relief rather than outright joy, was to see the return to form (or something close to it) of Robert Suarez. Good old Bobby Bullets has been the team’s closer all season but, for the past month, has struggled and blown several saves. Even as his unique, confidence-inspiring entrance played out before me — the stadium lights going out, the PA playing “Bandoleros Song” by Don Omar and Tego Calderón, the marquees lit in digital flames surrounding the name ROBERT SUAREZ — I was worried. Visions of Suarez’s blown save to the Detroit Tigers on September 5 — with the Tigers trailing by three runs and down to their last strike only for Parker Meadows to crush a go-ahead grand slam against him — were prowling around at the back of my hippocampus.
Suffice to say, that didn’t happen. My worst fears did not come to pass and, instead, Petco Park erupted. For some players, the playoff lights can be too bright, but this was not the case for Robert Suarez. It didn’t hurt his chances that, on the field around him and forever supporting him, were eight of his best friends.
A frequent and almost rote word to use when referring to games or crowds or teams is to use the word “electric.” But, standing amidst the largest single-game crowd in franchise history (47,647) it’s easy to see why that word is the first to spring to mind. Petco Park was electric and the Friar Faithful did not disappoint.
After winning 4-0 against the Braves, the entirety of the Gaslamp seemed to be of the same mind: celebratory drinks were in order. There were also honkings and high-fives all around.
We met up with a Twitter mutual — with whom we had had the good fortune of meeting-up with during Spring Training in March, shout-out to B-Dub — and walked over to the Knotty Barrel1. We tied a few on, sampled the local brews, fist-bumped and chatted up complete strangers, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Beers and friends in the Gaslamp was a fitting end to a day that had begun 430 miles away with coffee and the desert. The next Wild Card game was far off in some dimly seen future called “tomorrow” and, well, tomorrow could wait.
[Here is Part 1 of “Follow the Friars”]
The Knotty Barrel, my handy-dandy copy of the San Diego Reader notes, won their 2024 reader poll for Best Barbecue. While I did not eat, I did enjoy a draft of Karl Strauss Brewing’s “Follow the Sun Lager.” I enjoyed it very much.