To anyone slagging off what they did at the Padres, explain one thing - how exactly are they worse off since he took over and then sold up than they were beforehand. My take on things...
1. They were bottom when he took over and when he left they were back at bottom.
2. in the period of ownership instead of being bottom every year like previously - their fans enjoyed at least 5 years that far exceeded what had come prior - including being in the baseball equivalent of the CL a few times and the final once.
3. When he took over they didn't own a stadium and had to rent from the American football team, when he left they had a custom built stadium which was one of the best of the league.
4. For all talks over him not being in long term - until his divorce they seem to have been ran well, after the divorce he became a 'distant owner' due to the need of him basically being forced to sell to satisfy the division of property laws in California, but he owned them for longer than Blue Bill has owned us for in terms of him not being in for a long haul...
5. In American sports if you aren't competing then it pays to be the worst team in the league as it rewards you with the best of the young players coming through the draft - so MANY clubs use a system where when they are bad they go whole hog and suck terribly as a way of trying to strengthen for the future. check out the NFL comedy that was the 'suck for luck' season, when the leagues worst teams actually had a race to have the leagues worst record in order to sign the stand-out player in the following seasons draft, to directly compare this to how they'd manage a team in a league with relegation is absurdly daft.
6. He gets a lot of stick for the people he sold the club to, these people were passed as fit owners by the leagues other owners, and fitted the model of being one of their boys club, the original people he tried to sell to got blocked due to them not being part of this circle jerk.
