SAN DIEGO -- What a great time to be a sports fan in San Diego and what a great time to be covering sports in San Diego.
My name is Marty Caswell. I’m a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University and I grew up watching Tony Gwynn terrorize pitchers and never strike out at Jack Murphy stadium.
I’ve worked in sports radio as a producer and on-air contributor for the past 20 years, first with the legendary Mighty 1090 and the past few years at the iHeart sports station 760, alongside my long-time radio host Darren Smith, the best interviewer in the business. We’ll get to the end of that era another time.
During that stretch, I survived eight different Padres managers, 14 hitting coaches, four ownership changes, the NFL team bailing to Los Angeles and the demise of Blackberry.
But sports is about hope, the promise of what could be and what’s to come and there’s never been a better time to be a San Diego sports fan.
The Padres are an exciting team with superstars, led by Manny Machado, Fernando Tatís and rookie sensation Jackson Merrill. There is no better venue to watch baseball than Petco Park and the Padres welcomed a franchise-best 3,330, 545 through the turnstiles last season, fourth best in MLB.
More importantly, the Padres and their fans know they can compete with the loaded, talented roster of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a statement that would have seemed crazy three years ago, but was reinforced by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts after the World Series on the podcast “On Base With Mookie Betts.”
“I felt from my perspective, that was the World Series," Roberts said. "I felt that at that moment in time, when we started the postseason, they were one through 26, the best team.”
Ouch.
The Padres felt like a team of destiny last season; on their way to the second most wins in team history as they honored the memory of their late, great owner Peter Seidler.
You never know how open your window is in sports and if 2024 represented the best opportunity for that particular group of players but 2025 will bring just as much hope and buzz. That will certainly be the case if Padres general manager A.J. Preller finds a way to land Japanese pitching sensation Roki Sasaki. And the best current rivalry in baseball bar none, the Padres and Dodgers, reignites on June 9th, 2025. Come on, schedule-makers!
I’m so excited to contribute to and join the talented staff at The Sporting Tribune with some Padres content, take you inside the clubhouse, welcome SDFC in their inaugural season and watch the growth of the new-look SDSU Aztecs under Brian Dutcher.
It’s going to be a fun journey and I hope you’ll all join me for the ride.
