San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
Musgrove got his love of game from dad, who can devote himself to Padres now
Mark Musgrove is a father and a fan.
To know how absolutely serendipitous it is that the two identities have merged, we would have to go back to 1969 and a boy in National City throwing a ball against the wall as he reenacted every pitch of the game he was listening to on a transistor radio.
The boy had previously been a San Francisco Giants fan, if only by virtue of his love for baseball and family members living close to the Bay Area.
The team whose games he was following now, though, was a new one, not just to him but to the world.
The San Diego Padres. “Now I had a team that was a hometown team,” the fan recalled 52 years later.
So this is no mere coming home story for Joe Musgrove, the son of the fan.
“He developed this love for the game I have, instilled it in me at a really young age,” said Joe, who unfailingly provides the insight of not only a baseball insider but also a baseball fanatic every time he talks to the media.
Joe is a fan himself, in addition to having been a professional baseball player the past decade and a
Fernando Tatis Jr. gives hometown fans hero, especially kids.
major leaguer the past five.
Virtually every night during baseball season the past three years, Mark would flip back and forth between Pittsburgh Pirates and Padres games on the television. When he and Joe would talk on the phone, Joe would ask how the Padres were doing.
“Me and my dad still talk like we’re Padres fans,” Joe said recently. “He’s always hitting me up, ‘Did you see this latest move?’ ‘What do you think of this?’ ”
And then came the move that combined the father and the fan, as the Padres acquired Joe in a January trade to be part of their starting rotation.
As perfect a convergence as this seems, though, Mark had an internal conflict a few months ago. It had become apparent the Pirates were going to move their most valuable pieces for prospects, and Joe was one of those valuable pieces. The Padres were among the teams said to be interested in the righthander who last season had shown the biggest signs yet of becoming the pitcher people envisioned when he was drafted in the first round out
of Grossmont High School in 2011.
“I was a little resistant to the idea of him coming to San Diego, because I didn’t want him to be inundated with all the fanfare that goes on with somebody playing in their hometown,” Mark said.
And there is plenty of that for Joe, whose three siblings and dozens of relatives still live in San Diego. Then there are the friends and old friends.
“I know there are going to be a lot of distractions for me, and I’ve already experienced a lot of it here,” Joe said.
As he has warmed up in the outfield before his starts in spring training, he hears the calls of “Grossmont High School!” and people telling him they met him somewhere or another and know this person or that. It will only increase when he returns to San Diego — and if the team wins and capacity at Petco Park increases to the point where tickets are available.
He directs people who text or call to one place.
“I’ve had my dad help me out a lot,” Joe said. “… Trying to manage it the best I can, have my dad get together the tickets we need, have him give me just one text with how many we need and who
we need.”
People sometimes don’t understand the demands of being a big-league ballplayer. Inevitably, someone feels slighted. Said Joe: “There is always going to be somebody out there that thinks you’re (a jerk.)”
Mark plans to be vigilant. He is concerned.
“That’s a dad’s perspective,” he said. “But as a fan of Joe’s and a fan of baseball, I was so excited to see him come to a club that for the next several years, they’re going to contend for the World Series. They have an outstanding opportunity, and I’m so excited he gets to be a part of the club. I’m not counting my chickens yet, but ...”
But there is hope. “Yeah,” Mark said. “When every other year, you’re just hoping they break even.”
Remember, the fan has been around longer than the father.
And the father passed along the fandom to his four kids — Aaron, Marisa, Terra, who all live in San Diego County, and the baby, Joe, who does once again. The love of the game and of the Padres settled particularly in Mark’s and his wife Diane’s youngest child.
“We used to take him to
the Murph,” Mark said. “He loved to go early in batting practice and get into the outfield and catch home runs.”
When the Padres moved to Petco Park in 2004, Mark and his four brothers — Steve, Ed, Michael and John, all San Diego residents — went in on season tickets. It was there, in their seats beyond right field, that Joe caught his first ball thrown from a player (Mark Kotsay). And that is where he learned it was OK to show emotion on the mound.
“My dad really instilled in me to be respectful and to not show up your opponent and play the game the right way,” Joe said. “I always wanted to let a little more out than he wanted me to. Going to Padres games and seeing (Jake) Peavy, snot flying, grunting, and first bumping, that was who I felt I was as a player.”
So it was that when he arrived, with Chris Paddack wearing the 59 Joe had worn with the Astros and Pirates, Joe took Peavy’s 44.
“It’s pretty special for me,” Joe said.
This whole thing is almost indescribably so for the entire family.
Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. Grandmothers.
“Both my grandmothers haven’t been able to see me play in person other than the few games we’ve had in San Diego,” Joe said. “That’s what I think I’m most excited about is they’ll be able to come to all the home games and watch me pitch like they did when I was in high school.”
It is when he thinks of those moments and what they mean that the fan is really just a father.
“I try to keep things in perspective a lot of times when I think about Joe’s career,” Mark said. “It’s his job, so I try not to get too involved and try to remind people as much as possible, as much of an entertainer slash celebrity a professional athlete is, it’s their job. We need to give him a little bit of room and let him get out and perform.
“But having said that, being around him and knowing he’s here in San Diego and the impact it has not only on us because we’re able to finally go and see as many games and see him as much as possible but other people too — family members, friends, people coming out of the woodwork. It’s very exciting, and I’m very, very proud.”
kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com