Padre O'Malley

Pending the other owners' approval, which isn't likely to be withheld, Peter O'Malley is back in baseball. And in southern California, to boot. Only it may take a few people a little time to get used to thinking of an O'Malley owning the San Diego Padres.

All but forced to sell the Los Angeles Dodgers to News Corp., which sold the team in turn to Frank McCourt, O'Malley left the game with a reputation mostly as spotless as his father's had been controversial. The father had too refined, too embedded a taste for wheeling, dealing, and (some said) stealing; the son had too much taste for the quiet way. Walter O'Malley was once reputed to have beaten his front-office and farm system employees out of rightful earnings or rewards; Peter O'Malley remains famous for sending gallons of vanilla ice cream to his employees for every day the Dodgers occupied first place.

San Diego may be scratching their heads now and then, even as they're smiling at the rhetorical possibilities. But vanilla ice cream around the front offices probably beats a Big Mac (McDonald's founder Ray Kroc once owned the team, somewhat notoriously) any day of the week. No one will be likely to accuse O'Malley — as Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage, once a key on the Padres' first World Series entrant, said of the Krocs' signature product — of poisoning the world with his favorite treat.

http://www.sports-central.org/sports/2012/08/09/padre_omalley.php