Column: Padres’ collapse pushes ‘Baseball Dave,’ other fans to uncomfortable crossroads

There could be no more uncomfortably fitting moment in the Padres’ 2021 season that came apart at the seams than the fireworks exploding Saturday night over Petco Park.

A 10-inning loss to the Braves eliminated baseball’s most buzzed about team of the spring with a full week of the season remaining. The Padres wasted Manny Machado’s grand slam, along with three leads — one with two outs in the ninth inning — to pen an unusually cruel epilogue for the most disappointing season in franchise history.

In Section 110, Dave Blair marveled at the irony.

“They had these nice white chairs on the field for players and their families,” Blair said of the fireworks display for Hispanic Heritage Weekend. “It was great, but they just got their (butts) kicked in a game that should break their hearts.

“I’ve been to 19 ballparks and I’ve never felt as entertained as I am at Padres games. They’re experts at that. But they just lost (their playoff shot) and they were out there. Entertainment? Yes. But winning is not a part of the organization’s DNA, like the Giants or the Cardinals.”

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Blair, 63, of Kensington, understands there was no way to forecast how awkwardly the moments would converge. That’s simply a raw and real measure of how wounded a lifelong fan felt after investing heart and dollars into a season ticketed for somewhere special.

At age 7 or 8, Blair chased fouls balls during Padres games at Westgate Park in Mission Valley. When his career caused him to bounce around the country, he scrambled to soak up every stat in two-day-old newspaper box scores. For nearly 20 years, while living in Atlanta and Milwaukee, he never missed a Padres road series in those cities.

This season, he’s attended nearly 60 games.

Blair is such a baseball fan that when his high school team cut him, he became the statistician, keeping a plaque awarded for his math-related services as a reminder of the path he paved next.

When Blair tried to walk on at USC, he was told to lift weights and circle back. He played American Legion ball in Montana to sharpen his skills and prove his resolve. The next year, the catcher and second baseman joined the Trojans’ junior-varsity team and, eventually, lettered for the varsity.

One day, USC pitching coach Marcel Lachemann called and asked Blair to come to the field. He would catch Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, searching for a stealth workout while in town to the play the Dodgers.

Blair still plays in competitive adult leagues. His friends, and I count myself as one of them, called him Baseball Dave because of his pure love of the sport and his Padres.

The two find themselves on shaky relationship ground.

“On opening day, I said, ‘We’ve finally arrived,’ ” Blair recalled. “We finally have a team that can compete with the Dodgers. All of my Dodgers friends in my face for so long, saying it’s only a rivalry to the Padres, not to the Dodgers, that hurt. I thought, ‘OK, now we can beat them.’ I was so positive and confident.

“I don’t know that I can get that confidence back.”

The Padres lost his trust, if not his wallet.

“The team’s going to have to earn it in the second halves of a season or two, because they broke my heart that much,” Blair said.

Thousands of San Diegans can relate. You put your heart into something and it didn’t love you back. In the unraveling end, it broke up with you by text.

Entering Sunday’s final home game of the season, the Padres (78-77) inexplicably found themselves closer to finishing fourth in the NL West (6½ games) than the final wild-card spot (8).

How could a team with five All-Stars, which became six after scooping up second baseman Adam Frazier at the trade deadline, flirt with the south side of .500 after once being 17 games up?

In what wacky world could you field the leading NL MVP contender in Fernando Tatis Jr., parked alongside another $300-million player in Machado, and fail to mount a serious charge the final two months?

In a year when homegrown pitcher Joe Musgrove ended the franchise’s no-hitter drought, when the team added a Cy Young winner and another runner-up, coming off the first postseason series win since 1998, hope withered too stunningly soon.

Dumbfounding stuff, really.

“The season has been crushing,” Blair said. “Walking out (Saturday), I said, ‘Dave, you’ve got to stop putting your heart into the Padres.’ ”

The Padres are beginning to shuffle the organizational deck, making moves at the scouting and development level. Those in the know are confident more offseason resets remain. Roster moves surely are coming, as well. The odds of manager Jayce Tingler returning grow fainter by the inning.

Where it all leads, who knows.

One thing is clear as crystal, though: Blair wants his hope back.

He’s not alone.