Ninety days ago, the San Diego Padres closed within one game of eliminating the Dodgers in the National League Division Series. On their march to the World Series championship, the Dodgers had survived their toughest test at the hands of the Padres. The best rivalry in baseball would endure.
On Monday, in a bombshell lawsuit, the widow of beloved Padres owner Peter Seidler suggested the Padres themselves might not endure, at least not in San Diego.
Sheel Seidler, the widow, wants to take control of the team and said in a court filing that a reason Seidler’s brothers have prevented her from doing so “may well be … efforts to sell, and perhaps relocate, the team, over Sheel’s strident objections.”
In a lawsuit filed in Travis County (Tex.) probate court, Sheel Seidler alleged two of his brothers have “misappropriated and misused” the assets of Peter Seidler, who died in 2023. She further alleged the brothers “treat the team as their own plaything to be passed back and forth on a whim.”
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In a statement on social media Monday, Sheel Seidler said she filed suit “as a very last resort” and “the best way to protect the Padres franchise.”
A team spokesman said the Padres “do not comment on pending legal matters.”
Peter Seidler, a nephew of former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, reinvented the Padres as a powerhouse unwilling to be defined by its small market. The star-studded Padres, featuring the likes of Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Yu Darvish, sold out two-thirds of their home games last season and sold more tickets than any team besides the Dodgers, New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.
In 2023-24, the first winter after Peter Seidler’s death, the Padres traded Juan Soto and abandoned Blake Snell and Josh Hader in free agency. This winter, the Padres have not signed a major league free agent from outside the organization.
Last month, the Padres announced that Peter’s older brother, John, would become the team’s controlling owner. In a statement, the team described John Seidler as “an accomplished entrepreneur and business executive.” John Seidler is not one of the two brothers named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
In the suit, Sheel Seidler said John Seidler…