Peter Seidler, a man who often walked around with a baseball in his hands, who dressed more modestly than his employees, and who spent unprecedented sums of money in a small media market, was unlike any other business owner. a major league franchise. He stood out from the start, the way he entered that exclusive club.
In an interview two years ago, Seidler recalled being “locked in my house” in late 2011. That year he had begun undergoing chemotherapy and other at-home treatments for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He remembered feeling physically “OK” and “terribly bored.” A baseball team down the highway from the then Los Angeles area resident was for sale. So Seidler, a successful private equity investor and member of the family that moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Chavez Ravine, asked for more information on the San Diego Padres.
Curiosity soon turned into determination.
“This struck me as I was looking at the materials,” Seidler said in the 2021 interview. “With my background in private equity, I had seen a lot of amazing companies and been a part of them. But one thing about professional sports, to reiterate what I first heard from Commissioner (Bud) Selig, is that baseball is a social institution, and always has been. I believe it is still America’s pastime today and the impact the San Diego Padres can have on the city and county of San Diego is something no other business can have. And that was important to me.”
Seidler died Tuesday morning. He was 63 years old. He will be remembered as an owner who treated the Padres as a social institution, who took the franchise to unprecedented heights and who stood out until the end.
“Peter was probably the most positive person I knew,” Ron Fowler, who teamed with Seidler to buy the Padres in 2012, said Tuesday afternoon. “To say he saw the cup half full is probably a mistake. I think he saw it almost three-quarters full. He saw the possibilities, the silver lining in everything.
“He always said things could be fixed or ‘this will happen.’ He was just extremely positive in the way he looked at people, at problems, at everything. He always saw the good. I think that’s how he was in relationships, that’s how he was in business, and obviously it served him well.
My heart is saddened by the unfortunate news of Peter Seidler’s passing. I’m sure everyone who knew him would agree with me when I say that Peter was a truly wonderful human being, and being in his presence was always a blessing.
He was a life teacher and taught me countless…
— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) November 14, 2023
In an industry known for its cold, hard pursuit of profit, Seidler was a beloved figure, even as he helped turn Petco Park into one of baseball’s most popular destinations. Several years ago, he emerged further emboldened after a second bout with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The Padres subsequently signed Eric Hosmer to the franchise’s first nine-figure contract. They signed Manny Machado to San Diego’s first $300 million contract — briefly the largest pact in North American sports history — and later retained Machado on a $350 million contract. They demonstrated Seidler’s desire to win, again and again, with equally lucrative engagements with Fernando Tatis Jr., Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Xander Bogaerts. They fielded the franchise’s first nine-figure payrolls, including a reported $249 million last opening day. (As late as 2012, months before Seidler and Fowler bought the team, the Padres had a payroll of $55 million.)
Seidler’s big swings led to high-profile failures in 2019, 2021 and 2023, but his resolve remained intact throughout. His increasing financial expenses proved this. His health problems have influenced his approach. And his off-field efforts provided further evidence.
Addressing homelessness in San Diego became Seidler’s personal mission. Some of these attempts were known to the public, such as the founding of the “Tuesday Group” and his involvement with the Lucky Duck Foundation. Some of his efforts were more private. Seidler, for example, got into the habit of taking long night walks not far from the San Diego coast. Along the way, he often stopped to converse with the homeless, to listen and seek greater understanding of one of the community’s major crises.
“He was passionate,” Fowler said. “I once said, ‘Peter, I think it’s the government’s responsibility to do this frankly. …It seems like some days there is one step forward and two steps back. But you have to have a positive attitude.’ Otherwise, I think he would find it very frustrating, but he continued to pursue it.
The Padres, of course, were Seidler’s full-time project. His passion was evident even before he bought the team. In early 2012, when Fowler and Seidler met in person for the first time, the latter had recently completed cancer treatment. He looked so monkish that Fowler wondered if Seidler needed immediate medical attention. Yet Seidler proved undeterred, taking methodical notes on a notepad as he spoke with Fowler, a pre-existing minority owner of the Padres.
“My thought was, why is he trying to buy a baseball team right now? Why isn’t he trying to recover?” Fowler said. “But I wanted to buy a baseball team.”
Around the same time, Seidler attended his first game at Petco Park. In the 2021 interview he recalled the weight he lost with chemotherapy. I remembered feeling cold.
He also remembered being fascinated by the beauty of the stadium and the surrounding city, which had never celebrated a major sports championship. I remembered feeling inspired.
“That may have been the moment I got serious,” Seidler later recalled.
In the following years Seidler repeatedly demonstrated his commitment. Along the way, he befriended the man who built Petco Park. They bonded over shared experience.
“He wanted to win because he was a great sportsman, and great sportsmen want to win,” said former Padres president and CEO Larry Lucchino, himself a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “But he wanted to do something for the city, without a doubt.
“He was an amazing baseball man and an even more amazing human being, and I’m pissed he was taken from us so soon.”
Peter Seidler never got to experience what he so desperately wanted: San Diego’s first major sports championship. But on Tuesday, as Fowler, Lucchino and other baseball figures paid homage to a man who treated the Padres as a social institution, Seidler’s legacy was clear: In some ways, he was the ideal owner.
A very special moment that Yu Darvish pays homage to #Parents owner Peter Seidler @CBS8 pic.twitter.com/wXsC0t6FYv
—Jake Garegnani (@JakeGaregnani) November 14, 2023

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(Photo by Seidler: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)