BILLY BEANE WAS a sports-obsessed 7-year-old in San Diego when Major League Baseball came to his city in 1969. He attended as many Padres games as he could, visiting what was then called San Diego Stadium so often he became part of an early promotional campaign that designated him as a "7up Junior Padre." He rooted hard for Nate Colbert and Clay Kirby, scoffed at those who suggested Vin Scully was a better broadcaster than Jerry Coleman and approached each spring with unabashed optimism. The Padres accomplished only one winning season before Beane left the city as a first-round draft pick out of high school in 1980, but he continued to quietly root for them from afar, even while navigating his current job as the Oakland Athletics' celebrated head of baseball operations. He wanted it for San Diego.
"I know what that city's capable of doing when an exciting, winning team is out there," Beane said. "I've seen it. I've lived it."
Now, weirdly, he might be part of it.
The Padres began a much-hyped 2021 season with 34 wins in their first 53 games, then underwent one of the most bewildering collapses in recent baseball history, ultimately missing the playoffs with a losing record and sending the team's principal decision-makers on a search for new leadership in its clubhouse. Their greatest need, many throughout the industry noted, was an experienced manager with clout, someone who could expertly strike the balance of earning trust with players and building synergy with executives -- a skill that often seemed to elude the departed Jayce Tingler. And it was Beane who helped deliver their ideal candidate.
Beane and Bob Melvin had grown exceedingly close while spending the past 11 years together in Oakland, sharing an affinity for red wine, wry humor and 5 o'clock dinners. But with the A's staring down the likelihood of another rebuild after the 2021 season, Beane and A's owner John Fisher granted Melvin the opportunity to entertain external opportunities, even though the team had already picked up his 2022 option.
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller spent the early weeks of Major League Baseball's postseason getting a feel for the team's initial list of candidates, but with an eye toward asking Beane about the possibility of interviewing Melvin for the vacancy. The call came around the middle of October. "Let me talk to him," Beane responded.
"It wasn't something I embraced," Beane said in a recent phone conversation. "But he's at this stage in his life, and our relationship is such, that I wanted what was best for him. And this is what was best for him."
The entire pursuit took about a week. Preller, striving to move quickly, walked Melvin through two separate meetings over the final days of October, one in the Padres' spring training complex in Peoria, Arizona, and the other in the team's major league ballpark in downtown San Diego. As the process unfolded, Beane became Melvin's most important confidant.
"It was all about doing what was the best thing for Bob," Beane said. "That was absolutely, positively it."
Melvin, 60, wasn't necessarily eager to leave, but he wasn't necessarily eager to navigate a third rebuild, either. The New York Mets also expressed interest, but Melvin didn't want to pit teams against one another. He would make his decision one team at a time, starting with the Padres. He never reached the Mets.
"I was comfortable with this," Melvin told ESPN as spring training was winding down. "It wasn't about money for me. It wasn't about negotiating. It was about being comfortable in another place. That's just kind of how I am. I was comfortable with this, so the New York process never took shape."
Nearly 300 different players wore an A's uniform from 2011 to 2021, and none of them, Beane asserts, ever said a bad word about Melvin. Beane points to the humility, empathy and calmness that make him the very best at managing a clubhouse and forging relationships. His open-mindedness, curiosity and intelligence, Beane added, make him fluent in the analytics that became prevalent long after his playing career ended in the mid 1990s. Together, despite scant resources, Beane and Melvin emerged from each of two aggressive rebuilds with impressive runs of three consecutive postseason appearances. They had been the longest-tenured manager-executive pairing in the sport.
"And it didn't end because of failure on one part or the other," Beane said. "In some ways it ended because he was so successful."
JUNE 23, 2021, ended in euphoria. Padres third baseman Manny Machado snared a hard line drive off the bat of Albert Pujols and quickly fired to second base to retire Will Smith, ending a close game on a double play. Second baseman Jake Cronenworth boisterously pumped his fist, closer Mark Melancon let out a primal yell and a sold-out home crowd went wild. The Padres had swept the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, improving to 45-32 while cruising in the National League wild-card race. It felt like their arrival.
It turned out to be their peak.