The Padres owned the No. 1 overall pick in baseball’s amateur draft on this date — June 7 — in 2004. The club’s scouting director, however, learned a few days before the draft he would not have the money to sign two of the top prospects, Stephen Drew or Jered Weaver.
“Too often,” Gayton told the North County Times years later, “it’s about who you would have liked to have selected rather than who you selected.”
Whom the Padres selected, of course, was shortstop Matt Bush from Mission Bay High School. To put it mildly, other options available proved significantly more valuable.