Petco ParkWest Coast Bias is in the solution business, if only because so many of my fellow sports hacks like to complain, complain, complain. "Son," my dad used to say, "you've got to be smarter than the problem."

The problem I'm tackling today, free of charge: How to flavor up  this weekend's series between the National League West's bottom two teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the last-place San Diego Padres.

The Padres, despite being allowed to swing hard wooden sticks, were shut out in seven games last month, and their defense failed them too often. San Diegans usually reserve their boos for the Dodgers or Raiders, but in response to their team's blunders on Wednesday, Padres fans hooted like Philadelphians would. One of the few Padres who's fun to watch -- All-Star closer Heath Bell -- likely will be traded before August. Only five months ago, the club dealt its only good hitter, Adrian Gonzalez.

Hey, I didn't say this would be easy.

The Garden Snakes, as the Diamondbacks are known here, have grown a rattle or two since last year's 65-97 performance and have an exciting player in right fielder Justin Upton. I look at their starting pitching and the summer ahead, though, and think of ice cubes in the desert. 

Fortunately for me, the Padres are staging a beer-drinking event -- Beerfest -- before Friday's game, so many fans should be in a festive mood when they get to their seats..

That's where my idea comes in: Have the clubs' two owners oppose each other in a pregame softball match that also includes team executives.

Believe me, because of the odd, involved history between the two front offices, it'd be more spirited than the baseball to follow. Have you seen rich men use their spikes as staple guns, a la Ty Cobb?

The two owners -- Arizona's Ken Kendrick and San Diego's Jeff Moorad -- were ownership partners in Arizona until New Year's Day 2009. That's when Moorad left to become the Padres' CEO and also initiate his purchase of the club, which is still ongoing. (John Moores is the club's majority owner, at least until Moorad makes his next payment.)

Moorad's departure didn't set well with Kendrick, who, from what I'm told by employees with both clubs, would rather eat sand than see Moorad's Padres succeed. Taking a cue from his boss Kendrick, Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers, who used to be the Padres' GM, has told friends that Arizona will not finish behind "those guys." Safe to say, "those guys" are the Padres. Towers will be sitting in the field seats this weekend, rooting against his former employer. 

Such was the disagreement between Kendrick and Moorad over how much money Moorad should get for his shares in the Arizona club that baseball's commissioner's office assigned three people to set a price. To hear one MLB official, the task was as complicated as peace talks in the Middle East.  Not until after the 2010 season did Moorad get his money, in the tens of millions. Use of a company jet was part of the discussion. 

As for the rivals' baseball executives, many of them get along well. But if pink-slip vengeance bubbles inside three of them, our softball game would include brushback pitches and barrel slides into infielders

Moorad fired Towers late in 2009 after their first season together. Raising him a pink slip last summer, Kendrick and his president, Derrick Hall, fired Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes and manager A.J. Hinch.

All three would motor onto the interstates that connect San Diego and Phoenix, with Towers eventually heading east to the desert for his next full-time job,  and Byrnes and Hinch going west to San Diego's front office. 

Towers retains a friendship with several of his former Padres employees. He also praises his successor in San Diego, Jed Hoyer, whom he gave a scouting report on other GMs shortly after Hoyer succeeded him.

But in published comments to West Coast Bias and the San Diego Union-Tribune in spring training, Towers did not paint a rosy picture of his present relationship with Moorad, unless thorns qualify as rosy. Moorad, for his part, was less talkative about the subject.

The two were at odds two winters ago, a few months after Towers was fired. Towers had lined up a new job with the Yankees as a scouting consultant to GM Brian Cashman, and Moorad wanted the Yankees to eat $250,000 of Towers' remaining $1.5 million guarantee. In the end, the Yankees agreed to pay only $50,000, so the Padres had to pay their former GM $1.45 million as he worked for baseball's wealthiest team. The D-Backs, meantime, are still paying large sums to Hinch and Byrnes, who had multiple years left on their contracts when they were fired..

Last fall, after Towers had joined the Diamondbacks, the Padres had concerns that he would try to raid their front office and scouting departments. For good reason, as the club lost several talented scouts early last decade when Larry Lucchino, who had been fired by Moores, lured talent to the Red Sox. Towers took only one scout, Bill Bryk, to Phoenix. Nonetheless the issue heated up in the offseason when the Padres raised the prospect of hiring Diamondbacks personnel, which would require Arizona's permission.

Kendrick responded angrily, telling his baseball men to have nothing to do with the Padres.

West Coast Bias contemplated a fencing duel between Kendrick and Moorad but, because children attend these games, decided on a softball game. It would be cathartic for all of these guys. I don't have a scouting report on Kendrick's softball prowess. Moorad, judging by his Steve Garvey-like forearms, might have more softball power than his Padres players have baseball power. Towers is a former Triple-A pitcher who once beat former big leaguer Rick Sutcliffe in a batting practice home runs contest. As for the D-Backs ex-pats, Byrnes is the career record holder in home runs and RBI at Pennsylvania's Haverford College, and Hinch is a former major league catcher.

Photo:  dnak, Creative Commons 2.0