Former Padres President Smith isn’t all heart
SIGN ON SAN DIEGONovember 23, 2011
When former Padres President Ballard Smith was admitted to the hospital for recent heart bypass surgery, his 8-year-old grandson Nathan relayed a special request through his mother, Smith’s daughter Amanda Latimer: ?”When grandpa gets his heart thing fixed, can the doctor fix his hearing, too?”
Winners: Tight end Antonio Gates’ bride Sasha gave her all at yesterday’s Chargers Blood Drive. Not her blood. A model and singer, Sasha performed for donors at the Town and Country … high school sweethearts Travis Lash and Jaclyn Adler, who were married at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11/11 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, would seem to have a sporting chance for success. He works in scouting for the San Diego Chargers; she’s in the San Diego Padres events department … For the 15th year, downtown’s Hard Rock Cafe will host the homeless from Rachel’s Women’s Center Thursday for Thanksgiving dinner. Staff and their families volunteer to feed the women before they punch the time clock to feed the public.
Circle of life: Brent Eastman was 11 years old when he witnessed a disaster that set him on his life’s course. It was 1951, and Brent, the son of a locomotive engineer, rushed with his father to the scene where two trains had collided in a blinding Wyoming snowstorm, leaving scores dead and injured. One of the trains carried physicians returning from a medical academy meeting, and Brent watched as they worked to save the wounded. Sixty years later, Dr. Brent Eastman, a trauma surgeon and chief medical officer of Scripps Health, has been named president-elect of the prestigious medical academy he learned about that day: the American College of Surgeons.
Life in the city: After standing empty for seven years on prime oceanview property, the former home of La Jolla’s Chart House restaurant is having conspicuous success as Eddie V’s. Open for just three months, the steak and seafood house has posted more than $1.3 million in sales, a record for one of the Arizona-based chain’s restaurants … Since announcing his bid to challenge Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray last month, former San Diego Councilman Scott Peters has been quick to stockpile political endorsements from fellow Democrats. Among them: Assembly members Toni Atkins, Marty Block and Ben Hueso, former Assemblyman Howard Wayne, S.D. Councilman Todd Gloria and former Rep. Lynn Schenk.
Bottom line: Phil Herr’s daughter, Alison, just completed paralegal schooling at the University of San Diego. Her favorite take-away is this bit of wisdom from a pet professor: “If a person steals $100, he’s called a thief. If he steals $100,000,000, he’s called a hedge fund manager.”