Padres honor Don Welke, former vice president of scouting operations and longtime scout, by wearing red jackets on the first day of the 2019 draft.
For the last four years, Don Welke had been a fixture in the Padres draft room. You could usually find him “crushing the M&Ms,” General Manager A.J. Preller said with a laugh. On the first day, he was always wearing a bright red sports coat, a nod to his love of the Louisville Cardinals.
Welke, the vice president of scouting operations, died in September, two days shy of his 76th birthday.