Steve Garvey: Trump considered buying, moving Padres in '80s

If Donald Trump had his way, the San Diego Padres would be playing somewhere on the East Coast right now.

In 1986, Padres' ownership put up the team for sale, and Trump was reportedly considered as a buyer. Steve Garvey, the former San Diego first baseman, reached out to Trump about potentially teaming up for a bid.

"I contacted Donald," Garvey told Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Monday. "He said he was interested."

Trump wanted more than to just buy the Padres, though. As owner of the now-defunct U.S. Football League's New Jersey Generals - and with most of his business empire near the state of New York - the 2016 Republican presidential nominee had plans for a possible relocation, too.

"He wondered if he could take the (Padres) franchise and move it back East, because he really wasn’t on the West Coast at that time," Garvey said, according to Pearce. "He said, 'Gosh, if I had been out there already, it would be a great complement.'"

In the end, the Padres remained in San Diego, while the USFL folded that same year, and Trump never ventured into sports ownership again.