Ted Leitner is a little cantankerous.

“I’m driving,” he said, “leaving one of my 17 doctors.”

That’s how anyone who has gotten to know him over his more than 40 years talking about sports in San Diego knows Leitner is pretty much back to normal.

He is ready to tell us about the Padres again.


“I feel wonderful,” he said in a phone conversation Thursday. “I intend to tell the Padres fans, ‘Guess what: Your prayers worked.’ ”

The longtime radio voice of the Padres and San Diego State had a kidney removed on May 31 for what was thought to be a cancerous tumor. Doctors discovered the mass a month earlier and told Leitner there was no need for a biopsy because it was virtually certain a tumor that size was cancerous.

Tests conducted after surgery revealed the tumor was benign.

“I feel like I won the lottery,” Leitner said.


Leitner said doctors told him even a benign tumor necessitated the kidney being removed.

Other than a voice that remains a little hoarse from the intubation, Leitner said he is eager to return to work. He hopes that will be at least for the Padres’ home games Tuesday and Wednesday against the Oakland A’s. He is not sure when he will be ready to travel.

There was a happiness in his voice.

“I’m a 70-year-old guy who doesn’t walk very fast and has a hard time sleeping with lots of stitches, and there’s a kidney gone,” he said. “Other than that, I’ll put up with that.”


kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com