The History Of The San Diego Padres
In 1969, Major League Baseball expanded by adding four new teams. The Seattle Pilots and the Kansas City Royals joined the American League. The Pilots would later become the Milwaukee Brewers. To the National League went the Montreal Expos, who later became the Washington Nationals, and the San Diego Padres. For all of these teams, success would not be in sight. This is particularly true for San Diego.
When the Padres burst on to the baseball scene, the city of San Diego was filled with excitement and hope for their new franchise. This was not surprising, after all the team could boast of a brand new ball field, an experienced front office, and a young team. The fans’ enthusiasm proved to be premature. The Padres were dreadful. They finished dead last in the NL West in each of their first six seasons. Four of those seasons saw the team drop at least one hundred games.
There were a couple of bright spots during these years of futility. First, there was Nate Colbert. He was a legitimate power hitter who played first base. One of his greatest accomplishments (and only one of two players to ever do it, the other is Hall of Famer Stan Musical) was to whack five home runs in the course of a doubleheader. By the way, he also drove in thirteen runs during that doubleheader, and that record belongs exclusively to him.
The second ray of hope was that the team was sold to a new owner, Ray Kroc. Kroc was the owner of the world’s largest fast food chain and had a burning desire to win. One of his first actions was to introduce himself to Padre Fans during a game via the PA system. It was at this time he apologized for the team’s “stupid ball playing” and pledged improvement. Unfortunately for him, the fans became distracted when a streaker took to the field while Kroc was speaking.
The club did begin to improve slowly but surely. They finished over . 500 (5 games over to be exact) for the first time ever in 1978. This accomplishment owes a lot to some of their better players like Gaylord Perry, Dave Winfield and Rollie Fingers. Sadly for the Pads, Winfield and Fingers both left as free agents.
The Pads did see success with two pennants and appearances in the World Series in 1984 and 1998. As luck would have it, both times they were facing juggernaut teams. First was the Detroit Tigers who began their season 35-5 and went on to win the whole thing in 5 games.
In 1998, they were up against another fierce foe from the American League: the New York Yankees. The 98 Yankees had won 114 games that season and are still considered among the best MLB teams in history. Even though the Yanks won the series in four games, the Padres played with fervor. Three of the games were close and quite exciting.
During the 2000s the Padres performance has been uneven. They did win the Western Division championship in 2005 and 2006. However the other years during the decade have proven to be disappointing.
Bobbie Barton is a fitness trainer She likes SportsFanTreasures.com and recommends you check out their info on Seattle Mariners Watch and Cleveland Indians Bedding
Processing your request, Please wait....
