San Diego Padres
Did you know that Tony Gwynn only struck out 23 times in 606 at bats during the 1984 Season? In his first full season in the bigs Mr. Padre batted .351 for the National League Champion Padres. It was the first pennant in team history, and the first of Tony’s eight eventual NL Batting Champion awards.
Padres era Jack McKeon was the best! Looking just like my Uncle Stan (RIP) ‘Trader Jack’ was actually the General Manager and architect of the Padres club who would reach the World Series in 1984, before he took over the Manager position in 1988. Jack only lasted until the All-Star Break of the 1990 season before he pulled himself out. He lost the General Manager position just two months later.
Steve Garvey is the ‘Iron Man’ of the National League. Mr. Clean’s 1207 consecutive games played is 4th all-time in MLB History. He suited up for the Dodgers & Padres from September of 1975 to July of 1983. Happy Birthday Steve!
It was August 12th, 1994 when the MLB Players Strike began, allowing it to become only the second season in MLB history to have no World Series be played. 1904 was the other. Along with the cancellation of the series we saw a number of players, and teams lose out on their quest for statistical greatness. One of those was Tony Gwynn and his chance to be the first player to hit .400 since the great Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941. Gwynn was batting .394 for the season when the players walked, cancelling the final 45 games. R.I.P. Tony
