LET'S go, Padres. Baseball is alive and
well in San DiegoIt's been a long 14 years since my favorite Major League team has made the NLCS. Hey, if disco can make a comeback, why not San Diego?
The series with Atlanta will not have the nostalgic overtones of the 1984 NL championship, when the Padres took on the Chicago Cubs. Sadly, there is no Mike Royko or Harry Caray around to remind us that the Cubbies haven't been to a World Series since 1945, and haven't captured one since 1908.
They still haven't, this time courtesy of the Braves. Guess some things never change.
But what has changed in the last decade is San Diego's attitude toward its baseball team. Hard to imagine 65,000-plus at Jack Murphy Stadium (I have major qualms about calling it Qualcomm).
Fourteen years ago, the jokes were about there being more sushi and suntan lotion at the Murph than fans. Or that you had to drive 10 miles out on I-8 to see a wave since the crowds at the ballpark didn't make a ripple.
Saturday and Sunday night, the tsunami hit. As Padres management has been saying for years, "Keep the faith."
HOW appropriate since the stadium stands just a few miles from the first mission in California -- San Diego de Acala. The swinging friar is back on the logo. Not back -- fortunately -- are the padre brown/mission gold uniforms of the '70s, which made the players look like Taco Bell employees.
This time around, San Diegans seem to truly care about their baseball team. And about baseball.
It might be enough to get the referendum passed to build a $411 million baseball-only stadium near the downtown San Diego waterfront. The vote comes up Nov. 3 and essentially is a referendum on keeping the team in town and free agents Kevin Brown, Wally Joyner, Ken Caminiti, Steve Finley and Carlos Hernandez on the roster.
How great for Tony Gwynn, one of four Padres left from 1984. Gwynn, manager Bruce Bochy and coaches Tim Flannery and Greg Booker all were players on that championship team.
Gwynn, a former San Diego State star, could have bolted for bigger bucks and brighter lights years ago. He could have even chosen an NBA career if he had wanted (he was drafted by the San Diego Clippers in 1981, a day after being drafted by the Padres).
Instead, he's toiled for San Diego ever since been called up from the Hawaii Islanders in 1982.
"I'm trying to keep everything in its proper perspective. I'm trying not to let my emotions run wild," Gwynn said after Sunday's 6-1 win over Houston. "But this is the biggest thrill of my career. Going to the World Series in '84 was great, but the long wait in between makes this really nice.
"Coming into this series, a lot of people wrote us off. And I'll be honest with you. I think the only people who thought we could win this thing were the players."
OF course, some of us were hoping. So were the Cubs fans.
It was tough leaving the house Sunday to head to the Wahine volleyball game. The hobbling Gwynn had just doubled to open the eighth with the Padres holding on to a tenuous 2-1 lead.
Old memories die hard and the ones of late-inning collapses came flooding back. Sure, those losses came in the early 1970s when, despite its National League designation, the Padres were still a Triple-A ballclub.
But wait. Somewhere between Keolu Drive and the first tunnel on the Pali, John Vander Wal tripled and Joyner homered.
It was 6-1 and all that was left was for Trevor Hoffman to make his entrance a la Major League's "Wild Thing." AC/DC's Hell's Bells was blasting on the radio all the way through the tunnels.
It will be a tough series for the Padres, who have lost to the Braves five times in eight meetings this season. But stranger things have happened.
Besides, who knows where I'll be in 2012?
Cindy Luis is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter.
Her column appears weekly.