October 16, 1998
By Raoul Lowery Contreras
People spilled into the streets by the thousands, traffic stopped throughout the city and high-decibel car horns honking, madly, were the sights and sounds of a victorious people. Police officers stood by, smiling, laughing, joining, from time to time, in chants of "Go Padres!" New variations of the song "New York, New York" blasted from kareoke bars.
Just a few miles south of a crazed San Diego and it's 2.7-million people, Mexicans were dancing in the streets of Tijuana and joined their northern neighbors with chants of "Yanquis no! Padres si!" Padres! Padres!
The thirty-year-old Padre baseball team had just conquered the Atlanta Braves on Ted Turner Field in Atlanta, 5-0, in the most devastating defeat of the Heart of the South since General William T. Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground in the Civil War. The Padres invaded Atlanta and won all three games in front of stunned Braves fans and an incredulous national audience which asked, "Who are these guys?"
They are fabulous future Hall of Famers like one of the best hitters in history, 38-year-old Tony Gwynn, to 22-year-old Panamanian Ruben Rivera who began playing baseball in Panama slums. Venezuelan Carlos Hernandez played part-time for the Los Angeles Dodgers for 8-years and chafed the entire time. With the Padres he played almost the entire season and found ways to win games for the Padres that were amazing. Dominican Quilvio Veras played the best 2nd-base in club history and made a solid Dynamic Duo with Southern Californian Chris Gomez who is probably the best Mexican American shortstop in organized baseball history. An All-American at Cal-State Long Beach, he joins San Diego State's Tony Gwynn in spotlighting Cal-State University baseball.
Then there is 50-home run Greg Vaughn, a deer-like running center fielder, Steve Finley, a bull-like third baseman named Ken Caminiti, a mild mannered Brigham Young University grad named Wally Joiner, "King" Layritz and pitchers named Brown, Hoffman, Micelli, Wall, Myers, Hamilton, Ashby and a guy named Hitchcock, the Most Valuable Player of the Championship series and an honest to goodness "Iron Man." All these, and more, and a manager born in France, Bruce Bochy.
It has been 14 years since the Padres won the National League Championship and played Detroit in the World Series, a series they quickly and forgettablely lost. This time, it is different; for baseball is different and electric.
The magnificent home run chase of Roger Maris' single season 61-home run record by California-boy "Big Mac" McGuire and "Baseball has been berry, berry good to me" Sammy Sosa, the former shoe shine boy from the Dominican Republic, added luster and class to the sport of Ted Williams, Joe Dimaggio, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. They not only chased each other and the record, they took us along for the ride.
The season-long pennant run by the Padres, who were in first place for all but six days of the entire season in the National League West, was the best kept secret in baseball until they flattened Houston's "Big Unit" Randy Johnson twice in the playoffs and knocked off the team of the Nineties, the Atlanta Braves.
And now, its the San Diego Padres, last-place finishers in the National League West last year, against the storied New York Yankees, complete with an escaped-by-raft refugee from Cuban Communism nicknamed "El Duque" — The Duke, Orlando Her-nandez and our own Ruben Rivera's cousin, bullpen ace, Manano Rivera.
George Will, columnist, baseball fan, tells us that much of the current baseball renaissance is led by the parade of Hispanic ball players that play on every team and play well. One-third of the All-Stars this year, Will states, were Hispanics, most from south of the Rio Grande, or the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The New America against the Old America. The Sunbelt against the Rust Belt. Our Latin ball players against their Latin ball players.
Baseball, of course, is not war, despite the passion and emotion of fans and the language and verbiage of sportswriters and fans. But, it is a pastime and it fills the voids in some lives and alleviates the stress some people experience daily. It can foster optimism, loyalty, sadness and joy; it can cause tears and laughter; it can join people from the slums of the Americas to the penthouses of New York in emotions no other endeavor short of war can — it is baseball.
The National League West, the Houston Astros, the Atlanta Braves have been defeated by the Padres and, now, only the Yanquis stand in the way of Padre destiny. Unfortunately for New York, the Great Padre-In-The-Sky appears to be a Padre fan (ask Ted Turner and his award winning pitchers).
Let us pray. Keep the Faith. Go Padres. Play Ball!
Return
to Homepage