October 16, 1998

By Daniel Muñoz

Watch out New York! Here come the Padres.

The San Diego Padres are the 1998 National League Champions.

With an MVP effort by starter Sterling Hitchcock and a tremendous sixth-inning rally that stuck a tomahawk in the Braves' hearts, the Padres took a 5-0 victory in Wednesday's Game 6 of the NLCS at Turner Field - and spent the rest of the evening spraying celebratory champagne all over each other.

"This isn't just a team thing, and it isn't just an organization thing," said Padre Tony Gwynn. "This is a city thing, so the whole city of San Diego should be celebrating this one."

So it's off to Yankee Stadium, where on Saturday we'll play Game 1 of the World Series.

Hitchcock, a former Yankee, doesn't care that he's playing his old team, doesn't care that we're up against the team many say could be the best in baseball history, doesn't care that we're going to the hallowed hall known as Yankee Stadium.

"We could be playing the Bad News Bears for all I care," said Hitchcock. "We're in the World Series, so it's all the same. We don't care who we're playing."

The Atlanta Braves went back home riding a little wave of momentum after winning the last two games in San Diego only to have Hitchcock quickly doused any hopes of stretching this series to a decisive seventh game.

Because of Hitchcock's 2 hit, 8 strikeout performance in this game and his 3 hit effort in Game 3 of this series over six innings he was unanimously voted the Most Valuable Player of the NLCS. Not bad for a guy who was relegated to the bullpen at the beginning of the season!

The story line of this series was a different hero every night, but this night was Hitchcock's.

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