TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Chuck Riffee of Glen Allen, VA, who correctly stated Ralph Terry was the pitcher who gave up Gordy Coleman's home run in the 1961 World Series. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.
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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: How many of the pitchers on the 1969 San Diego Padres actually pitched in a post season game in their career. Pat yourself on the back if you can name them?
ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Ralph Terry gave up Gordy Coleman's home run in the 1961 World Series, almost one year to the day after giving up the Series clinching Game 7 Home Run to Bill Mazeroski in the 1960 Series.
Expansion teams aren't supposed to be contenders right away. Most won't offer a polished pitching staff but most will hit, at least to some degree. Then there were the players of the expansion San Diego Padres.
The year was 1969 and the new San Diego team was far from it's days of Tony Gwynn and Dave Winfield. Gwynn would toy with .400 at one point and offer a lifetime BA of .338. Winfield, before leaving for Free Agency, would hit 154 home runs and lead the NL in RBI with 118 in 1979 in his Hall of Fame career.
But
that was later and 1969 was now. By the time the 1969 season had come
to a close 10 Padres came to the plate and closed the season with a BA
of under .200. Included was the team's starting shortstop, Tommy Dean,
at .176 in 101 games (308 plate appearances). Few were far better.
Starting catcher Chris Cannizzaro stuck it out at .220 while starting
second sacker, Jose Arcia batted .215.
On the positive side, powerful Nate Colbert led the team in homers with 24, batting .255 while striking out 123 times (no big deal today but back then over 100 K's was a setback). Downtown Ollie Brown led the hitters at .254, adding 20 dingers, and Ed Spiezio and former Dodger Al Ferrara had double figure home run totals with 27 between them. The basic starting lineup rounded out with Cito Gaston's .230 mark.
The Padres finished last (12th place) in nearly every hitting category in 1969 including runs, hits, doubles, walks, strikeouts, BA (.225) and every important other percentage statistic including on-base and slugging figures. They were dismal. They finished 52-110, 41 games out of first place. Only eight times did they beat an opponent by five runs or more, but lost by five runs or more 30 times!
Perhaps their season can be summed up this way. Twice they lost to opposing teams 19-0 and twice more 10-0. There were other double digit scoring losses but those embarrassments were the top of the heap for the 1969 Friars.
The pitching wasn't much better overall but the starters were not bad. Despite losing 20 of 27 decisions 21-year old Clay Kirby finished with a 3.80 ERA. In fact, the four main starters were all under 4.00 in the ERA department. Only one pitcher who pitched any kind of innings however finished with a winning record. Reliever Jack Baldschun was 7-2.
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