Padres-Dodgers intensity recalls ’96 Friars
Calling this year’s Padres team “a hungry group,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts just as well could have been describing the 1996 Padres.
Roberts hopes the outcome will be different this time for Los Angeles.
The ’96 Padres ached to take down the Dodgers, and their resolve may have been the difference in the final three games they won at Dodger Stadium to claim the West title.
Hunger for baseball success consumed Ken Caminiti, the best player on the ’96 Padres.
The third baseman used steroids to help build up his body. He said he “abused” the weight-training supplement creatine in 1996.
Whatever his motivations were at other times, Caminiti believed extra strengthening was needed to manage a shoulder injury that pained him for much of the ’96 season. Following the season, for which he was unanimously voted the league’s Most Valuable Player, open surgery was needed to repair his left shoulder.
At the top of the franchise, the Padres of the mid-1990s sought to pick a fight with the Dodgers.
John Moores, who bought control of the team in late 1994, had said he “felt sorry” for the Dodgers. Given the respective histories of the franchises, that was like the nail saying it felt sorry for the hammer, but Moores reasoned accurately that the Dodgers’ era of family ownership would soon end and corporate owners would take over. He doubted that would bode well for the Dodgers’ much-praised family atmosphere.
Minding his own shop, Moores ramped up the Padres’ player payroll in 1996 through 1998 and saw two of those teams win the West. The cherry on top: each clincher came against the Dodgers.
Larry Lucchino was new to San Diego, but the Padres CEO made sure to tell reporters he quickly developed a disdain for the Dodgers.
Lucchino, who years later would stoke the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, understood a fast way to build public support was to beat L.A.
Poking the blue bear came easily to Padres General Manager Kevin Towers, who’d grown up a Giants fan. Towers, feeling his oats after the Padres’ successes in 1996 and 1998, publicly questioned the heart of Dodgers teams his program had eclipsed. He publicly feuded with Dodgers GM Kevin Malone.
The recent Padres-Dodgers games in downtown San Diego recalled some of the intense atmosphere of the two franchises’ clashes between 1995 and 1998.
A similar vibe looms later this week in Los Angeles, where the teams will play four games.
Just as current Padres players such as Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. remember the playoff sweep at Dodgers hands last October, several Padres players on the ’96 team watched the Dodgers celebrate their West-clinching victory in Mission Valley the previous September.
The Padres said the pain of seeing Mike Piazza, Eric Karros and Hideo Nomo whoop it up in San Diego, after delivering the Dodgers’ first West title since 1988, would drive them to win the next West race.
The Padres, aided by newcomers Rickey Henderson and Chris Gomez, answered with the most exciting regular season in franchise history.
After a fast start, they fell into a June swoon (4-19) that dropped them from 15 games over .500 to sea level before rallying to finish with 91 victories.
Steve Finley, their center fielder, seemed tireless at 31.
Roaming the West’s large outfields and sitting out only one game, he earned the first of his four Gold Gloves. On the basepaths, he resembled a long-striding Olympic sprinter.
Finley amassed 126 runs, 45 doubles, 22 stolen bases and nine triples. His 30 homers nearly tripled his previous career mark.
The Dodgers couldn’t keep up with Finley, who hit five of San Diego’s eight home runs against Los Angeles in the 13 games. He batted .352 and slugged .704 against Dodgers pitching.
Dodgers hitters could barely touch Trevor Hoffman’s deceptive fastballs and change-ups, scoring no earned runs in his 92⁄3 innings. Also, Hoffman anchored a bullpen that led the league in ERA.
When Hoffman struck out the Dodgers’ Chad Curtis for the final out of the 11th inning of the 162nd game, he secured the Padres’ first West title in 12 years. As Padres players celebrated on L.A.’s field, pockets of Padres fans could be heard among the crowd of 53,000plus.
Two seasons later on Sept. 12, an NFL-sized crowd of 60,823 gathered in Mission Valley in anticipation of a Padres victory that would clinch the West title.
The Dodgers were again the opponent. Hoffman hadn’t allowed them a run all season. Once again he closed out the West clincher, whiffing Matt Luke.
There was no mistaking the game was in San Diego. Padres fans filled the big gray stadium. And they sounded hungry.