1984 San Diego Padres season

Offseason

 * October 21, 1983: Sandy Alomar, Jr. was signed by the Padres as an amateur free agent.
 * December 6, 1983: Joe Pittman and a player to be named later were traded by the Padres to the San Francisco Giants for Champ Summers. The Padres completed the deal by sending Tommy Francis (minors) to the Giants on December 7.
 * December 7, 1983: Gary Lucas was traded by the Padres to the Montreal Expos as part of a three-team trade. The Expos sent Al Newman to the Padres, and the Chicago Cubs sent Carmelo Martínez, Craig Lefferts, and Fritzie Connally to the Padres. The Expos traded Scott Sanderson to the Cubs.
 * January 6, 1984: Rich Gossage was signed as a free agent by the Padres.
 * January 14, 1984: Owner Ray Kroc dies. Ownership passes to his wife, Joan B. Kroc.
 * January 17, 1984: Rodney McCray was drafted by the Padres in the 9th round of the 1984 amateur draft.
 * March 30, 1984: Dennis Rasmussen and a player to be named later were traded by the Padres to the New York Yankees for Graig Nettles. The Padres completed the deal by sending Darin Cloninger (minors) to the Yankees on April 26.

Regular season
Team owner Ray Kroc died of heart disease on January 14. Ownership of the team passed to his wife, Joan B. Kroc. The team would wear Ray's initials, "RAK" on their jersey's left sleeve during the entire season.

The Padres started the season 18–11 before losing seven in a row. They finished the season with a 92-70 record, winning the NL the National League West division by 12 games despite having no players with 100-RBI and only two batters with 20-HR. They were managed by Dick Williams and had an offense that featured veterans Steve Garvey, Garry Templeton, Graig Nettles, Alan Wiggins as well as future Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn, who captured his first his eight National League batting championships that year. The Padres pitching staff in 1984 featured Eric Show (15-9), Ed Whitson (14-8), Mark Thurmond (14-8), Tim Lollar (11-13), and Goose Gossage as their closer (10-6, 2.90 ERA and 25 saves).

Though he wasn't even in the line-up for the day's game against the Atlanta Braves, Kurt Bevacqua became the centerpiece of an August 12 brawl. Braves pitcher Pascual Perez hit Alan Wiggins with the very first pitch of the game. Padres pitcher Ed Whitson responded by pitching inside to Perez when he came to bat in the second inning. Home plate umpire Steve Rippley warned Whitson, but Whitson threw at him again in the fourth, regardless, causing both benches to clear and Whitson and Padres manager Dick Williams to get ejected. Eventually, Perez was hit by a pitch from Craig Lefferts, causing benches to again clear. The final brawl of the evening occurred in the ninth, when Graig Nettles, who'd homered in his previous at-bat, was hit by Donnie Moore leading off the inning. In total, both managers, both replacement managers, four pitchers and five position players were ejected from the game. After the ninth inning melee, a fan at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium threw a beer at Bevacqua, causing Bevacqua to go into the stands after the fan. He was restained by security guards.

Opening Day starters

 * Steve Garvey
 * Tony Gwynn
 * Terry Kennedy
 * Carmelo Martinez
 * Kevin McReynolds
 * Graig Nettles
 * Eric Show
 * Garry Templeton
 * Alan Wiggins

Notable transactions

 * July 20, 1984: Al Newman was traded by the San Diego Padres to the Montreal Expos for Greg Harris.

Starters by position
''Note: Pos = position; G = Games played; AB = At Bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting Average; HR = Home Runs; RBI = Runs Batted In''

NLCS


In the 1984 NLCS, the Padres faced the NL East champion Chicago Cubs, who were making their first post-season appearance since 1945 and featured NL Most Valuable Player Ryne Sandberg and Cy Young Award winner Rick Sutcliffe. The Cubs would win the first two games at Wrigley Field, but the Padres swept the final three games at then-Jack Murphy Stadium (the highlight arguably being Steve Garvey's dramatic, game-winning home run off of Lee Smith in Game 4) to win the 1984 National League pennant. Gossage, a former New York Yankee, said the San Diego crowd at Game 3 was "the loudest crowd I've ever heard anywhere." Gwynn agreed as well. Jack Murphy Stadium played "Cub-Busters", a parody of the theme song from the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. Cub-Busters T-shirts inspired from the movie were popular attire for Padres fans.

Game 1
October 2: Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois

Game 2
October 3: Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois

Game 3
October 4: Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California

Game 4
October 6: Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California

Game 5
October 7: Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego, California

As if to tease their fatalistic fans, the Cubs started out well in the final and deciding game of the series. Durham hit a two-run homer in the first and Davis added a solo homer in the second to give the Cubs a 3-0 lead. With National League Cy Young Award winner and Game 1 victor Rick Sutcliffe pitching brilliantly, the Cubs maintained their lead until the bottom of the sixth. Then disaster struck in a way that left many Cubs fans muttering about curses and other storied collapses in the franchise's history.

Chicago's downfall began innocently enough, with San Diego getting two sacrifice flies in the sixth to cut the Cubs' lead to 3-2. But the Padres' seventh proved catastrophic for Chicago. Carmelo Martínez led off the inning with a walk, was sacrificed to second by Garry Templeton, and scored when Tim Flannery's grounder trickled through Durham's legs for a crucial error. Alan Wiggins singled Flannery to second, and Gwynn doubled both runners home to give the Padres a 5-3 lead. Garvey followed with an RBI single to stretch the lead to 6-3. Steve Trout then replaced Sutcliffe on the mound and got out of the inning unscathed. The Cubs got three baserunners over the final two innings against Gossage but could not score, and San Diego took home its first National League pennant.

World series
In the 1984 World Series, the Padres faced the powerful Detroit Tigers, who steamrolled through the regular season with 104 victories (and had started out with a 35-5 record, the best ever through the first 40 games). The Tigers were managed by Sparky Anderson and featured shortstop and native San Diegan Alan Trammell and outfielder Kirk Gibson, along with Lance Parrish and DH Darrell Evans. The pitching staff was bolstered by ace Jack Morris (19-11, 3.60 ERA), Dan Petry (18-8), Milt Wilcox (17-8), and closer Willie Hernandez (9-3, 1.92 ERA with 32 saves). Jack Morris would win games 1 and 4 and the Tigers would go on to win the Series 4-games-to-1.

Reporter Barry Bloom of MLB.com wrote in 2011 that "the postseason in ’84 is still the most exciting week of Major League Baseball ever played in San Diego."

Award winners

 * Tony Gwynn, National League Batting Champion (.351)
 * Tony Gwynn, National League Leader in Hits (213)

1984 Major League Baseball All-Star Game