If you're a new Padres fan, you may look at the team's current relationship with the Cubs and never suspect there was a time when the Padres didn't go out of their way to help them in an attempt to keep up good relations. You see, long before the Padres agreed to swap their current General Manager and their Assistant General Manager in a overly friendly business deal, the Padres and their fans HATED the Cubs.
Let's go back in time to July 7, 1987. It was an afternoon game at Wrigley Field. Future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson hit the second home run of the first inning off of the Padres' starter Eric Show.
By the third inning the Padres had fought back, scoring two runs off of Greg Maddux, making the score 3-2 Cubs. Eric Show found himself facing Andre Dawson again. For whatever reason, Show threw inside and beaned Dawson in the face. Whether it was meant to be a strategic move to get Dawson off the plate or a more calculated and cold blooded act of revenge, I don't know.
In the game summary it looked like this:
| Inn | Score | Out | RoB | Pit(cnt) | R/O | @Bat | Batter | Pitcher | wWPA | wWE | Play Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| b3 | 4-2 | 1 | --- | CHC | A. Dawson | E. Show | 2% | 77% | Hit By Pitch | ||
| Keith Comstock replaces Eric Show pitching and batting 9th Brian Dayett pinch runs for Andre Dawson (RF) batting 4th |
|||||||||||
On the YouTube it looked like this:
A brawl broke out as Dawson lay at home plate unconscious. Rick Sutcliffe obviously attacked first due to his fiery red hair and disposition. John Kruk bear hugged him from behind in an attempt to protect his own pitcher until reinforcements arrived in the form of Mark Grant.
The benches cleared and at some point the melee settled down and both teams stood around Dawson. It was then that Dawson regains consciousness and without warning shoots off the ground towards Show. The brawl turns into a full scale war.
In the end Show was ejected and escorted off the field by umpires. Dawson was wheeled out of the ballpark on a stretcher holding a towel to his nose.
Eventually the game resumes and in the 4th inning Greg Maddux evens things out by softly plunking Benito Santiago on the hip. He was ejected for the crime.
The Cubs ended up winning but that's neither here nor there. The point of this story is that the Padres and Cubs used to exchange blows instead of blow J's.