In 1969, the San Diego Padres entered the MLB as one of the ten teams that became a MLB team in the '60s and 70s. The Padres started out badly. Really badly. They had their worst season consisting of 110 losses and no star players. That led to losing fourteen out of the next fifteen seasons.

In 1971 the teams only bright spot, Nate Cobbert, who had previously hit 24 home runs became the only Padre to drive in 100 runs. Finally in 1975, their bad luck changed. Randy Jones had a superb 2.24 ERA and won 20 games. Even better the next season, he won 22 games and the Cy Young Award.

Then the Padres signed Dave Winfield and Rollie Fingers. San Diego just got luckier and luckier. In 1978, they signed great pitcher Gaylord Perry. The season after he was signed, Perry went 21-6. Six years later, Dave Winfield with a .308 batting average and 97 RBIs and Rollie Fingers with 37 ?????? led the team to another winning season.

Sparked by recently acquired veterans Tony Gwynn, Steve Garvey, Goose Gossage, and Graig Nettles, the team made a first place finish in 1987. Since then the team has struggled, with the exception of 1996 when they lost the World Series to the New York Yankees.