Padres’ visit to Chicago brings back memories of 1984 ‘Cub busters’

The winds were blowing in the Windy City when the Padres visited in 1984 for the first playoff series in franchise history against the Chicago Cubs.

It began with a healthy dose of hot air.

Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko called Padres fans “wimps” and wrote that they were more interested in “wine, quiche and surfing” than baseball.

Former Padres broadcaster Ted Leitner got a phone call from Joan Kroc, widow of Padres owner Ray Kroc, who asked: “Who’s this Royko guy?”

Incensed after reading Royko’s comments, Joan Kroc called his editor and offered to send her private plane to fly him to San Diego. Leitner remembers Kroc saying, “I want him to come here and be my guest and sit in my box and watch these great fans.”

Royko declined.

Leitner also recalls a conversation with right-hander Eric Show, the Padres’ starting pitcher for Game 1.

“Let me remember this windy day when Eric Show put his head out the window at a hotel on Michigan Avenue and thought, ‘Uh, oh,” Leitner said with a laugh.

Chicago slugged five home runs in the series opener on the way to a 13-0 victory. The Cubs won 4-2 the following day, and the Padres headed home with their heads hanging and hopes flagging in the best-of-five series.

This week, the Padres need two wins at Wrigley in the NL Wild Card Series in order to advance in the playoffs. It is their first postseason visit to Chicago since that epic postseason 41 years ago.

Now, as then, there were complaints about officiating. For good reason in 1984, though, because an umpires’ strike forced MLB to use college and amateur umpires for the National League Championship Series games.

Phil Collier, the San Diego Union’s Hall of Fame baseball writer, put it this way in his Game 1 story:

“They put an amateur umpire with a high strike zone behind home plate at Wrigley Field yesterday with the wind blowing toward the outfield. For the pitchers, it was like being thrown into a shark tank. Chicago right-handers Rick Sutcliffe and Warren Brusstar swam to safety, combining to scatter six hits. San Diego right-handers Eric Show and Greg Harris were eaten alive.”

Chicago hit three homers off Show, who lasted four innings, and two more off Harris amid 17 mph winds. The Cubs’ Gary Matthews led the way with two homers and four RBIs in MLB’s most lopsided shutout in the history of postseason play. Even Sutcliffe got in the swing of things, hitting his first homer of the season.

“It only counts as one game,” Padres manager Dick Williams said.

The Cubs won again the following day — there would not be lights at Wrigley until 1988 — but not before Padres catcher Terry Kennedy sent a two-out pitch in the ninth inning deep to left field that nearly tied the game. It was caught in front of the wall.

“How tough is it going to be?” said an angry Kennedy afterward, repeating a reporter’s question about coming back in the series. “You’re asking me that (bleeping) question? It’s pretty (bleeping) obvious how tough it’s going to be … Well, we have to win three straight, the first two, then Sutcliffe. How tough is that going to be?”

Needless to say, it was a quiet flight home from Chicago. As team buses pulled into San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium after midnight, the mood suddenly changed. There were thousands of Padres fans there to greet the team, clapping and cheering. Some estimates placed the crowd at 3,000 people.

“I was going to say 5,000,” Leitner said. “The players had no idea what was going on. None. What could possibly be that late at night? The players were stunned, and happy. … This sort of thing in San Diego revealed how great the fans were.”

They still believed.

“Suddenly, we believed, too,” Williams said in his autobiography “No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Life of Hardball.”

Closer Goose Gossage, who had been critical of San Diego fans during the season for being too laid-back, was among those moved by the outpouring of support.

“I said to the guys, ‘Are we really down two to nothing?’ ” Gossage, in his autobiography “The Goose Is Loose,” recalled. “These people weren’t frontrunners. They were behind us after we lost. I walked around the parking lot shaking hands with people, and I saw love in their eyes. I suddenly realized how much this all means to them. You know, us winning for the first time.”

Joan Kroc wore a Padres jersey as she walked to the mound before Game 3, pointed to the RAK (for Ray A. Kroc) initials on her sleeve and pointed to sky after throwing out the first pitch. Stadium speakers blared “Cub Busters,” a variation on the theme song from “Ghostbusters,” the hit movie that came out over the summer. The music included a reworked refrain — “I ain’t afraid of no Cubs.”

Leitner said longtime Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman turned to him in the press box and asked: “Is it always like this here with this crowd?”

Leitner shrugged.

“We’ve never been in the postseason before,” he said. “I’ll tell you it’s the loudest crowd I’ve heard at a game.”

The Padres won Game 3 by a 7-1 score, with Ed Whitson and Gossage combining on a five-hitter.

Steve Garvey’s two-run, ninth-inning homer in Game 4, regarded by many as San Diego’s greatest sports moment, delivered a 7-5 win to tie the series.

In Game 5, the Padres again faced Sutcliffe, who had won 15 straight games. The Padres trailed by three runs through five innings in Game 5 before scoring six unanswered runs for a 6-3 victory to clinch the series and send the team to the World Series.

“I firmly believe (the fans there at midnight) set the tone for what happened the next three days,” Williams said. “Coming from a hardened baseball man like me, this sounds blasphemous, I know.

“But all you baseball fans who think you never directly affect a team or a game, you’re wrong. That weekend you may just have won us a playoff.”