Chicago Cubs: My favorite memory vs. every National League team

Chicago Cubs: San Diego Padres

This one was also tough. There haven’t been a whole lot of Cubs-Padres memories that stand out to me over the years. Of course, older fans will remember one terrible memory, in 1984, when the Padres rallied to win three straight games and take the series over the Cubs in the NLCS.

Anyway, I looked through the archives, and here’s a list of some critical Cubs-Padres games over the years:

• April 1, 1996: Opening Day at Wrigley Field. The Padres had scored runs in both the eighth and ninth innings to tie the game and send it into extras. In the tenth, the Cubs loaded the bases off future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman. Mark Grace singled into left field to score Rey Sanchez, and the Cubs won 5-4.
• September 17, 1998: As the Cubs were trying to secure a playoff spot, they were facing the Padres in San Diego when the game went into extras. The recently acquired Gary Gaetti homered, again off Hoffman, to lead off the tenth, and Rod Beck made it hold up as the Cubs won, 4-3.
• June 2, 1999: After the Padres scored three in the ninth to take an 8-5 lead at Wrigley Field, the Cubs rallied for four off Hoffman in the bottom of the ninth to win, capped off by a three-run home run from Sammy Sosa.
• August 5-7, 2003: With the Cubs in the middle of the NL Central division race, they went into San Diego and swept all three games. Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, and Carlos Zambrano earned wins.
• April 17-18, 2015: On the 17th, Kris Bryant made his major league debut, going 0-for-4 as the Padres won at Wrigley Field, 5-4. The next day, the Cubs blew a four-run ninth-inning lead but won it in the 11th on a Starlin Castro RBI single.

I’m going to go with Opening Day in 1996. I’ve always been an enormous Grace fan, and since it was Opening Day, that made it extra memorable.