The Padres joined the ranks of Major League Baseball in 1969 as one of four new expansion teams, along with the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals), the Kansas City Royals, and the Seattle Pilots (now the Milwaukee Brewers).

In his third year as manager, Dick Williams led the Padres to 97-7- record and a NL pennant. It was just the second time since their inception that the Padres had finished over .500.

The Padres' main draw during the 1980s and 1990s was Tony Gwynn. Nicknamed "Mr. Padre," Gwynn had a .338 career batting average, never hitting below .309 in any full season.

In 1999, Greg Vaughn became the first player in major league history to be traded after a 50-homer season when the Padres sent him and Mark Sweeney to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Damian Jackson, Reggie Sanders, and Josh Harris.

Nate Colbert was the first real star for the Padres. He was a National League All-Star from 1971 to 1973, but his best day was August 1, 1972, when he slammed 5 home runs (one of only two players to have done so, Stan Musial being the other) and drove in 13 runs in a doubleheader, helping the Padres sweep the Atlanta Braves, 9-0 and 11-7. Coincidentally, a young Colbert had attended the game in which Musial originally set the single-day home run record back in 1954.

Although his career win-loss record was just 100-123, Randy Jones had a great year for the Padres in 1976, when he went 22-14 with a 2.74 ERA, winning the National League Cy Young Award and being named The Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year.

Four balls to walk. That's the rule. But on July 2, 2011, Cameron Maybin needed only three. After Maybin fell behind Mariners starter Doug Fister 0-2, he proceeded to foul off a few pitches and earn a couple of balls. At some point, the scoreboard operator inexplicably gave Maybin a third ball. When Fister's 2-2 pitch sailed high, Maybin trotted to first base. No one--not Fister, not Mariners skipper Eric Wedge, not home plate ump Phil Cuzzi--lifted a finger to stop him. Maybin would go on to score the only run in the Padres' 1-0 win.

With two outs, Manager Preston Gómez had Cito Gaston pinch-hit for Clay Kirby in the bottom of the eighth, denying him a chance to complete the no-hitter. The 10,373 fans in attendance booed long and loud. Fans and writers sometimes attribute the noticeable lack of no-hitters in Padres history to the "Curse of Clay Kirby."

On April 9, 1974, when the Padres fell behind 9-2 in their home opener against the Astros, Ray Kroc, who was in just his fourth game as Padres owner and was better known as the founder of McDonald's, apparently couldn't take it anymore. "Ladies and gentlemen, I suffer with you," Kroc, 72, blared over the PA system. "I have good news and bad news," he told the crowd, according to a Sporting News report at the time. "The good news is that the Dodgers drew 31,000 for their opener and we've drawn 39,000 for ours. The bad news is that this is the most stupid baseball playing I've ever seen."

It was the first and only no-hitter of Ellis' career, and almost certainly the lone MLB no-hitter pitched under the influence of LSD. Ellis would later recount: "I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria.... I remember hitting a couple of batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't.... I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix."