Hi, I am new here in this forum, and I am going to begin my 2006 San Diego
Padres replay.

The Padres finished 88-74, and won the N.L. West crown, even though they were
tied with Los Angeles, they won a head-to-head tiebreaker. San Diego lost 3
games to 1 in the N.L.D.S. against the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.

However, there were a lot of highlights:

Mike Piazza, in his only season with San Diego, hit 24 HR's, including his 400th
homer, the only catcher to hit 400 home runs.

Jake Peavy had an off year, but in July he struck out 16 Braves in a game to set
a new team record.

Chris Young, the 6'10" righthander, was 12-5, the perfect accompaniment to
Peavy.

Dave Roberts stole 49 bases, one of the best runners in the game. His 49 thefts
were among the most in team history.

And on September 24, Trevor Hoffman shut down the Pittsburgh Pirates in order to
collect his 479th save, making him baseball's all time saves leader.

So many highlights, so many great moments!

Thanks to Strat-O-Matic's personalized card offer (which comes along with the
cards), I made up a created player: Philip Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons is a 6'4",
250 lb. rookie 1st baseman who is a promising prospect. Check out his projected
2006 numbers (from the personalized card Strat gave me:

AVG: .286 AB: 490 2B: 31 3B: 2 HR: 31 RBI: 102 BB: 79 SO: 81

SB: 12 CS: 3 SLG%: .547 ONBASE%: .387

Impressive, huh?

Fitzsimmons will provide the power to help San Diego to a World Series, along
with Piazza, Mike Cameron, Khalil Greene and Brian Giles. And expect the
pitching to be strong with Peavy and Young starting and Hoffman going for the
save record.

And expect San Diego to win the N.L. West, and they will be much better than
82-80 this time around!

I'll start my replay tomorrow as the Padres begin the season against Barry Bonds
and the San Francisco Giants April 3-5 at PETCO Park.