The Padres had a comfortable lead in the NL West on this date — Aug. 12 — in 1984. They were not comfortable at all with Braves pitcher Pascual Perez hitting Alan Wiggins with the first pitch of a getaway-day game in Atlanta. Yet their attempts to retaliate weren’t exactly accurate, igniting a series of brawls considered one of the most vicious in baseball history.
“We have to protect our players,” Padres catcher Terry Kennedy told the San Diego Union after the game. “It would have been a lot simpler if we had hit Perez his first time up.