100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (16 page)

46. 16–1!

Nearly 30 years later, Rick Sutcliffe still looks remarkably like the youthful man whose near-perfect run following a mid-season trade became the final—and most important—piece to the Cubs’ first playoff appearance in 39 years.

The tidy red beard’s been trimmed down to a goatee and maybe he’s added a few pounds to his 6'7"
frame, but he’s still the Red Baron, the perfect nickname Harry Caray hung on him during that magical 1984 season.

When Dallas Green pulled the trigger to land Sutcliffe on June 13, 1984, he was getting a former National League Rookie of the Year and American League ERA title winner, who was still largely unknown to the Wrigley Field faithful. He had been exiled to Cleveland by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1982 and despite a league-leading 2.96 ERA that year and 17 wins the following season had gotten off to a mediocre start in 1984, going 4–5 with a 5.15 ERA in 15 starts.

The Indians didn’t think they could sign soon-to-be free agent Sutcliffe in the off-season, so on June 13 they dealt him along with middle reliever George Frazier and backup catcher Ron Hassey for Mel Hall, top prospect Joe Carter, and a couple other minor-leaguers. The brutally honest Sutcliffe, who had once destroyed Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda’s office after a disagreement, told the
Cleveland Plain-Dealer
, “It’s a really bad trade for Cleveland.”

And almost immediately it was, but not because of anything that happened on the field. Dallas Green had neglected to clear waivers on any of the four players the Cubs had traded to the Indians, and even though Sutcliffe and the other were definitely Cubs, it took several days before Hall and Carter could play for the Indians. It was a huge embarrassment for Green, who had to wait until June 19 to see his new starting pitcher.

It was worth the wait. Sutcliffe’s impact was huge, and it was immediate. He allowed one earned run in eight innings to stop the Cubs’ four-game losing streak by beating Pittsburgh in his debut, and in his second start—which came a day after the Sandberg Game—struck out 14 in a five-hitter over St. Louis.

Rick Sutcliffe gets set to deliver another pitch during the first inning against the San Diego Padres in National League playoff action on October 2, 1984, in Chicago. Versatile Sutcliffe later smacked a home run off his opposing pitcher Eric Show. (AP Photo/Mark Elias)

There was something different about Sutcliffe with the Cubs, besides the fact he had jumped 20 games in the standings and had found his breaking ball. He was finally at full strength for the first time all season. A painful root canal earlier in the season that required four days of dental work had left him weak, and although he never missed a start he had lost several miles off his fastball.

Sutcliffe followed up his only loss on June 29 in Los Angeles by winning five straight starts, including two against the San Diego Padres, and finished 16–1 with a 2.69 ERA to win the NL Cy Young Award. He was on the mound in Pittsburgh nailing down another complete-game win when the Cubs clinched the NL East title, their first in 39 years.

The Cubs ended up going 18
–2 in Sutcliffe’s 20 starts, and on seven occasions he got a win following a Cubs’ loss. He was the quintessential stopper, something they simply didn’t have in Steve Trout, Dennis Eckersley, or Scott Sanderson.

Unfortunately, it ended too soon. Sutcliffe’s Game 1 win over the Padres in the National League Championship Series, in which he also hit a monster home run onto Sheffield Avenue, was followed by a heartbreaking loss in Game 5 that ended the season shy of a World Series.

In Sutcliffe’s final start with the Indians at Cleveland Stadium, he had pitched before 3,699 fans. Eighteen days later, he pitched before a crowd of 39,494 in his first start at Wrigley Field, and Sutcliffe got swept up in the hysteria that was the 1984 season.

“Being part of that family, being with people like Harry Caray…those people created me,” he told Peter Golenbock in
Wrigleyville
. “I had done some things in L.A. and Cleveland, but there weren’t many people who even heard my name, could
even spell it. Harry Caray called me the Red Baron. The next thing I knew, it was unbelievable. I get goosebumps just talking about it.”

Traded Between Games of a Doubleheader

On May 30, 1922, Cubs right fielder Max Flack went 0 for 4 against St. Louis at Wrigley Field. On May 30, 1922, St. Louis right fielder Max Flack went 1 for 4 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

How did this happen? The Cubs dealt Flack to the Cardinals for outfielder Cliff Heathcote between games of a doubleheader, the only time that’s happened in major league history. Heathcote went 0 for 3 in the first game while playing center field for the Cardinals, then after the trade went 2 for 4 in the nightcap while playing right field for the Cubs.

Flack lived a few blocks from Wrigley Field and had gone home for lunch. When he returned, unaware he had been traded, he went to the Cubs’ clubhouse and was told he was in the wrong place.

“There wasn’t much radio in those days, and of course there hadn’t been time to have it published in a newspaper,” Flack said years later. “So fans were astonished when they saw us in different uniforms.”

The unique trade worked out better for the Cubs. Flack, 32 at the time of the trade, played 3½ seasons mostly as a part-time player with the Cardinals before his career ended. Heathcote was only 24 when he joined the Cubs and in nine seasons appeared in 856 games, twice hitting better than .300.

47. May 17, 1979: Phillies 23, Cubs 22

Just look at that score. Even after all these years, it still takes your breath away.

On a Thursday afternoon in front of 14,952 fans at Wrigley Field, with 25-mph winds whipping out of the southwest, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cubs combined for 50 hits, 45 runs, 11 home runs, and not one lead change.

The first sign of something unusual wasn’t when the Phillies went ahead 6
–0 in the first inning on three-run homers by Mike “The Cub Killer” Schmidt and Bob Boone. It was when Randy Lerch—the Phillies’ starting pitcher—homered to make it 7–0 before the top of the inning was over.

By the time the Cubs came up, their starter Dennis Lamp was out of the game and Lerch, who hadn’t given up more than four runs in any of his first eight starts that season, had a seemingly comfortable lead not knowing that on this day such a thing didn’t exist.

The Cubs rapped out three straight singles off Lerch, including an RBI single by Bill Buckner before Dave Kingman launched the first of his three home runs on the day, a three-run shot that made it 7–4. Your totals at this point: 11 runs scored, four home runs hit, and three outs recorded.

Two batters later, Lerch got yanked and the Cubs wound up with a couple more runs to end the inning trailing just 7–6. They were almost right back where they had started.

The Phillies went ahead 17–6 and 21
–9 before the Cubs launched another comeback. They scored seven times in the fifth on Buckner’s grand slam and Jerry Martin’s three-run homer, both of which came off Phillies closer Tug McGraw. Yes, Phillies manager Danny Ozark brought his closer on in the fifth inning.

The Cubs scored three more in the sixth to make it 21–19 and, after the Phillies added one more, tied the game in the eighth with five hits, including a pair of two-out RBI singles by Martin and Barry Foote. It was now 22–22.

Probably the two most memorable regular-season games in Wrigley Field history are this one and the Sandberg Game in 1984. St. Louis Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter was twice victimized by future Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg in that one, but in 1979 he was still with the Cubs and on his way to winning that season’s Cy Young Award.

In the top of the 10
th
, up stepped future Hall of Famer Schmidt, who clubbed Sutter’s 3–2 pitch deep over the left-center bleachers for his second home run of the game. Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse could only watch in dismay as the Phillies went ahead once again 23–22.

“Scot Thompson took about four steps out there in center field,” Brickhouse told WGN-TV viewers, “and then realized that was a gone goose.”

Phillies reliever Rawly Eastwick set down the Cubs in order in the ninth and 10
th
for the win. Kingman had a shot to tie the game and hit his fourth homer of the day, but he struck out for the second out of the 10
th
inning. Steve Ontiveros hit a check-swing grounder to Schmidt, who fired to first baseman Pete Rose to end the game.

The four-hour, three-minute game may have really taken a toll on the Phillies. They only scored 31 runs over their next 13 games, which included a mere eight runs during a four-game series in Philadelphia against the Cubs. The Phillies were also shut out three straight times during one stretch.

“It was no fun,” Schmidt told the
Chicago Tribune
. “It was a struggle more than anything, and I’m dead tired.”

But to the winner goes the spoils, and also the jokes.

“We all knew it was going to be one of those days,” Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa said after the game. “I mean, what the heck, the Cubs had a field-goal kicker warming up on the sidelines for three innings.”

Cubs 26, Philadelphia 23

The highest-scoring game in major league history was also one of the sloppiest. On August 25, 1922, at Wrigley Field, the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies combined for eight errors and an incredible 19 unearned runs. There were 51 hits but only three home runs, all by the Cubs.

The Phillies were one of the worst teams in baseball and proved it early on, giving up 10 runs in the second inning and 14 runs in the fourth to trail 25–6 after just four innings. The Cubs actually led 26–9 going into the eighth inning before giving up eight runs in the eighth and six more in the ninth. Incredibly, the Phillies used two pitchers the entire game.

Perhaps even more incredibly, the following day neither team scored a run through 10 innings until the Phillies plated three in the 11
th
to beat the Cubs 3–0.

48. Billy Buck

Bill Buckner hobbled and hit his way into the hearts of Cubs fans during his nearly 1,000 games in blue pinstripes, becoming one of the few players who have defined the franchise for an extended period of time.

It was not love at first sight.

When Buckner and his Marlboro Man moustache arrived from the Los Angeles Dodgers on January 11, 1977, in a trade that also netted the Cubs Ivan DeJesus and a minor leaguer for Rick Monday and Mike Garman, he had to deal with culture shock. The Dodgers were a perennial contender whose Dodger Way of doing things focused on fundamentals, coaching, and pride in the organization from the minors on up. The Cubs were the opposite in just about every way.

In an interview days after being traded, Buckner told the
Chicago Tribune
, “I’m going from a contender to a non-contender…from a city I love to a city I dislike. It’s a real drag. I’m very upset about it.”

More than seven years later, having been dealt to Boston in the midst of the Cubs memorable 1984 season, Buckner couldn’t hold back the tears during an emotional press conference at Wrigley Field saying, “This is a very tough moment for me.”

Buckner, who went by the easy nickname of Billy Buck, was drafted by the Dodgers in 1968 and spent most of his years in Los Angeles as an outfielder. By the time he joined the Cubs, a series of ankle surgeries had forced him to first base and made limping a way of life.

First baseman Bill Buckner on March 1, 1979.
(AP Photo)

As Buckner’s first spring training got underway, there was grave concern the Dodgers had dumped a useless ballplayer on the Cubs, and sure enough Buckner barely played in any Cactus League games and started the season on the disabled list.

He made his debut as a pinch-hitter on April 19 and started a handful of games during the first two months, but it wasn’t until early June that he was able to start on a regular basis despite the pain emanating from his ravaged left ankle, which he was forced to ice every day.

Cubs fans discovered they had received a player who approached every game as if it was his last and wasn’t content until his uniform had enough dirt on it to make him look like a chimney sweep. A lingering bitterness toward the Dodgers came out during a three-game series at Wrigley Field in August when he went 8-for-12 with three homers and
eight RBIs against his former team.

There was only so much Buckner could do, and while the Dodgers wound up in the World Series, the Cubs went from being tied for first place in the National League East on August 6 to finishing an astonishing 20 games back, losers of 37 of their final 55 games.

“The determination of William Joseph Buckner will be remembered as one of the major stories of the Cubs’ current season—however it ends,” wrote the
Chicago Tribune
’s Richard Dozer on August 14, 1977. “Some will say he personifies the spirit of the Cubs. Unfortunately, not enough of it has rubbed off.”

And that’s the way it went in his seven-plus seasons with the Cubs. Finally healthy in 1979, Buckner played like a champion on teams that weren’t capable of winning championships. His stats weren’t gaudy; he averaged just more than 11 homers during his seven full seasons and only drove in more than 75 runs once. But his slap-style left-handed swing produced a .300 average four times, including the 1980 National League batting title when he hit .324, and it made him nearly impossible to fan. In 4,042 plate appearances, he struck out just 159 times.

Buckner had at least two memorable dust-ups with Cubs managers, one an on-field incident and the other basically a bad break-up. When Buckner joined the Cubs in 1977, the manager was Herman Franks, a gruff self-made millionaire who would later serve as interim Cubs GM in 1981.

From the outset, Franks loved Buckner’s style of play. After Buckner’s bat beat the Dodgers in his first game against his former team after the trade, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said, “Tell my son, even though he beat us, I still love him.” Franks shot back: “He’s my son now.”

Two years later, Franks threw his “son” under the bus after he quit as manager with a week left in the regular season, telling
the
Tribune
’s Dave Nightingale, “I thought he was the All-American boy. I thought he was the kind of guy who’d dive in the dirt to save ballgames for you. What I found out, after being around him awhile, is that he’s nuts.... He goes berserk if he goes through a game without getting a hit. He doesn’t care about the team. All he cares about is Bill Buckner.”

Buckner was troubled enough by Franks’ comments, which he said were “really making me look like an idiot,” that he asked to be interviewed on WGN-TV between games of a doubleheader
to get out his side of the story. Franks faded away, and Buckner remained a fan favorite.

Buckner, who played for six different Cubs managers, also got into a fistfight with Lee Elia on May 24, 1982, in San Diego. According to
the
Tribune
it was a 15-second bout, and the pair had to be broken up by teammates and coaches. The incident began when Buckner felt a Padres pitcher had thrown at him, and he screamed in the Cubs dugout that he expected retaliation. Cubs reliever Dan Larson’s response? His next pitch hit the Padres’ Tim Flannery on the hip.

This incensed Elia, who charged to the mound and not so calmly explained to Larson, “I manage this ballclub, no one else.” When Elia got back to the dugout, the fight ensued. Afterward, Buckner said Elia “acted like a child” and demanded to be traded. But he later took back the demand and apologized to Elia.

Almost two years later to the day, Buckner was traded to Boston. He had spent most of the 1984 season on the bench relegated to a pinch-hitting role after Leon Durham had taken over at first base.

Buckner never deserved the ignominy that came to him with the Red Sox, where his infamous error contributed to an epic World Series collapse in 1986. On the North Side of Chicago he’ll be remembered in a different way—for that painful-looking hobble, his unrelenting play, and as one of the players beloved by a generation of Cubs fans.