100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (17 page)

49. The College of Coaches

Let’s get this out of the way first. The College of Coaches was possibly the worst idea in baseball history, right up there with Charlie Finley’s orange ball and outfitting the White Sox in short pants.

The decision to abandon the traditional manager in favor of a rotating group of coaches who would each take a turn being a “head coach” came from the non-fertile baseball mind of Cubs owner Phil Wrigley, who didn’t like firing people and was appalled the word “dictator” was in the dictionary’s definition of “manager.”

Even the press conference announcing the new system was bizarre. Wrigley brought along an odd sign that read, “Anyone who remains calm in the midst of all this confusion simply does not understand the situation.” The situation here was that the Cubs were trying something that had never been done before in baseball history. So why now? After using a strange analogy stating that if a bulldozer driver gets sick you just get a new driver, Wrigley seemed to stumble on the truth. “We certainly cannot do much worse trying a new system than we have done for many years under the old.”

The initial plan was to have each coach take a turn as the head coach, then perhaps do a stint as a minor league manager before returning to the big-league club to coach again. For a franchise longing for any sense of stability, it was lunacy. Officially, the original College of Coaches were: Bobby Adams, Rip Collins, Harry Craft, Charlie Grimm, Vedie Himsl, Goldie Holt, Elvin Tappe, and Verlon Walker. A ninth—Fred Martin
—was added before spring training, and Lou Klein, Charlie Metro, and Bob Kennedy joined along the way.

With the coaches changing all the time, players were getting pulled in all directions. The biggest casualty was Lou Brock, who first joined the Cubs in 1961 and spent three frustrating seasons listening to different coaches tell him to focus on speed, then average, then power. It was no surprise he blossomed upon leaving the Cubs for the Cardinals, who stopped tinkering with him.

Wrigley’s utopian expectation was that all the coaches would buy into a new system of doing things, but what really happened was far more human. While there weren’t specific acts of sabotage, there wasn’t always a spirit of cooperation. According to Don Elston, who pitched for the Cubs from 1961 until 1964, the system was at its worst in 1962. Instead of helping the current head coach, Elston said, Metro would spend his time before games hitting pop flies to his son. The other coaches weren’t any more magnanimous when the roles were reversed.

At one point, Metro instituted a ridiculous policy in which players were not permitted to shave in the clubhouse before or after games. Klein led a revolt by the other coaches and, after a vote, Metro’s policy was reversed. “That was such a biased threesome toward themselves that it affected our ballclub a lot,” Elston said in Peter Golenbock’s book
Wrigleyville
.

The experiment lasted from 1961 until 1965, but not everybody ended up getting a turn. The first head coach in 1961 was Himsl, who went 10–21 and was followed by Craft (7–9), Tappe (42–54), and Klein (5
–6). In 1962, Tappe went 4–16 to start the season and then gave way to Klein (12–18) and Metro (43–69).

There was such ridicule that the experiment was virtually abandoned after 1962, a season in which the Cubs finished 59–103, six games behind the Houston Colt 45’s—an expansion team. Kennedy essentially became a permanent head coach in 1963 before Klein took over in June 1965. The College of Coaches officially came to an end in 1966 when Leo Durocher was hired as manager.

“I don’t think you will talk to one ballplayer who played under that system that’s going to say anything different than it was very hurtful, and it was a very bad situation,” Elston said. “In 1961, it all went to hell, no question about it.”

The Athletic Director

Almost as ridiculous but not as well-known to history was Wrigley’s hiring of an athletic director prior to the 1963 season. The only man to hold the title before the position was abandoned two years later was Robert Whitlow, a former Air Force colonel who was also the first athletic director of the United States Air Force Academy.

The athletic director was not the same as a general manager; the Cubs still had one of those in longtime GM John Holland. The job, as Wrigley described when the 43-year-old Whitlow was introduced, was to “basically be responsible for the conduct of the club on the field.”

Aside from making the decision to keep Bob Kennedy as the full-time head coach before the 1963 season, it was never quite clear what Whitlow did. His attempt to describe his role in a June 9, 1963, article didn’t exactly clear things up. “As I see it,” he said. “My job is to achieve harmony among the coaches and the players.”

Despite a generally cheery disposition, during Whitlow’s first season he nearly got into a fight with a member of the Cubs’ coaching staff. He quit in January 1965.

“Baseball simply was not ready for an athletic director,” Wrigley said. “Maybe in the years ahead baseball will accept one. Whitlow was ahead of his time.”

That time still hasn’t come.

50. Attention, Attention Please! Have Your Pencils and Scorecards Ready!

The first legendary voice of the Cubs wasn’t Pat Flanagan, Bob Elson, or Jack Brickhouse. It was Pat Pieper, a gravelly voiced boy from Denver who started out as a peanut vendor and talked his way into a job as the Wrigley Field public address announcer—a job he would hold uninterrupted until his death 58 years later.

It was the spring of 1916, and Pieper had been selling peanuts and popcorn at the old West Side Grounds for ten years when a groundskeeper gave him a tip—the Cubs were in need of a new public address announcer for their new home, Weeghman Park.

Pieper, not the shy type, marched over to Cubs owner Charles Weeghman and offered his services, according to his 1974
Chicago Tribune
obituary. Weeghman wasn’t sure the young man could handle it, until Pieper belted out, “You’d better believe I can!” right in Weeghman’s ear.

Weeghman believed.

Pieper went on to become an institution at Wrigley Field with Cubs fans just as likely to copy his signature calls as they were Charlie Root’s windup or Ernie Banks’ batting stance.

“Attention, attention please!” Pieper would bellow in his halting manner. “Have your pencils
…and scorecards ready…for the correct lineups…for today’s game.”

For the first few years of his career, Pieper used a megaphone to scream out announcements and could be seen running up and down the foul lines to keep the fans informed. In 1922, at Cubs President Bill Veeck Sr.’s suggestion, he upgraded to a 14-pound model that led to a tradition. Each day before the game he would go outside and pick a different boy to help him hold it upright.

It’s doubtful anybody ever watched more Cubs games at Wrigley Field than Pieper, and it’s a virtual certainty nobody was on the field for more historic events. For decades, before getting bumped up to the press box, Pieper did his job positioned on the playing field near the Cubs dugout.

He was there the day the Cubs’ Hippo Vaughn and Cincinnati’s Fred Toney threw a double no-hitter in 1917, Ernie Banks’ debut in 1953, and every game of the tortuous 1969 season. He also witnessed every home World Series game the Cubs ever played, including Babe Ruth’s alleged “called shot” in 1932, which he claimed was absolutely true.

Pieper’s job wasn’t only to serve as field announcer but also to handle baseballs for the umpires, tossing them new balls and pocketing the used ones. He wasn’t a member of the media and he was an unabashed Cubs fan, but not during the game. That changed on few occasions, none more memorably than in 1938 when Gabby Hartnett’s Homer in the Gloamin’ helped spur the Cubs to the National League pennant.

“I have always attempted to handle my job as an announcer with dignity,” Pieper told
the
Tribune
in a 1953 profile. “But when I saw Gabby’s hit soaring on its way over the left-field fence, I picked up the bag of baseballs I keep for umpires and ran to third base to meet him. Then I jogged beside him until he reached home plate. I kept shouting, ‘Be sure and touch the plate.’

“Gabby just smiled. I never saw a man so happy. I was 52 years old then. That was no way for me to behave.”

Pieper, who was a waiter at Chicago’s famed Ivanhoe restaurant during the off-season and when the Cubs were on the road, was so popular and enduring that the Cubs held two Pat Pieper Days for him—one in 1940 and another in 1953 when he was 67 and nearing a retirement that never came.

“I don’t give a damn what they say about retiring,” he told
the
Tribune
in 1971. “If you have all your marbles and can move your arms and legs, don’t ever quit. That retirement is for the birds. I’ll stay at Wrigley Field until they chase me out.”

Pieper died on October
22, 1974, 20 days after completing his 68
th
year with the Cubs. The following season, Pieper’s microphone was still being used—but not at Wrigley Field.

It went on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

51. Attend the Crosstown Classic

You have to go to the Crosstown Classic at least once if only to see if any fights will break out. Off the field or on.

Sure, the fans can get rowdy and there may be a love tap or two, but that’s to be expected. At least they have alcohol and decades of pent-up frustration as an excuse. Cubs catcher Michael Barrett didn’t have the same excuse when he sucker-punched the White Sox’s A.J. Pierzynski in 2006.

When the hotheaded Barrett was bowled over by the pesky Pierzynski in a close play at the plate, it was a combustible combination that ended with four ejections and a 10-game suspension for Barrett. Pierzynski got away with a $2,000 fine. Oh, and the White Sox won 7–0. Of all the crazy moments in the relatively brief history of the Cubs and White Sox interleague games, that’s the most memorable.

There have been no shortage of others, such as the time Carlos Zambrano got into a shouting match with Derrek Lee in the dugout at U.S. Cellular Field or when Jose Valentin homered for the White Sox then mimicked the way Sammy Sosa blew kisses after going deep.

In most years the Bulls and Blackhawks have already concluded their seasons by the time the first three-game series is played, and with nothing else to cover, every media creature in town is focused on these games, regardless of the team’s records. The games are covered as if the team’s season is riding on the outcome, and in a sense it is.

Since the series began in 1997, the Cubs have gone to the playoffs four times and the White Sox have made it three times but only once—in 2008—have they played each other when both teams were leading their division. It’s one thing to have a bad season, but to suffer the indignity of losing to the White Sox? That’s too much to bear. The hard truth for Cubs fans is the Sox have had more success so far. Through the 2011 season, the Cubs have a 39–45 record and have gone 3
–8–4 in the 15 seasons. That’ll make any Cubs fans sick to their stomach but particularly the older ones who may be experiencing deja vu.

From 1903 until 1942, the Cubs and White Sox played what was then called the City Series. It took place every October when at least one team did not participate in the World Series. This wasn’t just a few exhibition games played with minor-leaguers, all the best players competed, and for many years each team’s fans took these games as seriously as if it were the real World Series.

The final game in 1942 only drew 7,599 fans to Comiskey Park, however, and with salaries rising many players didn’t need the extra income anymore. The City Series wasn’t played in 1943 and concluded with the Sox having won 19 of 25, including the last eight in a row. There were many exhibition games played over the years, including the Windy City Classic from 1986 to 1995 that also didn’t fare well for the Cubs, who didn’t win a single game and managed just two ties. One of the tie games came in 1994 when a White Sox farmhand by the name of Michael Jordan had two RBIs, including a game-tying double, before 37,825 at Wrigley Field.

“He might have been playing for the Sox,” Cubs shortstop Shawon Dunston told the
Chicago Tribune
afterward. “But he is Chicago. Let’s not fool ourselves.”

And let’s not fool ourselves now. No White Sox player will ever get cheered at Wrigley Field ever again.

Tough Losses

The 15-year-old Crosstown Classic is old enough now that every player who participated in the first series back in 1997 has retired, and in a ghastly twist the first two pitchers of record for the Cubs have already passed away.

Kevin Foster, a hometown kid who grew up in Evanston, won the first-ever interleague game between the Cubs and White Sox on June 16, 1997. With support from Brian McRae and Rey Sanchez, who each had a pair of RBIs, Foster gave up three runs in six innings to beat the South Siders 8–3 at Comiskey Park. After a six-month battle, Foster died of cancer on October 11, 2008, at the age of 39.

The Sox got their first win in the series on June 17 with a 5–3 victory over the Cubs and starter Jeremi Gonalez, who allowed five runs in six innings, including home runs to Chris Snopek and former Cub Dave Martinez. On May 25, 2008, Gonzalez, who had changed his name to Geremi several years earlier, was struck by lightning and killed in his native Venezuela. He was 33.

52. Amazing Grace

Like several decades before it, the 1990s was a bit of a lost decade for the Cubs.

Greg Maddux and Ryne Sandberg were prematurely ripped away, they didn’t win a single game in their only postseason appearance, and aside from Sammy Sosa’s home runs there was precious little to cheer about at Wrigley Field.

Through it all, Mark Grace persevered. The Cubs’ 1985 24
th
round pick out of San Diego State never hit enough homers to satisfy his critics, but he finished with the most hits of any big leaguer in the 1990s. The most doubles, too. Both accomplishments were great sources of pride for Grace, who never slugged more than 17 home runs in a season. Instead, he made his living as a four-time Gold Glove first baseman who hit .308 in a Cubs uniform and was always among the toughest players in baseball to strike out.

Grace was the blue-eyed, blond-haired face of the franchise during some awfully lean times, and through it all he kept the media stocked with great quotes and kept his fawning fans—
not just the women, mind you—wondering what time he might show up at Yak-Zies for a nightcap. Okay, a few nightcaps.

He was never a wallflower, not even as a rookie, and that didn’t always set well with veterans who expect rookies to live by a pecking order. On June 4, 1989, Grace stepped into the batter’s box to face St. Louis lefthander Frank DiPino, a teammate of Grace’s during his 1988 rookie season. His first pitch was inside and tight. Grace stepped toward DiPino and like a couple of hockey tough guys the pair decided to engage. The ensuing brawl left Grace with an injured shoulder that cost him several weeks.

“He was talking all the time like he was a 10-year veteran,” DiPino said about his year as Grace’s teammate. “That started getting me hacked off. I guess all that stuff went to his head about ‘Amazing Grace.’ I have nothing against his talent, he is talented. But I just don’t like guys who are cocky.”

Grace certainly was cocky, but he could back it up. In the 1989 National League Championship Series, which the Cubs lost in five games to San Francisco, he had a team-leading eight RBIs while hitting a remarkable .647 (11-for-17) during the series. Incredibly, that wasn’t the top average in the series or the top average by a first baseman. His counterpart, Giants star Will Clark, went 13-for-20, a .650 average.

Grace not only liked to hang out with Cubs fans, it was clear he was one of them and it would have been a challenge to find any player more loyal to the franchise. As he entered his arbitration years and then free agency, Grace knew exactly where he wanted to be even if the Cubs weren’t always sure they wanted him.

Mark Grace blasts a bases-loaded double to drive in three runs during the sixth inning of an NL playoff game with the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field on Thursday, October 6, 1989. Grace helped the Cubs to a 9–5 victory over the San Francisco Giants to tie the series at one game each. Giants catcher Kurt Manwaring is at left. (AP Photo)

Over his 13-year career with the Cubs, Grace signed 11 one-year contracts. And even as they kept bringing him back, Cubs management always made sure he had one foot out the door. Until finally one year, he had both feet out. He signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks before the 2001 season.

A breakdown in Grace’s relationship with Cubs President Andy MacPhail didn’t help matters, but the Cubs’ company line was that they didn’t want to block prospect Hee-Seop Choi, a reasonable proposition at the time. But Choi failed miserably and over the next three years the Cubs went with aging veterans Matt Stairs, Ron Coomer, Fred McGriff, and Eric Karros at first base. They had more power but couldn’t touch Grace defensively, and in the end only Grace ended up with a World Series ring.

When he played his first game in Wrigley Field after signing with Arizona, Grace received a long standing ovation. Clearly, the fans weren’t ready to let go, at least not until after the 2001 World Series. It was that Grace made a comment that was directed toward management but Cubs fans didn’t remember fondly.

“I wasn’t good enough to play first base for the Chicago Cubs, but I was good enough to play first base for the World Champions,” Grace said. “And that feels really good.”

That helped cement the separation a bit. After a cooling-off period that lasted a few years—and helped out by MacPhail’s resignation a few months earlier—Grace was invited to the 2007 Cubs Convention and began his life as an ex-Cub in good graces. Where it will eventually lead nobody knows, but don’t be surprised to one day see Mark Grace again drawing a Cubs’ paycheck. This time for his work in the broadcast booth.