100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (3 page)

4. Listen to Ryne Sandberg’s Hall of Fame Speech

By the time Ryne Sandberg was elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 2005
, the game of baseball was changing in ways that disgusted him. Or rather, as Sandberg saw it, the players were changing. Hard work had been replaced by easy fixes and the old adage that you keep your eyes open and your mouth shut was not only quaint but laughable for the latest me-first brand of ballplayers.

Sandberg watched as the steroid era had rendered home run records meaningless and the way baseball’s ruling class—both players and owners—conveniently overlooked it for years was and remains a travesty. Respect for the game was fading.

A smooth almost flawless fielder, Sandberg was neither muscle-bound nor talkative. His 282 career homers—277 as a second baseman, the most ever until Jeff Kent surpassed him—did most of his talking for him, and when he did speak to the press it was reluctantly.

Named after New York Yankees pitcher Ryne Duren, Sandberg grew up in Spokane, Washington,
and bypassed a football scholarship to Washington State to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies as a 20
th
-round draft pick. His rise through the minor leagues was steady if not spectacular, and he made his major league debut with the Phillies late in the 1981 season.

When Sandberg was sent to the Cubs in the off-season he wasn’t one of the principals in the trade that dealt Ivan DeJesus to Philadelphia and Larry Bowa to the North Siders. He wasn’t a mere throw-in, however. Cubs General Manager Dallas Green insisted on including Sandberg, and the Phils, to their regret, acquiesced.

Sandberg spent his rookie season as the Cubs’ third baseman, hitting .271 with seven homers after starting the season 1-for-32. The arrival of Ron Cey in 1983 pushed Sandberg to second base where he excelled, winning a Gold Glove during his first season at the position
.

In 1984 Sandberg had one of the great coming-out years in baseball history, hitting .314 with 19 homers and 84 RBIs to lead the Cubs to their first playoff appearance in 39 years. He became the first Cubs player to be named National League MVP since Ernie Banks in 1959.

Over the following eight seasons, Sandberg kept building his Hall of Fame credentials. He averaged 25 homers, 81 RBIs, and 27 stolen bases during that span, and in 1990 he hit 40 homers to become the first second baseman to lead the NL since Rogers Hornsby in 1925.

Despite those gaudy numbers, Sandberg’s near-flawless defense was perhaps more impressive. In 1991, he set a major league record for second baseman (since broken by Luis Castillo) by going 123 games without an error, and he continued to pile up Gold Gloves, winning the award every year until Pittsburgh’s Jose Lind beat him out in 1992.

Ryne Sandberg slugs a triple during a game on Wednesday, August 29, 1984, against the Cincinnati Reds. (AP Photo/Jon Swart)

In 1994, Sandberg was earning $7.1 million a year with a couple seasons left on his contract when he stunned the Cubs by retiring in mid-season. He was mired in a 1-for-29 slump and hitting just .238 at the time but said retirement had been on his mind since spring training.

“I lost the edge that it takes to play—the drive, the motivation, the killer instinct, all those things that had been a part of me before,” Sandberg told gathered media during his retirement news conference. “I kept thinking it would come back one day, but it never did. It took me 2
1/2
months to realize that.”

Eight days after retiring, Sandberg’s wife, Cindy, filed for divorce. Their marital problems became the subject of wild rumors, but in his 1995 biography
,
Second to Home,
Sandberg emphatically denied his divorce had anything to do with his decision to leave baseball.

Sixteen months later, with a renewed desire to play baseball as well as a new wife, Margaret, Ryno announced his comeback. He clubbed 25 homers in 1996, but he wasn’t quite the same player and finished the season hitting .244. After hitting just 12 homers in 1997, a year the Cubs lost their first 14 games, Sandberg ended his playing days for good.

Sandberg’s second retirement was in stark contrast to his first but more in line with his reticent personality. So on July 31, 2005, after getting elected to the Hall of Fame on his third try, there was little reason to suspect Sandberg would give baseball the spanking it deserved when he walked to the podium to give his induction speech.

But make no mistake, that’s exactly what happened. The theme of his speech was respecting the game, and Ryno used the word “respect” no less than 19 times during the course of it.

“The reason I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way, that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played. I don’t know about that, but I do know this: I had too much respect for the game to play it any other way, and if there was a single reason I am here today, it is because of one word, respect.”

He graciously thanked dozens of former teammates, coaches, friends, and family members but never mentioned Sammy Sosa, at least not by name. The
Washington Post
wrote, “Sandberg’s surprisingly biting speech mentioned neither steroids nor Sosa explicitly, but it was obvious of what and of whom he was speaking.”

“A lot of people say this honor validates my career,” Sandberg told the crowd. “But I didn’t work hard for validation. I didn’t play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that’s what you’re supposed to do, play it right and with respect. If this validates anything, it’s that learning how to bunt and hit and run and turning two is more important than knowing where to find the little red light at the dugout camera.”

Sandberg later added, “
[Harry Caray] used to say how nice it is that a guy who can hit 40 homers or steal 50 bases drive in a hundred runs is the best bunter on the team. Nice? That was my job. When did it become okay for someone to hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game?”

Bobby Dernier, one of the teammates Sandberg singled out for teaching him the right way to play baseball, told the
Chicago Tribune
in 1995, “I first met him as a rookie in 1978 in Helena, Montana. He was 18 and he didn’t say anything for two months. I thought he was a Spanish player.”

It took nearly 30 years, but Sandberg found his voice. Be sure to listen to it.

You can read Ryne Sandberg’s entire induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame web site at
http://baseballhall.org/node/11299
.

5. Sit in the Bartman Seat

Go ahead, you’re not going to get in any trouble. Walk down Wrigley Field’s left-field line and look for Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113. After you find it, sit down and let your mind wander.

Think about what it must have been like on
October 14, 2003, when the Cubs were five outs from reaching the World Series and 40,000 crazed fans watched a foul ball off the bat of Florida’s Luis Castillo carry this way. Imagine how a few of them, including a huge Cubs fan named Steve Bartman, instinctively reached toward the sky. Imagine it was you who touched that ball.

Look a few feet away to the outfield grass and picture a livid Cubs left fielder Moises Alou directing his anger toward you, giving every fan in Wrigley Field license to do the same. And then, as Mark Prior fell apart, Alex Gonzalez booted a ball and the Marlins buried the Cubs, imagine that’s what every fan in Wrigley Field did.

It takes your breath away to think about the hell Bartman went through that night and in the immediate aftermath. One moment he’s a tense Cubs fan on the edge of his seat, the next he’s getting death threats, has become the butt of jokes on late night TV, and is blamed for the Cubs not reaching the World Series.

There’s an urge to examine how complicit Bartman was in the Cubs’ collapse in Game 6, but to even explore that is an acknowledgment he shares more than cursory blame. Yes, he got his hand on the ball among many others reaching for it but, as has been pointed out countless times, the Cubs blew it on the field.

Prior ended up walking Castillo then gave up an RBI single to Ivan Rodriguez. A sharp but routine grounder was muffed by Gonzalez, who has escaped goathood all these years thanks to Bartman. If any single play was responsible for the Game 6 collapse it was Gonzalez’ error on what could have been an inning-ending double play.

Instead, the Marlins had the bases loaded with only one out and the next batter, Derrek Lee, hit a two-run double on Prior’s 119
th
pitch to tie the game at 3–3. Only then did Cubs manager Dusty Baker, who some believe ruined Prior in 2003 by letting him throw too many pitches that year, take him out of the game.

Cubs reliever Kyle Farnsworth gave up Jeff Conine’s sacrifice fly and Mike Mordecai’s horrifying bases-loaded double that put the game out of reach. By that time, Bartman had long ago departed Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113, and was in protective custody with Wrigley Field security.

A good deal of Cubs fans became unhinged that night, making loud and public threats toward Bartman and embarrassing themselves in the process. Over time, public opinion has swayed in his favor and while his name is still synonymous with the incident he’d be more likely to receive cheers than boos if he were to make a public appearance at Wrigley Field.

There have been efforts over time to talk to Bartman, and I’ve been part of that group. In the spring of 2004, I was assigned by my editor to find and interview Bartman. By this time he had made it perfectly clear he had no intention of talking to anyone. But just a few months had passed, not years, and I thought maybe there was a chance. So I went down to his parent’s home in a suburb north of Chicago and rang the doorbell.

A woman I assumed to be his mother came to the door, and I introduced myself. She pursed her lips and without any hint of a smile let it be known I wasn’t going to be the exception to the no-interview rule. “Put it to sleep,” she told me. “We’ve had enough.”

Bless Steve Bartman for keeping quiet all these years. If there was a way to put the genie back in the bottle and give him his name back that would be the right thing to do. But that’s impossible.

Nobody will ever know what it’s like to be in his shoes. But you can at least try by sitting in his seat.

Steve Bartman’s Statement

The following was released by Steve Bartman on Wednesday, October 15, 2003:

“There are few words to describe how awful I feel and what I have experienced within these last 24 hours.

I’ve been a Cub fan all my life and fully understand the relationship between my actions and the outcome of the game. I had my eyes glued on the approaching ball the entire time and was so caught up in the moment that I did not even see Moises Alou, much less that he may have had a play.

Had I thought for one second that the ball was playable or had I seen Alou approaching I would have done whatever I could to get out of the way and give Alou a chance to make the catch.

To Moises Alou, the Chicago Cubs organization, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and Cub fans everywhere I am so truly sorry from the bottom of this Cubs fan’s broken heart.

I ask that Cub fans everywhere redirect the negative energy that has been vented toward my family, my friends, and myself into the usual positive support for our beloved team on their way to being National League champs.”

6. The Homer in the Gloamin’

At 5:37
pm
on September
28, 1938, with darkness falling over a Wrigley Field that wouldn’t be afforded the benefit of lights for another 50 years, Gabby Hartnett swung through the evening haze to hit the most famous home run in Cubs history.

It’s not possible to overstate how dramatic Hartnett’s homer was, whether looking at its importance to the National League pennant race at the time or its everlasting place in Cubs lore.

To set the table for this tale, we’ll go back a little more than two months to July 20, 1938, when the Cubs trailed the Pittsburgh Pirates by 5
1/2
games and owner Phil “P.K.” Wrigley decided manager Charlie Grimm would have to step down. Wrigley wanted shortstop Billy Jurges to be Grimm’s replacement, but Jurges turned down the job. Instead, Jurges came back with a recommendation of Hartnett, a 37-year-old catcher in his 17
th
season with the Cubs.

After first checking with Grimm, Wrigley handed over the Cubs to Hartnett. The team remained uncomfortably far behind the Pirates, and on August 15, Hartnett broke his thumb on a foul tip. He didn’t return until
September 8 when the Cubs still trailed by five games.

The lead had been pared to 1½ games on September 27 when the Pirates, alone in first place since July 18, arrived at Wrigley Field for a three-game series. There was no mystery; this series would decide the pennant. The Cubs took the opener 2–1 behind the pitching of Dizzy Dean, and first place was just one win away.

At the time, the Cubs often scheduled weekday games for 3:00
pm
and without long breaks for television or an endless march of relief pitchers slowing the pace down it was still possible for the contests to reach their inevitable conclusions without lights. It wasn’t rare for a game to finish in less than two hours. Indeed, the Cubs win in the opener took just 98 minutes to complete.

On
September 28, however, the Cubs went to the bullpen early and used six relievers along the way. They needed a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth to knot the score at five, and when the ninth arrived with the sun setting, both managers were informed it would be the last inning.

At this point in baseball history a tie game didn’t result in a suspended game to be completed later. If the Pirates and Cubs ended at a tie, the game would have to be replayed in its entirety as part of a doubleheader the following day.

This created urgency on both sides, but Charlie Root set down the Pirates in the top of the ninth, and Pittsburgh’s Mace Brown quickly retired Phil Cavarretta and Carl Reynolds in the bottom of the frame. Then up strode Gabby Hartnett.

Hartnett was so tough, Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell once said he could turn a bat into sawdust with his bare hands. But toughness doesn’t matter a whole lot if you’re fighting a ghost, and with the “gloamin’” settling in, Hartnett whiffed on Brown’s first pitch and barely got a piece of the second, both curveballs.

On
the 0–2 pitch, Brown tried to get another curveball past Hartnett.

“I swung with everything I had, and then I got that feeling—the kind of feeling you get when the blood rushes to your head and you get dizzy,” Hartnett recalled. “A lot of people told me they didn’t know the ball was in the bleachers. Well, I did. I knew the minute I hit it.

“When I got to second base I couldn’t see third because the players and fans were there. I don’t think I walked another step. I was almost carried the rest of the way. But when I got to home plate I saw [home plate umpire] George Barr taking a good look. He was making sure I touched the platter.”

Fans poured onto the field as bedlam broke out at Wrigley Field, and Hartnett had to be surrounded by a circle of ushers and several other men to ensure his safety.

In its game story the following day, the
Chicago Tribune
wrote, “After the skipper finally had struggled to the plate things got worse. The ushers, who had fanned out to form that protective barrier around the infield, forgot their constantly rehearsed maneuver and rushed to save Hartnett’s life.

“They tugged and they shoved and finally they started swinging their fists before the players could carry their boss into the safety afforded by the tunnel behind the Cubs dugout. There was new hysteria after Gabby reached the catwalk which leads to the club house. But by this time the gendarmes were organized. Gabby got to the bath house without being stripped by souvenir maniacs.”

The game had put the Cubs a mere
half game in front of the Pirates, but their backs had been broken and for all intents and purposes the pennant had been decided. The Cubs pounded out a 10–1 win the following day to complete a series sweep and two days later clinched it with a 10–3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Hartnett and his teammates were still celebrating in the clubhouse when a knock on the door came. A letter carrier had scooped up the ball Hartnett had deposited into the left-field bleachers and came to deliver it to his hero.

That baseball and the bat used to hit the “Homer in the Gloamin’” now rest
in the Chicago History Museum.