100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (25 page)

77. As Bad As It Gets

There have been worse teams in Cubs history than the 1997 squad. Sadly enough, since then four teams have been worse if you go by record alone.

But no Cubs team, and no team in the history of the National League, ever got off to a worse start than the 1997 Cubs. They began their season, appropriately enough, on April Fool’s Day and didn’t win until April 20—a horrendous 0–14 start.

The schedule looked daunting having to face Florida and Atlanta’s prized starting rotations in their first 10 games. It didn’t help that free-agent signee Kevin Tapani was already on the disabled list and was expected to miss significant time with a finger injury.

Here’s a closer look at how the worst start in NL history unfolded:

0
–1: Florida 4, Cubs 2, Pro Player Stadium, April 1

What happened: Kevin Brown allowed one hit over seven innings, and rookie Cubs third baseman Kevin Orie tried to let a bunt by Edgar Renteria go foul. It didn’t, and Renteria wound up on second base with a bunt double.

The quote: “We can play a lot better than that, and we will.”—Cubs manager Jim Riggleman.

0–2: Florida 4, Cubs 3, Pro Player Stadium, April 2

What happened: The Cubs committed three errors, giving them five in two games, yet all four runs Cubs starter Steve Trachsel gave up were earned. Mark Grace homered and drove in all three runs.

The quote: “I don’t know what’s going on…we’ve got to get better. It’s all concentration.”—Mark Grace.

0–3: Florida 8, Cubs 2, Pro Player Stadium, April 3

What happened: Frank Castillo gave up five runs in the first inning, and the Cubs lost Grace to a hamstring injury.

The quote: “Hopefully it won’t carry over into the next series, and we’ll get a mulligan there.”—Jim Riggleman.

0
–4: Atlanta 5, Cubs 4, Turner Field, April 4

What happened: The Cubs took their first lead of the season but Terry Adams blew the save, giving up two unearned runs in the eighth

The quote: “We knew it’d be a difficult two weeks, and we’d just try to deal with it.”—Cubs General Manager Ed Lynch.

0–5: Atlanta 11, Cubs 5, Turner Field, April 5–6

What happened: Faulty lighting and rain caused the game to go deep into the night, and it was eventually suspended with Atlanta leading 8–5 in the bottom of the seventh. The Braves finished off the Cubs the following afternoon before their regularly scheduled game. Sammy Sosa went 1-for-5 to raise his average to .105.

0
–6: Atlanta 4, Cubs 0, Turner Field, April 6

What happened: Greg Maddux toyed with the Cubs, allowing three hits over eight innings. Mel Rojas gave up a run in one inning to lower his ERA to 18.00

The quote: “At home, we’ll play a little better…but we’re not scared, and we won’t panic.”—Sammy Sosa.

0–7: Florida 5, Cubs 3, Wrigley Field, April 8

What happened: The wind chill was 1 above zero and the temperature was a balmy 29 degrees in the Cubs’ home opener. Sammy Sosa hit his first homer, but Trachsel couldn’t hold a 3–2 lead in the seventh.

The quote: “It hurts a lot. Anybody who says it doesn’t hurt is lying.”—Cubs catcher Scott Servais.

0–8: Florida 1, Cubs 0, Wrigley Field, April 10

What happened: Dave Hansen broke up Marlins pitcher Alex Fernandez’s no-hit bid with one out in the ninth, but the Cubs set a team record for worst start ever. Afterward, team veterans called a players-only meeting.

The quote: “That was a good thing. They have some things they want to express to each other, and that’s what they did.”
—Jim Riggleman.

0–9: Atlanta 2, Cubs 1, Wrigley Field, April 12

What happened: Again facing Maddux, the Cubs managed an unearned run but never held a lead. At this point, they had led in only five out of the season’s 79 innings.

The quote: “Good thing it’s not football where you’ve got to wait until next week [to play again].”—Cubs shortstop Shawon Dunston.

0–10: Atlanta 6, Cubs 4, Wrigley Field, April 13

What happened: The Braves broke a 4–4 tie with a pair of runs in the eighth. Brant Brown’s line-drive foul ball into the Cubs’ dugout hit Ryne Sandberg in the right ear. He left the game and needed stitches.

The quote: “The baseball gods aren’t with the Cubs, and I don’t know why.”—Steve
Trachsel.

0–11: Colorado 10, Cubs 7, Wrigley Field, April 15

What happened: Cubs pitchers gave up five homers, including Rockies pitcher Mark Thompson’s first of his career, as the team set the NL record for most losses to start a season.

The quote: “We’re 0–11. But it’s going to change. That’s all I can tell you.”—Sammy Sosa.

0–12: Colorado 4, Cubs 0, Wrigley Field, April 16

What happened: Cubs catcher Tyler Houston dropped strike three and chased Larry Walker to first base, forgetting Quinton McCracken was on third base and he easily stole home. Someone named Roger Bailey shut out the Cubs on five hits. He never pitched in the big leagues again after 1997.

The quote: “We are all embarrassed today.”—Jim Riggleman.

0–13: New York Mets 6, Cubs 3, Shea Stadium, April 19

What happened: The 13
th
loss came when No. 13 Turk Wendell allowed the 13
th
unearned run of the season by the Cubs. Mark Grace returned from the disabled list and went 0-for-2 with two walks.

The quote: “This is a good ballclub. We’re just not showing it on the field. We don’t have any losers here.”—Cubs outfielder Dave Clark.

0–14: New York Mets 8, Cubs 2, Shea Stadium, April 20

What happened: In the first game of a doubleheader, the Cubs moved past the 1904 Washington Senators and 1920 Detroit Tigers for the second-worst start in major league history, trailing only the 1988 Baltimore Orioles, who lost 21 straight.

1–14: Cubs 4, New York Mets 3, Shea Stadium, April 20

What happened: The Cubs led 4–1 after seven innings and hung on despite Turk Wendell giving up two in the ninth. He got Manny Alexander to ground out with the tying run on second base.

The quote: “Thank God. Something positive to talk about. We won a game. We’re 1
–14. That’s atrocious, but I’m going to have a little fun tonight.”—Mark Grace.

78. The Double No-Hitter

Jim “Hippo” Vaughn deserved better. His less-than-flattering nickname may be more memorable than what he should be best known for, which is his status as the best left-hander in Cubs history and a prominent role in arguably the best-pitched game in major league
history.

The man wasn’t a tiny thing like Greg Maddux, but at 6'4" and 215 pounds he wasn’t exactly a hippo, either. When a nickname sticks there isn’t much you can do about it and Hippo he was, and Hippo he’ll stay.

He hadn’t crafted much of a career when the Cubs picked him up in a minor-league deal near the end of the 1913 season, but from that point on he was among the most dominant pitchers in baseball. From 1914 through 1919 he went 124–77 with a 2.10 ERA and averaged 292 innings per season.

During the 1918 World Series, which the Cubs lost to the Boston Red Sox in six games, Vaughn threw three complete games and allowed only three earned runs in 27 innings. Vaughn won only one of the three games. Not surprising considering he had an established history of losing games in which he pitched brilliantly.

The best example of that took place on May 2, 1917, at Wrigley Field, then known as Weeghman Park, in a game commonly known as the “double no-hitter.” That’s actually an inaccurate description of the game in which Vaughn faced Cincinnati’s Fred Toney. At least not by modern definitions of what constitutes a no-hitter.

It’s true neither man allowed a hit through nine innings, but when Vaughn gave up a single with one out in the top of the 10
th
inning, his no-no was gone. The Reds got another hit as well as a run in the 10
th
and Toney set down the Cubs to win the game 1
–0 and finish off his no-hitter.

Vaughn, who faced the minimum 27 batters thanks to three double plays, was probably the more dominant pitcher that day as he struck out 10 while Toney only fanned three Cubs. The oddity of the event, which hasn’t been repeated in the major leagues, is even more interesting when you take a look at the other players who figured in the pivotal 10
th
.

With one out, Cincinnati got its first hit from shortstop Larry Kopf, whose liner to right field fell just in front of a diving Fred Merkle. That’s right, the same Fred Merkle whose infamous “boner” in 1908 helped the Cubs win the National League pennant.

With the no-hitter gone, Vaughn got the second out but center fielder Cy Williams dropped a ball for an error to put runners at the corners. The next batter up, Jim Thorpe, hit a swinging bunt that Vaughn fielded, but Kopf beat his throw to the plate.

That’s right, the same Jim Thorpe who won Olympic medals, starred in the NFL, and many consider the greatest athlete of the 20
th
century. He had only 176 hits and 82 RBIs in his career but in this game had one of each that made the difference.

Vaughn, whose 151 victories with the Cubs are the most by any left-hander, ended up leaving the team and ending his major league career over bizarre circumstances. After the 1920 season, he was stabbed in the stomach by his father-in-law in an argument related to his pending divorce.

Although news reports at the time said the wound wouldn’t threaten his career, he wasn’t the same pitcher in 1921. He went 3–11 with a 6.01 ERA and after a dismal performance against New York decided he’d had enough and left the team.

Cubs manager Johnny Evers suspended Vaughn, who in turn signed a contract with a semi-pro team in Wisconsin. When Evers was fired a week into the suspension, Vaughn was going to be reinstated. However, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis viewed signing a contract with another league as practically treason and suspended him for the rest of the year.

Vaughn never returned to the majors.

Near-Miss No-No’s

The Cubs have had dozens of near no-hitters over the years, but a few stand out among the rest for their timing.

In April 1934, four years before Johnny Vander Meer threw back-to-back no-hitters, Cubs right-hander Lon Warneke tossed back-to-back one-hitters, including one on Opening Day in which he lost the no-no with one out in the ninth.

That feat hasn’t been matched by any other Cub, but on May 24–25, 2001, they got another version of back-to-back near misses when Jon Lieber and Kerry Wood threw one-hitters on consecutive days against Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

The best timing for a one-hitter may have been on October 5, 1945. That’s the day Cubs right-hander Claude Passeau gave up a second-inning single to Detroit’s Rudy York and nothing else. What made that one-hitter so special? It came during Game 3 of the 1945 World Series. And 39 years earlier, on October 10, 1906, Ed Reulbach became the first player to throw a one-hitter in the World Series when he beat the White Sox in Game 2, a 7–1 Cubs win.

79. Blame Norman Rockwell

If it’s your thing to look to curses to explain the Cubs century of futility, then don’t forget about artist Norman Rockwell, whose iconic 1948
Saturday Evening Post
cover of four dejected players and a forlorn bat boy being jeered by fans seared the impression into the minds of Americans that the Cubs were a laughingstock.

There’s no ambiguity in “The Dugout,” which appeared on the cover of September 4, 1948, edition of the
Post
. The visiting Cubs, depicted in their road uniforms, are not only clearly losing and getting mercilessly mocked by fans but their faces and body language suggest they’ve also given up. It’s quite damning, actually.

The original watercolor painting is owned by the Brooklyn Museum and occasionally appears on display, most recently in a Rockwell retrospective in early 2011. Another version was auctioned off in 2009 and sold to an anonymous collector for $662,500, slightly less than what it was expected to go for.

The players depicted in the illustration were not figments of Rockwell’s imagination but actual members of the Cubs organization who posed on May 23, 1948, before a doubleheader against the Boston Braves at Braves Field. The four players, from left to right, are pitcher Bob Rush, manager Charlie Grimm, catcher Al Walker, and pitcher Johnny Schmitz, according to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

The bat boy was the Braves’ visiting team bat boy at the time, a 17-year-old named Frank McNulty who went on to become president of
Parade
magazine and mayor of the coastal South Carolina town of Seabrook Island. McNulty had a hard time looking sad and only achieved his glum expression after Rockwell told him to imagine his dog had died.

The history behind the cover is fairly well-documented, with one notable exception. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason why Rockwell chose the Cubs. Living and working near Boston in Stockbridge, Mass., he could easily have visited Fenway Park, home to the American League’s Boston Red Sox, to find a subject.

The late May date suggests he waited until the weather turned a bit warmer to head out to the ballpark, but that’s just conjecture. The Cubs were one of six teams the Braves hosted on a 12-game homestand, the others being the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, and Philadelphia Phillies.

The Cardinals wouldn’t have made sense, they were perennial contenders and had just come off a stretch in which they had won three World Series in five seasons. The Reds had been world champs as recently as 1940, and the Dodgers had lost the 1947 World Series. The Pirates were in a down period but had been above .500 most of the previous two decades.

The obvious choice should have been the Phillies. In 1948, they had only been to one World Series—which they had lost—and in the prior 30 seasons had finished above .500 just once while losing 100 games or more 12 different times. Yet the Cubs were immortalized by Rockwell despite having gone to the World Series five times since 1929, albeit losing all of them.

So why the Cubs? Well, possibly because they were the only team to agree to let Rockwell depict them in such a state. A letter from
Post
art editor Ken Stuart to the Rockwell Museum states that owner Phil Wrigley agreed to let his Cubs pose.

Nobody could have imagined the illustration would still have legs decades later, but if the outcome of that May 23, 1948, doubleheader was any indication, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The Cubs got swept.