However, I have come to see things differently. Losing has always been in the card because divine forces have been acting on the field and behind the scenes telling us to repent, accept defeat, before it was too late. The 2003 season was foretold to me when I first became a fan back in the ‘70s; I was too young to understand then. In those days Rick Reuschel and his sorry-ass brother Paul were leading the team into a pit of despair. This was the post-1969 team that never recovered from the shame and humiliation of falling out of first place late in the season. This was the team that featured Bobby Murcer in right, Jerry Morales in center and Jose Cardenal in left; Steve Ontiveros, Ivan DeJesus, Manny Trillo, and Bill Buckner; the infield third to first, and a battery of Ray Burris and George Mitterwald. Burris was hailed as the “New Fergie Jenkins,” another thing that never quite panned out either. After running his record to 12 and 10, I recall him saying in an interview, “I like to nibble at the corners.” My brother and called him Death-Ray. His best season for the Cubs was ’76 when he went 15 and 13.
What held the seasons together were the venerable announcers: Jack Brickhouse, Lou Boudreau, and Vince Lloyd, the latter of which had a major league vocabulary, the likes of which has not been seen in sports broadcasting since. He once referred to Ivan Dejesus as the “majordomo” of National League shortstops. In contrast, when Pat Hughues said that a Houston hurler had a “plethora” of different pitches, Ron Santo, the old third-baseman, responded, “What in the heck is a plethora?”
For us, there were always signs of hope, which of course was the problem. After team owner Philip K. Wrigley died, things were going to change. Wrigley was an enormous tight wad and after he died, the new management decided that they would put up the cash for a free agent. The year was ’78 and the Savior was Dave ‘King Kong’ Kingman, a ball-mashing, home-run hitting bone head who ended up with over 400 career round-trippers and a minuscule .222 batting average. He was a gorilla: a six-foot-six masher with a bad temper and a penchant for strikeouts.
Cub fans already knew him. When he was playing for the Mets he was on first base in a tight game and the batter hit a sharply hit ball to deep second. Kingman slid hard into second to try to take out utility infielder Mick Kelleher at short as he took the throw. Kelleher couldn’t have been taller than 5 foot 9. When the 6 foot 6, 210-pound Kingman went in hard, Kelleher jumped on his back and punched him in the back of the head until the two could be separated. That was baseball!
Both players put this behind them when Kingman came to Chicago, and he actually had a couple of good seasons. He hit .266 with 28 homers in his first season. His second year was one of his best seasons in baseball. He knocked out 48 homeruns and hit .288. He took a mean cut at the plate. Jack Brickhouse would tell us that the whole stadium feels the breeze when he swings and misses. At the time of his retirement he was fourth in all time strikeouts by a hitter. He never hit for average, but some of the shots he hit have yet to land, others broke windows out of the buildings on Waveland Avenue. His downfall in Chicago occurred when he started writing a weekly column for the Tribune (albeit with the help of a ghost writer). His antics and personality took over and drove a wedge between him and the Cubs management and he was gone a year later.
To be continued…
Crossposted at My Ongoing Struggle with Misanthropy: http://jimmygabacho.com/?p=845
I think you’re a little hard on Paul Reuschel’s girth. He may have been fat assed but so was his brother Rick, and Rick was a fantastic pitcher.
Probably my favorite player of the ones you listed is Jose Cardenal. He was a good timer. Are there any players today who approach what a playful sort he was? I remember one time he got thrown out at first on a grounder and he sort of hugged the first baseman’s mitt with both arms and yucked it up to be sure the first baseman couldn’t throw out another advancing runner. Cardenal was also great at clowning with the bleacher bums between innings …
You’re right about Jose Cardenal. He was great, and he had his best years with the Cubs. I think he hit about 296 during that time. He was a well-known eccentric: once refusing to play because his left eyelid was stuck open. He is still in baseball, having coached for a number of teams, including the Yankees and Cardinals.
Rick Big Daddy Reuschel was also great. He went 20 and 10 for the Cubs in ’77, and played very well for the Giants for a couple of years. Even received honorable mentions for the Cy Young awards a couple of times.
Paul Reuschel… now he’s a different story. Career ERA: 451. 13 total saves, and lots of gopher balls. For me, he was cubbie-depression in the flesh.
Yeah, Paul Reuschel was a miserable pitcher. They don’t get much worse. It was just the “fat assed” putdown doesn’t rally capture Paul Reuschel’s badness. For my money, if I were to disparage his physical eminence I might focus on that walrus mustache thing he had:
Plus, not all fat guys are created alike.
Well, maybe you’re right. Rick was heavier than Paul and was Cy Young material. So, fat-assed doesn’t work.
I am looking for something like pathetic, but want to avoid the aliteration. He was freaking pathetic, though. We’d shut the TV off when he came in to pitch.
How do you feel about “sorry-ass”?
Or, should it be “sorry-assed”?
Jimmy
Either work for me. Yeah, he was one sorry ass pitcher. Felt a little sorry for him though having such a successful brother in the same vocation.
And maybe I should take back my slight about his mustache. Some people really loved his stache. Go figure.
And this game must be a high point in Paul’s career–combining with brother Rick to throw a shutout.
Derek, The blog page that specializes on baseball players’ mostashes has a great picture in the banner of Sammy Sosa getting clocked by a Solomon Torres fastball. http://reds.enquirer.com/2003/04/21/wwwred3a21.html
The ball broke his helmet and put Sosa on the disabled list for a few days. This was right before the cork-bat incident, which was followed by the abandon your teamates and get traded thing, followed by the congressional hearings on performance enhancers, which itself was followed by the skin treatments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/07/sammy-sosas-skin-photos-p_n_349602.html
Maybe these incidents are related or am I being too harsh?
Jimmy
Post-Concussion Syndrome?
I remember the year Sosa and McGuire were hitting all those homers (1998), the year we moved to New Orleans and our daughter was a few months shy of two. That summer I enjoyed saying “Sam-ee So-sa, Sam-ee So-sa” for her (and my) amusement, over and over, just exposing her to sounds. I specialized in sports figures names, such as “Alexi Zhamnov” and “Mario Lemieux” from hockey, but it was “Sam-my So-sa” that she repeated …
I watched a lot of Cubs games during that era. I can still picture all those players. Kong was from my home town of Mount Prospect (http://davekingmanfan.com/index2.htm). Hit over 400 HR in 16 seasons. His downfall came when he sent a rat to a female reporter because he didn’t like the idea of women in the locker room. Probably my favorite Cub team that didn’t include Jody Davis.
Looking forward to the Frank Castillo as savior era.
This game was a little late for the Kingman era, but I was there, great seats, about 12 rows behind home plate. Kingman pinch hit and got a single. He was already unpopular by this point. But it most likely was Barry Foote’s finest game:
Apr 22, 1980 – In a classic Wrigley Field slugfest‚ the Cubs beat the Cardinals 16-12 on Barry Foote’s 2-out grand slam in the bottom of the 9th. Foote drives in 8 runs overall with 4 hits and 2 home runs‚ and teammate Ivan DeJesus hits for the cycle to help Chicago rally from a 12-5 deficit.
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/player.php?name=Barry_Foote_1952&page=chronology