100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (22 page)

65. Visit the Site of the West Side Grounds

There’s almost nothing reminiscent of baseball where the old West Side Grounds once stood, just an informational plaque belatedly erected in 2008, so you’re going to have to use your imagination a bit.

It isn’t too hard if armed with a few facts about the park, such as the names of the old-timers who played there and the history behind some of the games that took place while the Cubs called it home from 1893 until 1915. So just blot out the sterile medical buildings that make up the University of Illinois Medical Center, which now inhabits the block of Wolcott Avenue and Polk, Wood, and Taylor Streets, and let your mind wander.

The double-decked steel and wood structure first opened its doors on May 14, 1893, and it’s mandatory to note in any reflection on the Cubs that they, of course, lost their inaugural effort, a 13–12 decision to Cincinnati in which future White Sox owner Charles Comiskey scored the game-winning run.

It cost $30,000 to build, had a capacity of 16,000, and at the time it opened the club was known by any number of nicknames, including the White Stockings, Orphans, and Colts but certainly not the Cubs, a name that didn’t come into common use until at least 1903.

This is the place where the legendary Cap Anson became the first major leaguer to collect his 3,000
th
hit, where Tinker, Evers, and Chance inspired a memorable poem and where the Cubs called home while winning four National League pennants and their only World Series titles in 1907 and 1908. If you had stood at this corner on August 5, 1894, you would have seen a fire break out in the stands that destroyed half the stadium and sent thousands clamoring to escape through a barbed-wire fence.

Players had to be called on to tear apart the fence using their bats. There were hundreds of injuries but no fatalities, and the following day
the
Tribune
wrote, “That a few dozen people were not killed is exceedingly wonderful.”

The group responsible for finally getting a marker erected on the site dubbed itself the The Way Out in Left Field Society, a name based on the slang term “way out in left field,” which was possibly derived from the ballpark’s proximity to a psychiatric ward. As the story goes, players patrolling left field could overhear patients in the ward. And so the term “way out in left field” came to mean someone was questioning your sanity. The plaque commemorating the ballpark, located next to UIC’s Neuropsychiatric Institute at 912 S. Wood, originally referenced this connection, but the sentence was removed after some complaints that it was insensitive.

The final game was played on October 3, 1915, with the Cubs defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 7–2. The following season the Cubs left the West Side Grounds for the North Side’s Weeghman Park, later to be renamed Wrigley Field. The ballpark had found a sentimental writer in
the
Tribune
’s Ring Lardner, who penned a poem that was published in
the
Tribune
on April 20, 1916, the same day the Cubs played their first game at Weeghman Park. It read:

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.

Save for the chatter of the laboring folk

Returning to their hovels for the night,

All is still at Taylor, Lincoln, Wood, and Polk.

Beneath this aged roof, this grandstand’s shade,

Where peanut shucks lie in a mold’ring heap,

Where show the stains of pop and lemonade,

The Cub bugs used to cheer and groan and weep.

66. Visit the Site of Bennett Park

Mention the corner of Trumbull Avenue and Michigan Avenue in Detroit to a seasoned baseball fan, and sweet memories of crusty old Tiger Stadium spring to mind. It’s gone now, the victim of a wrecker’s ball in 1999, but the plot of land left behind is considered sacred ground to generations of Tigers fans.

Cubs fans should feel the same way. On the very same land once stood Bennett Park, the only place on Earth the Cubs ever won a World Series.

You can’t see Bennett Park either, of course; it’s been gone more than a century since bulldozers knocked down the single-deck wooden stadium in 1911 to make way for the new home of the Detroit Tigers. Baseball is still played there, however, and if you get there at just the right time and exercise the right amount of caution, you can hit, run, and catch on the site where the Cubs were twice crowned World Series champs.

Bennett Park was built in 1896 and named after Charlie Bennett, a Tigers catcher whose career was cut short when he lost both legs in a train accident. Until his death in 1927, Bennett threw out the first pitch at every Tigers opener. The initial capacity was 5,000 but was increased to around 14,000 by the time the Cubs arrived there in 1907 for the first of their back-to-back Series against the Tigers. Not only did the Cubs win titles there in 1907 and 1908, but they went 4–0 at Bennett Park in World Series games, finishing off their first title on October 12, 1907, with a 2–0
win.

The October 11, 1907, edition of the
Chicago Daily Tribune
reported that 2,000 fans were on trains out of Chicago headed for Detroit to see if the Cubs could win their first World Series title, which was just the fourth played up to that point. Just 7,370 fans were at Bennett Park for Game 4, which was actually the fifth game played. The teams were tied in the first game when darkness ended the contest, and in that era games not completed were replayed in their entirety.

In 1908, Detroit extended the World Series to five games, but they couldn’t score a single run as Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown and Orval Overall pitched consecutive shutouts to clinch the Series. A tiny crowd of 6,210, less than half Bennett Park’s 14,000 capacity, was on hand to see the Cubs win their last title.

Put those two games together and a mere 13,580 people have attended Cubs World Series clinchers, and with the games in Detroit just a few years after the airplane was invented, a minority of those were likely rooting for their North Side heroes.

The ground where Bennett Park and Tiger Stadium used to stand is now surrounded by a fence and is off limits to the public. However, a couple of dedicated groups of Tigers fans have made it their mission to keep the field suitable for playing. Tom Nardone is the founder of the Mower Gang, one of the groups that mows the grass and clears the deserted infield of broken glass and other debris. To be clear, it’s not legal to go onto the field, and the area isn’t safe.

“I don’t bring my kids when I go there,” Nardone said. “And when we pick up trash, there’s empty booze bottles. I wouldn’t go there at night.”

Nardone says the local authorities usually look the other way and throughout the summer, usually on Sundays, a pickup game can be had on the very site where the Cubs last won a World Series.

“I’m sure there are still some molecules of clay from back then,” he said.

Probably not. But it’s kind of cool to think there might be.

67. Remembering Mark Prior

What do you want to remember most about Mark Prior? Because there are options.

You can focus on the way the No. 2 overall pick of the 2001 draft skyrocketed through the Cubs’ minor league system in just nine starts, then struck out 10 to beat Pittsburgh in his major league debut at Wrigley Field on May 22, 2002.

Or you can think about how a little more than three months later, he strained his left hamstring running the bases and went on the disabled list for the remainder of the season, finishing 6
–6.

You can focus on his glorious 2003 regular season, in which he returned from a four-week stint on the disabled list to go 10–1 with a 1.52 ERA in his final 11 starts to will the Cubs into the postseason.

Or you can think about that postseason when Prior won his first two starts before joining the rest of the Cubs in self-destructing during that fateful eighth inning of Game 6 in the National League Championship Series.

After that, the memories are pretty much all the same. Prior was healthy at times and on the disabled list at times, but he never again pitched in an important game for the Cubs, other than the ones where fans would watch with hands clasped, praying the old Mark Prior would return to form.

There were a few times he did, like the 16-strikeout game to end the 2004 regular season and the six times he struck out 10-plus in 2005, but there was never any consistency in his performance or in his health.

And so on August 10, 2006, three years to the day after striking out nine in a complete-game win over Los Angeles, Prior allowed six runs on three innings in a start against Milwaukee as questions about his right shoulder, which had undergone arthroscopic surgery, still swirled.

“We’ll see what happens,” Prior told the media that day. “Obviously, I haven’t pitched well. I didn’t pitch well today. We’ll see where we’re at.”

It would be his last appearance as a Cub, and despite years of trying to make a comeback with three different organizations, Prior still hasn’t returned to the big leagues. He spent 2011 in the Yankees organization but missed three months to a groin injury.

Watching Prior pitch was appointment television for the first two years of his career, not just because he almost always had no-hitter stuff and you wanted to see how many he would whiff, but because it was mesmerizing to see a player with impossible expectations live up to them.

Cubs fans were told he was the perfect pitcher, that his mechanics were so smooth, so sound, that it was impossible for him to break down. He even had a biomechanics guru, former big-league hurler Tom House, who called Prior the “poster child” for the art of using computers, exercise, and coaching in creating pitchers.

Pitcher Mark Prior throws against the Cincinnati Reds in the first inning on Tuesday, July 19, 2005, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

Prior was always linked to Kerry Wood, another power pitcher who soared to early success with the Cubs only to be beset by injuries, but Prior never enjoyed the forgiveness Wood received from fans. Where Wood was considered tough, Prior was repeatedly knocked for not pitching through pain.

There was never any validity to the argument, and if anything Prior risked injury and his standing in the court of public opinion by not being more open when he felt pain. Even after his last game with the Cubs, he insisted he felt fine and manager Dusty Baker believed him.

“You take a man at his word when he says he’s feeling great,” Baker said. “If that’s what you think, that’s what you say. We just have to see.”

The Marcus Giles Collision

On July 11, 2003, in the second inning of a game against the Atlanta Braves at Wrigley Field, Mark Prior drew a two-out walk and then took off for second base when the next batter, Mark Grudzielanek, hit a high chopper toward Braves second baseman Marcus Giles.

The resulting collision knocked Giles out cold and left Prior clutching his right shoulder and writhing in pain. Time stood still as Cubs trainer Dave Tumbas came out to examine their prized possession. While Giles left with a mild concussion, Tumbas and the coaching staff allowed Prior to remain in the game. He struck out three of the next four batters he faced but left after 4
2
/
3
innings, having thrown 95 pitches.

Should Prior, who went on the DL with a sore shoulder a few days after the game, have been pulled? And did staying in have an impact on his future? The Cubs may have thought it was a mistake; they didn’t retain Tumbas after the season. But Prior’s greatest stretch as a Cub came immediately after returning from the injury.

In his first five starts after coming off the disabled list, Prior went 5–0 with an 0.39 ERA, striking out 35 and walking just four in 39 innings. The shoulder was healthy then, and the following spring Prior was sidelined—and missed the first two months of the 2004 season—not by his shoulder but by an inflamed Achilles’ tendon.

68. 2007 and 2008: Back-To-Back Titles—and Sweeps

It’s amazing what a pile of money spent the right way will do, isn’t it?

Okay, not every dollar the Cubs doled out following a 66–96 last-place finish in 2006 went into the most deserving pocket, and some contracts certainly became albatrosses later on, but there can be no doubt that the National League Central titles in 2007 and 2008 were bought and paid for.

After the miserable 2006 season, general manager Jim Hendry handed out contracts worth a total of $209 million to Mark DeRosa (
four years, $13 million), Alfonso Soriano (eight years, $136 million), Ted Lilly (four years, $40 million), and Jason Marquis (three years, $20 million).

Add in Aramis Ramirez re-signing for $75 million over five years and a five-year, $90 million deal that Carlos Zambrano inked during the season, and over the course of a few months the Cubs committed more than $360 million to six players.

Hang on, it wasn’t over. Hendry also gave Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome a four-year, $48 million contract in December 2007.

That’s a lot of Old Style. And it would have been worth it if the Cubs hadn’t crapped out in the playoffs both seasons. In their first playoff appearance since 2003, the Cubs opened the 2007 National League Division Series on the road at NL West champion Arizona, a decent but not dominant team. Yet the Cubs were dominated.

In a three-game sweep the Cubs were outscored 16–6 by a Diamondbacks team that finished 14
th
in the NL in runs scored and dead last in batting average. Aside from the Cubs bats failing to show up, there were two keys to the series.

The first came with the score tied at one in Game 1 when Cubs manager Lou Piniella pulled Zambrano after six innings and only 85 pitches. His reason? He wanted to pitch Zambrano on three day’s rest for a potential Game 4. So in the 7
th
inning, with Big Z on the bench waiting for a Game 4 that would never come, Carlos Marmol gave up a pair of runs and Arizona held on for a 3–1
win.

The most memorable, and somewhat inexplicable moment, came in the bottom of the second inning of Game 2 shortly after the Cubs had gone ahead on Geovany Soto’s two-run homer. Lilly served up a gopher ball on a 3–2 two-out pitch to Chris Young that turned a 2–0 lead into a 3–2 deficit.

With the baseball barely departed from Young’s bat, Lilly, who once got into a fistfight with his own manager while in Toronto, whirled and with a ferocious turn whipped his glove straight into the ground. It was certainly a huge home run, but Lilly’s reaction was way out of proportion to the moment. This was the second inning of Game 2, not the final innings of a potential clincher.

Then again, maybe Lilly knew something. The Cubs never led again in the series, losing 8–4 in Game 2 and then playing like a defeated team in Game 3 at Wrigley Field for a 5–1 loss.

When the 2008 season started, the Cubs were a favorite to again win the NL Central, and they lived up to those expectations despite constant reminders that this was the 100
th
anniversary of their last World Series title.

Aside from the addition of Fukudome, they had Soto on board for an entire season and his 23 homers and 86 RBIs earned him NL Rookie of the Year honors. Veteran center fielder Jim Edmonds was signed in mid-May after getting cut by San Diego and quickly won over Cubs fans still mindful of his many years in St. Louis.

Not content to wait for the trade deadline, Hendry sent Matt Murton and three prospects to Oakland on July 8 for starting pitcher Rich Harden, whose talent was matched by his inability to stay healthy.

Though he was kept on a tight pitch count and skipped one start in August, Harden pitched brilliantly for the Cubs. He went 5–1 with a 1.77 ERA and allowed three hits or fewer in
eight of his 12 starts.

The Cubs led the division most of the season before Milwaukee pulled into a tie on July 26. Two days later, with the lead back up to one, they marched into Miller Park and swept the Brewers in four straight. They never led by fewer than 3½ games the rest of the season and clinched on September 20 at Wrigley Field against the Cardinals.

Pitcher Ted Lilly throws in the second inning against the Florida Marlins during a game at Dolphin Stadium in Miami on Tuesday, September 25, 2007. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Nothing is ever a foregone conclusion when it comes to the Cubs, but there was an extraordinary amount of confidence heading into the NLDS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that won a weak NL West with 84 wins.

The Dodgers had the best ERA in the National League, but the Cubs outscored them by 155 runs and their starting pitching was so deep that Ted Lilly wasn’t going to be needed until Game 4, if it came to that. Well, it didn’t.

In an eerie repeat of the previous year’s playoff failure, the Cubs again scored a mere six runs in another three-game sweep. Game 1 before 42,099 fans at Wrigley Field was marked by the unraveling of Ryan Dempster, who walked seven and gave up a grand slam to James Loney in the fifth inning to erase a 2–0 Cubs edge, the only time they would lead the entire series.

Game 2 was a disaster. Each member of the Cubs’ infield—Derrek Lee, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Theriot, and Aramis Ramirez—committed an error as they fell behind 7–0 en route to a 10
–3 loss. Zambrano didn’t pitch too poorly, giving up six hits and just three earned runs, but Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley was never in trouble.

There wasn’t much need to head to Los Angeles for Game 3. The Cubs were a dead team by this point and quickly fell behind 2–0 in the first inning before losing 3–1. It was their ninth straight playoff defeat, a streak that began with the final three games of the 2003 NLCS.

The Curse of Crane Kenney

The 2008 Cubs were so good and Lou Piniella had done such a good job of ignoring talk about the Billy Goat curse that it wasn’t hard to be dumbfounded when Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney inexplicably went and brought in a Greek Orthodox priest to bless their dugout before the start of the playoffs.

Rev. James Greanias was certainly dumbfounded, first when he got a voicemail from Kenney explaining he wanted him to spread holy water in the Cubs’ dugout and then a few months later at the 2009 Cubs Convention when Kenney said it was Greanias who had the idea in the first place.

“An e-mail comes in,” Kenney told fans, “And this was a huge Cubs fan who wants to get tickets to the game and has a cell phone with a Cubs ring tone on it, and I said, ‘Let him go.’”

Greanias responded by telling the
Chicago Tribune
that Kenney was “throwing him under the bus.” The idea to bless the dugout with a Greek Orthodox priest because Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis was Greek, Greanias said, had come entirely from the Cubs.

“The last thing on my mind was calling the Cubs to ask them to bless the field,” Greanias said. “In fact, I thought it was a joke at first.”