The Mouth That Roared (28 page)

Longer-tenured Cubs like Leon Durham and Jody Davis also had fine years.

In short, it was a team effort that got the Cubs to the playoffs for the first time since 1945.

*

Thinking back on everything that fell into place that season, I remember the euphoria of Cubs fans as we marched toward a division title. Many had never experienced a pennant race before. From the “Sandberg Game” onward, Wrigley Field became an incredible place to watch a baseball game. And the excitement wasn’t confined to the ballpark. You could hear the buzz about the Cubs all around town, especially in the Wrigleyville neighborhood.

It had been 39 years since the Cubs won any kind of title, and my theory about success being a boom for business proved correct. In our case, winning put asses in seats. For the first time in Cubs history, 2 million fans walked through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. We had the second-best attendance numbers in the National League in 1984. Since then, Cubs yearly attendance has dipped below 2 million in a non-strike year only once. There’s no doubt in my mind that the ’84 season had a lasting impact on Cubs baseball.

They called it a miracle season, but there were actually concrete reasons behind it. Some attributed our success to the Tribune Company loosening the purse strings and allowing me to acquire first-rate players. Others, including Jimmy Frey, opined that I deserved most of the credit for smart personnel decisions. When we clinched the division in ’84, only three players—Leon Durham, Jody Davis, and Lee Smith—had been with the Cubs longer than I had.

As we prepared for the National League Championship Series against San Diego, rumors swirled that I was looking to get back to Philadelphia. A year after reaching the World Series, the Phillies played .500 ball in 1984. After almost 30 years with the Phillies, Paul Owens, the team’s manager and former general manager, was headed for a smaller role in the organization.

Since the 1970s, Pope and I had discussed the idea of me succeeding him as general manager. But that plan hinged on Pope voluntarily retiring and me still being in the Phillies organization when that day came. Neither was the case by 1984. Another factor was Phillies owner Bill Giles, who had a more hands-on role in running the team than his predecessor, Ruly Carpenter. Giles liked to make baseball decisions on his own, and a lot of people questioned how well he and I would work together.

When reporters asked me at the end of the ’84 season about my thoughts on returning to Philadelphia, I told them the truth: “First of all, they haven’t asked me back, and I haven’t asked to go back. The rumors have persisted, I guess, because I haven’t really killed them, except to say that I’m a guy that honors my contract, and I’ve got two more years on my contract. I had a goal I set for myself here, and the goal, of course, was to win for the Cubs, and I think we’re going to accomplish that goal. After that, we’ll see what happens.”

But first, we had to accomplish that goal.

*

The joy of a division title was tempered somewhat by Major League Baseball’s threat to keep postseason games from being scheduled during the day. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn was concerned that afternoon playoff games would hurt television revenue.

“The Cubs’ involvement in the divisional race has built excitement, and that’s great for their fans,” Kuhn said. “But we have an obligation beyond the local fans. For the future, baseball must promptly find a clear-cut solution to the lights situation.”

Translation: the Cubs would be deprived of home playoff games if Wrigley Field didn’t get lights.

I was a realist. I loved the charms and tradition of daytime baseball. At the same time, I felt that night games at Wrigley were an inevitability. The commissioner’s warning further convinced me of that. But Wrigleyville residents and the politicians who represented them needed to be brought around to that way of thinking. That wouldn’t happen without some prodding.

At the end of August, Kuhn came up with a short-term “solution” he hoped would satisfy everyone. In 1984, the National League was in line for home-field advantage in the World Series, which meant its representative would host the first two, and if necessary, the last two games of the series. Kuhn said that would still be the case—unless the Cubs were representing the National League. If that happened, home-field advantage would go to the American League team, reducing the number of day games by one while allowing the Chicago games to be played on the weekend when more people across the country would be home to watch games on television.

Kuhn said he thought it was a fair decision and the only way to avoid having to offer NBC a rebate for loss of ad revenue.

I didn’t like Kuhn’s ruling one bit, but I managed to focus on the positive—sort of. “I guess the neighborhood got what they wanted then, didn’t they?” I said when reporters asked me about the decision. Our team president, Jim Finks, took a rosier view of the situation, saying the Cubs had an obligation to the rest of the league to compromise.

That was nonsense.

Of course, it was all hypothetical for the time being. We needed to reach the World Series first. Still, I realized this was the beginning of an effort by Major League Baseball to penalize the Cubs for not playing night baseball.

*

Our opponent in the National League Championship Series had a Cinderella story of its own. The Padres had just won their first division title, posting a winning record for only the second time in the franchise’s 16-year history. They were a solid team, but I felt we had an edge in talent and experience. The Cubs hadn’t played postseason baseball in decades, but 10 of our players had appeared in the playoffs with other teams. In the best-of-five NLCS, we got the first two games at home before going to San Diego for as many as three more games. I expected an added lift from the fans at Wrigley Field. Their enthusiasm was part of the reason we were 22 games over .500 at home during the season.

The playoffs represented a huge moment for the Cubs organization, and I wanted to include everyone in the celebration—even infamous farm animals.

Among those invited to attend Game 1 were Sam Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, and his pet goat. This was our tongue-in-cheek way of reminding people of a key piece of Cubs lore. Back in 1945, William Sianis, the founder of the tavern and Sam’s uncle, had supposedly put a curse on the Cubs after he and his goat were denied admittance to a World Series game.

The goat idea and others like it were the brainchild of our marketing team of Bing and Patty Hampton, whose creativity took us to new places. They thought up the gimmicks—all I had to was approve them. Bing and Patty came up with the idea of ballgirls at Wrigley Field. That was a big hit—until one of the gals posed nude in
Playboy
. That kind of exposure didn’t sit well with the staid old Tribune boys, so she was let go. But the rest of the ballgirls stayed.

A more serious piece of business during the World Series concerned Mr. Cub. Ernie Banks’ failure to show up for public appearances had forced me to sever official ties with him. With the Cubs in the playoffs, I saw a perfect opportunity to show Ernie he would always be a cherished part of the Cubs family. On the eve of the NLCS, I announced Ernie would be in uniform as an honorary member of the team for the series opener.

*

Wrigley Field was the place to be on October 2, 1984—except for major league umpires, who had gone on strike to protest not getting a pay bump for postseason games. New commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who had taken over for Bowie Kuhn the day before, refused to negotiate, delegating that task to the league presidents. That meant the NLCS opened with college umpires from the Big Ten Conference. I wouldn’t have blamed them for being nervous. I’m sure the last thing the fill-in umps wanted was any kind of controversy that might affect the outcome of the game.

Fortunately for them, Game 1 had no drama or suspense. And while it featured a 20 mile-per-hour wind blowing out of Wrigley Field, only one team took advantage of that.

Behind two home runs by Gary Matthews and seven shutout innings from Rick Sutcliffe, we crushed the Padres 13–0. Sut, who also homered in the game, won his 15
^th
straight decision. He allowed only two hits, a bunt single and a bloop single, to a Padres lineup that included Tony Gwynn, Steve Garvey, and Graig Nettles.

As our lead grew throughout the afternoon, Wrigley turned into a giant outdoor party.

Ernie thoroughly enjoyed every moment of our win. “So this is how the playoffs feel?” he said with a wide grin on his face.

After the game, Nettles tried to downplay the drubbing: “They hit the holes. Our best shots were right at ’em.”

I don’t know how you save face after a 13–0 loss, but give Nettles credit for at least trying.

Riding the wave of a blowout victory, we came back the next day and jumped out to a 3–0 lead in the third inning. Game 2 wasn’t another laugher, but thanks to a strong outing by sinkerballer Steve Trout and an outstanding defensive play by first baseman Leon Durham, the Padres couldn’t dig themselves out of the early hole. In the top of the ninth, Lee Smith induced a fly out from Terry Kennedy with a runner on base to preserve a 4–2 win.

In baseball, you rarely hear about postseason mismatches. That’s because anything can happen in a playoff series pitting two quality teams against each other. To win in the postseason, you have to get hot at the right time. As I learned with the Phillies in 1980, events unfold quickly in October.

I experienced that again in 1984. In the span of 24 hours, the Cubs had gotten to the brink of the World Series. We didn’t feel like anything could stop us now.

One win in San Diego. That was all we needed.

*

Before Game 3, Jimmy Frey cautioned that the series wasn’t over yet. “Losing three in a row would be embarrassing,” he said. “We still need 27 more outs before we can call ourselves National League champions. The breaks can turn in a hurry. When the dam opens, it’s tough to close it.”

Ideally, the first postseason game ever played in San Diego would also be the last of the 1984 NLCS. We’d sweep the Padres and move on to play the Tigers, who won three straight games against the Royals in the ALCS.

As I saw it, even the worst possible scenario looked pretty appealing for us. If we happened to lose two games in a row to set up a winner-take-all Game 5 at Jack Murphy Stadium, we’d have Sutcliffe on the mound for the decisive game. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, I liked our chances.

We had a 1–0 lead in Game 3 before the Padres got to Dennis Eckersley in the fifth and sixth innings. San Diego coasted from there to a 7–1 win.

Game 4 could have gone either way. The seesaw battle ended in the bottom of the ninth when Steve Garvey, the player I tried to bring to the Cubs before the 1983 season, hit a tiebreaking two-run homer off Lee Smith.

The dam had opened. And the Padres were suddenly a very energized ballclub.

So many times during the season, Sutcliffe had stepped up for us when we needed a win. His dominant performance in Game 1 only added to his air of invincibility. With the possible exception of Steve Carlton in his prime, there wasn’t a pitcher I would have more preferred on the mound with the series and the hopes of the Cubs organization on the line.

*

Instead of Chicago writers penning articles about Dallas Green and his Phillies fixation, Philadelphia columnists were banging out copy about America’s new favorite team, the Chicago Cubs.

During the NLCS, Ray Didinger of the
Philadelphia Daily News
wrote, “The Cubs aren’t a baseball team anymore, they’re a cult. You could stick up a bank tomorrow and get away with it if you were wearing a Cubs hat. The cop would hold the door open and say, ‘How bout that Ryne Sandberg?’”

The eyes of the nation were really on us now. If we won Game 5, we’d be hailed as conquering heroes, even though the World Series had yet to be played. If we lost, words like
choke
and
cursed
would get thrown around for years to come.

Early in the game, it looked like we’d be celebrated, not scorned.

Leon Durham’s two-run homer in the first inning staked us to a 2–0 lead. Jody Davis’ solo shot in the second made it 3–0, and Padres manager Dick Williams removed starter Eric Show from the game after a single by Sutcliffe later that inning.

Suddenly, all we needed from Sut was an average outing. But the word
average
wasn’t in Sut’s personal vocabulary that season. He was in total control through the first five innings, surrendering just two hits, both infield singles. He gave up two runs in the sixth, but even that felt like a minor victory considering he had loaded the bases with nobody out.

It would’ve been a relief to put the game away by scoring a few insurance runs off the Padres bullpen. Instead, we went hitless against Andy Hawkins, Dave Dravecky, and Craig Lefferts in the 5⅔ innings after Show left.

We clung to a 3–2 lead when the worst inning of my baseball career took place.

Carmelo Martinez, a former Cub I traded away after the ’83 season, led off the seventh with a four-pitch walk and advanced to second base on a sacrifice bunt.

To avoid facing Gwynn and Garvey, Sut needed to retire the next two batters. He took a step in that direction when he got Tim Flannery to hit a ground ball right to Durham, who was a very capable first baseman. His .994 fielding percentage during the ’84 season ranked among the highest in the league. He had helped us win Game 2 by making an outstanding play in the field.