Chicago Cubs futility theories

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The Chicago Cubs have the longest dry spell between championships in all of the four major U.S. sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA), having failed to win a World Series since 1908; the other three major sports leagues were not even in existence when the Cubs last won the World Series. (The NBA, in fact, was founded in 1947, two years after the Cubs last visited the World Series.) The Cubs have not been to the World Series since 1945, and they finished in the second division, or bottom half, of the National League for 20 consecutive years after 1947.

As with the Boston Red Sox (prior to their astonishing 2004 post-season triumph), the Cubs of recent generations have seemed to be a team that "bad things happen to." Although there is a tendency to compare the Cubs and the Red Sox, especially since both teams were five outs from the World Series in 2003 and both had "curses" to overcome (Boston had the "Curse of the Bambino") there is a stark difference. Since World War II, the Red Sox have been frequent contenders and often are in the post-season, including five trips to the World Series. The BoSox were more known as "chokers" rather than losers, and until the team won in '04 and again in '07, had drawn more comparisons to the NFL's Buffalo Bills (and the pre-Terrell Davis Denver Broncos) than they did to the Chicago Cubs, who are more known as "Loveable Losers". As far as comparisons go, only the futility of the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and perhaps that of the Los Angeles Clippers (NBA), Cincinnati Bengals, and Arizona Cardinals (both NFL) are closest, though in reality these are vastly different from the title-drought at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Many Cub fans, however, fiercely supported the Red Sox, seeing them as a sort of kindred spirit. For years this favor has been returned by a good majority of Bostonians who obviously know how Cub fans feel, if nothing else, and the Cubs remain one of the few teams that Red Sox fans have refrained from becoming arrogant toward.[1] The feelings are not sympathetic from most South Side fans, however; despite their own 88-year span without a championship, fans of the White Sox are generally calloused when it comes to their neighbors to the north, due mostly to the fact that in spite of the Sox' success, the Cubbies boast a much larger fan-base, sell out many more games, and continue to be the "media darlings" of the Windy City.

In other years the Cubs have shown they can win, or at least contend, when their pitching is superior. Outstanding pitching has been a major factor in every one of their winning seasons since World War II. In addition, it should be noted that the recent history on the North Side is far better than what was seen by fans during the "dark ages" of 1948 through 1983, which saw the team rarely finish with a winning record and produced exactly zero playoff appearances, paired with a bounty of late season collapses.

Since 1984 things have been a touch better as the club has reached post-season play five times and has finished with a winning record five times since 1998. (The Cubs were also over .500 in the strike shortened 1994 season) Whilst a modest number, the team has played in the same division very successful franchises. Pittsburgh dominated in the 1970's and early 1990's, and St. Louis, New York (who shared a division with Chicago for decades), and more recently Houston, are annual powerhouses, yet the club still managed to win about every six years. With a six team division, this makes mathematical sense.

This improvement has given the team's extremely loyal fan base a taste of success, and the insatiable desire for more has led to the fans and the Chicago media becoming more and more critical of both team play and the club's managerial decisions. This "through the microscope" analysis has produced years of winning in New York, as well as recent success in Boston, and it can be said that Cub fans are at least, if not more, critical than Yankee or Red Sox fans, as they are now less likely to tolerate a losing season. In fact, in 2005, head Bleacher Bum Derek Schaul informed former "leader" Mike Murphy on Chicago-based [[WSCR}} that they group was boycotting Wrigley until the Cubs were 10 games over .500, which did not happen until late 2007.

The following are some additional reasons given for the dryspell on Chicago's North Side.

Contents

[edit] June Swoon

The Cubs have an unfortunate history of collapse after promising starts. Usually attributed to playing a vast number of day games, this trend was dubbed the "June Swoon," although most of the slumps did not take place in June, the month is used symbolicly to designate that they occured later in the season. 1969's collapse was perhaps the most famous, but the team had other dramatic falls:

  • 1977: 25 games over .500 on June 28, but finished 81-81
  • 1979: 13 games over .500 on August 20, but finished 80-82
  • 1985: 35-19 on June 11, then lost 13 in a row and finished seven games under .500

The club has had "swoons" in other seasons as well, including 1978, 1987, and 1999. In fact, the Cubs played winning baseball in June only four times from '73 until 2000, and have been nearly as poor in September. In contrast, they have been above .500 at the end of May, when it's cooler in Chicago, well over half the time during this same period.

[edit] The Curse of the Billy Goat

Due to the wartime travel restrictions, the first three games of the 1945 World Series were played in Detroit, where the Cubs won two games, including a one-hitter by Claude Passeau, and the final four games were to be played at Wrigley. In Game 4, the Curse of the Billy Goat was allegedly laid upon the Cubs when P.K. Wrigley ejected Billy Sianis, who had come to game 4 with two box seat tickets, one for him, and one for his goat. They paraded around for a few innings, but Wrigley demanded the goat leave the park due to its unpleasant odor. Upon his ejection, Mr. Sianis uttered, "the Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more." The Cubs lost game 4, lost the series, and have not been back since. It has also been implied by many that Sianis put a "curse" on the Cubs, apparently preventing the team from making it back to (but not actually winning) the World Series. In 1969, during a game at Shea Stadium, a fan released a black cat on the field, and after this incident, the Mets made a miraclous run, coming from 8 games back to beating Chicago by 8 games to win the NL pennant. The black cat is often mentioned as a reminder of the Curse of the Billy Goat.

[edit] Refusal to realign

After the 1992 season, then-commissioner Fay Vincent thought the addition of the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies was the perfect time to realign the National League to make the divisions more geographically accurate, as the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds, who played in the NL West, were to move to the Eastern Division while the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals were to go to the West. Many thought this plan would be beneficial to the league as a whole, especially by building a regional rivalry between the new franchise in Miami and the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs and Cardinals, however, opposed the move, suggesting that fans in the Central Time Zone would be forced to watch more games originating on the West Coast with later broadcast times (had the realignment included the use of a balanced schedule, the Cubs would have actually played more games against teams outside their division). Partially due to the complications of a two-division system, a three-division structure was born in 1994, which placed the Cubs in the newly formed National League Central, along with Houston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh; Milwaukee would later move from the American League Central into the NL Central. The Brewers exodus to the NL Central makes it the largest division in the MLB, with 6 teams. All other divisions have 5 teams, except the AL West, which has only 4. This was done to keep an even number of teams in both leagues, though many believe it hurts the NL Central teams, having more teams to compete with annually, while a benefit to the AL West. Mathematically, in a 4 team division system with some pairity, a given team should win the division every once every 4 years. Increase the number to teams to 5, and a team should win every five years. A solution would be to move Milwaukee back to its AL roots (or to move Houston to the AL West) and start Interleague play (like the NFL format) on Opening Day, or add two teams to the AL.

[edit] Bad deals and signings

Greg Maddux, a Cy Young winner with Chicago, was not re-signed by the club and left for Atlanta, where he won a World Series and 3 more Cy Youngs.
Greg Maddux, a Cy Young winner with Chicago, was not re-signed by the club and left for Atlanta, where he won a World Series and 3 more Cy Youngs.

Over the years, the Cubs have made more than their fair share of poor transactions. Though Jim Hendry is widely thought to have made some very good deals in the recent past, (most notably, acquiring Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton in the same deal from Pittsburgh for Bobby Hill) some of the trades and signings made by the club have blown up in the Cubs faces on a rather significant scale. The most lopsided trade ever was sending eventual Hall of Famer Lou Brock to rival St. Louis for Ernie Broglio. More recent examples are trading Rafael Palmeiro to Texas after a "dispute" with Ryne Sandberg, letting Greg Maddux walk, and trading away outfielder Joe Carter to Cleveland, who went on to have a great career and won a pair of World Series with Toronto. (The Cubs did acquire Rick Sutcliffe in this deal, but failed to win a title). The Cubs also have traded same valuable arms, sending lefty Dontrelle Willis to Florida for closer Antonio Alfonseca and starter Matt Clement, and sending righty Jon Garland to the south side for middle-reliever Matt Karchner. Willis and Garland are both two time All Stars and both helped their teams to a World Series title.

Though no club bats 1.000 in the free agent market, the vast majority of Cub free agent signings during the '70s through the '90s have not panned out as hoped, an example is Luis Gonzalez, who had by far the worst season of his career as a Cub in 1997, and some others were outright disastrous, most notably Danny Jackson, Jeff Blauser, and Mel Rojas. And the list goes on. All these players came to the North Side and failed to live up to what the club and their fans expected of them. The team has also shown a trend of signing older veterans in the twilight of their respective careers, such as Goose Gossage and George Bell, instead of focusing on acquiring prime young talent to bolster the big league team and the farm system. Until the late 1990's the Cubs annually had one of the poorest farm systems in baseball for decades. One reason for this is that most of the high draft choices the club has made recently have failed to blossom as hoped. Even recently, Mark Prior and Cory Patterson stumbled after initial success, and over the years players the franchise banked on such as Kevin Orie, Gary Scott, and first round busts Earl Cunningham, Ty Griffin, Drew Hall, Mike Harkey and Ben Christiansen led a revolving door of players who made little if any splash at the big league level.

[edit] Ownership

Many blame the ownership of the club for its inability to win a title. William Wrigley Jr., a true baseball fan, owned the Chicago Cubs from 1925 until his death in 1932. At that point, his son, Philip K. Wrigley, inherited the team. However, P.K. was not particularly interested in baseball and did not invest in it the way he could have. For example, Wrigley failed to sign black players soon after integration in 1947 and he also failed to install lights at Wrigley Field. However, he refused to sell the team out of loyalty to his father. In addition, he attempted to run the team like a business, often trying new, innovative practices which often failed. Some of these include the College of Coaches and the hiring of a drill sergeant to condition players during spring training. When P.K. Wrigley died in 1977, he passed the team to his son, William Wrigley III, who sold the team to the Chicago Tribune for just over $20,000,000 to pay estate taxes. Under the Tribune, the Cubs made their first post-season appearance since 1945. In 1988 they added lights, but changes in upper team and also company management kept the Cubs from continued success. Critics may also argue that the team payroll was too low for a large-market team. Only in recent years has ownership begun signing players to large contracts while developing minor league talent. In December of 2007, the Chicago Tribune was sold to billionaire Sam Zell.

[edit] Wrigley Field

Main article: Wrigley Field
The Cubs were 5 wins and as few as 5 outs from a title in 2003
The Cubs were 5 wins and as few as 5 outs from a title in 2003

The venerable ballpark itself has to be considered a factor in the team's failures to go farther than they have. Pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, upon being traded to the Texas Rangers after a successful though home-run prone career with the Cubs, bitterly complained that "Wrigley Field is a bad ballpark!" The "basket" that outlines Wrigley's outfield has frequently been named a culprit in making it a hitter's park. The basket extends about 4 feet into the field of play at the top of the outfield wall all along the outfield. It has been argued that it "catches" some home runs that would have been doubles or triples. Depending on whether the wind is blowing in or out, Wrigley can take on the characteristics of either a hitter's or a pitcher's park, however. The notorious winds created by the close vicinity to Lake Michigan often turn sure home runs into harmless fly outs, and vice versa.

George Will remarked in his 1990 book, Men at Work, p.117, that both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park were (at that time) the most hitter-friendly (and pitcher-unfriendly) ballparks. "Question: When you hear the phrase 'hitters' park', which parks come to mind? Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Which two teams have not won a World Series since 1908 and 1918, respectively? The Cubs and the Red Sox. Moral: It is bad to play in a park that is beastly to your pitchers."

The larger-than-average number of day games has also been pointed to for some years as wearing down the Cubs, since the summers in Chicago are very warm and humid, traditionally. The collapse of the 1969 team was attributed, in part, to having to play all 81 home games during the day in that era before Wrigley Field had lights. Even with the installation of lights in 1988, and with more night games in recent years, the Cubs still play more day games than any other team in Major League Baseball. Ownership has noted this issue and has attempted to gain more night contests, however the Lakeview community and Mayor Richard M. Daley (a devoted White Sox fan) have fought the team to keep the number as low as possible despite the effect on the players.

[edit] See Also