The Cubs Chronicle

The Chicago Tribune reminds us of something a bit sad: Only 8 players remain from the team that came up 5 outs short.

Jay Jaffe on Ryne Sandberg and the Hall of Fame, at Baseball Prospectus:

An excellent all-around second baseman, Sandberg combined power, speed . . . and glovework. . . . He’s rated seventh all-time among second basemen in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Is there an argument that Sandberg doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame?

If there’s a case to be made against Sandberg, it starts with how Wrigley Field inflated his stats.
. . . .
[Still,] Sandberg . . . [is] solidly above [the average Cooperstown second-sacker] by both career and peak measures. Were he elected, he would rank seventh among 17 Hall second basemen, with Charlie Gehringer and Rod Carew replacing the still-active Craig Biggio and the historically pivotal (but late-arriving and thus lower-scoring) Robinson from the list above. Even once Roberto Alomar . . . and [Craig] Biggio . . . become eligible, Sandberg would place in the upper half of all Hall second basemen. He’s most definitely worth a spot on the ballot and a plaque in upstate New York.

Here’s a photo of Ron Santo’s famous post-victory heel click in 1969, from his 1993 book Ron Santo: For Love of Ivyphoto was scanned by a member of The Cubhouse, a Yahoo! Group.) Unfortunately, it doesn’t show the actual click. It’s the pre- or post-click. But what the photo does show is Santo could really get off the ground.

I’ve added a few new links to the left: GoCubs.org, which I previously noted was offering Cubs fans free e-mail, now has a blog (the free e-mail remains); and Cubs Kingdom, a Cubs message board; and Eamus Catuli, another new member of the Cubs Blog Army.

In Cubs news, in an article mostly about Mark Prior’s achilles heel problem (which he’s apparently had since September; my wife is a physical therapist, and she informs me that with proper care and rest this should have been fixed by now), the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan reports: “General manager Jim Hendry said reliever Mike Remlinger, rehabbing slowly from off-season shoulder surgery, is 50-50 to start the season with the team.” Kent Mercker appears confident that he’ll be ready to go after having some back problems, but if Remlinger can’t break with the team, there’s a second spot open in the bullpen. The Cubs will likely want a lefty, and “Baker mentioned lefties Carlos Vasquez, Renyel Pinto, Felix Sanchez and Jimmy Anderson as possible candidates.” Please, no Jimmy Anderson. And given Remlinger’s significant reverse-split, there would be no harm in going with a righty like Francis Beltran.

Going back into the Cubs past, here’s a link to an interview with author Howard Rosenberg on Chicago Public Radio discussing Cap Anson’s taking the Cubs south for spring training before it became the thing to do. Rosenberg is the author of Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in Baseball’s Early Years, which I haven’t read, but appears interesting.

Finally, as Aisle 528 and Al Yellon have noted, the number of tickets the Cubs have sold already is just absurd.

Redbird Nation runs a reader’s list of the best franchises at each position, and then adds to it. The reader listed the Cubs (and Tigers) as being the top franchise at second base, though I would have excluded Ken Hubbs as an example (Hubbs won the 1962 ROY and may have eventually been good, but he died too young), and included Rogers Hornsby, who played the equivalent of two full seasons for the Cubs at second base. Given that Hornsby played the majority of his career with the Cardinals, however, and if you add in Frankie Frisch and Red Schoendienst (and Tom Herr?), the Cardinals have a strong claim to the spot as well.

Mystery of Baseball: Was William White Game’s First Black?: He Played a Big League Game In 1879 – Then Vanished; Mr. Morris Picks Up Trail (Stefan Fatsis, Wall Street Journal, 1/30/2004) (sub. req’d)

Fascinating Page One article in the Wall Street Journal today on SABR member Peter Morris’s efforts to track down the biographical data for William Edward White. Bill White played one game in the major leagues, filling in at first base for the Providence Greys on June 21, 1879. He went 1-4, scored a run, and made twelve putouts without an error. And he never played in the major leagues again. As the WSJ relates, “The Chicago Tribune reported the next day that Mr. White ‘played the position with remarkable activity and skill for an amateur.’ But even though the Greys’ regular first baseman was out for a month with a broken finger, Mr. White never returned to the lineup.”

Take a look at the photo, a picture of the 1879 Brown University baseball team. Bill White is the player directly behind the team manager. He appears darker complected than his teammates, but the photo isn’t completely clear. The WSJ notes that “Brown admitted black students, but Mr. White identified himself as white on the 1880 census.”

Brown records indicated that Mr. White’s father was an A.J. White. 1880 census records revealed an Andrew J. White, whose “household included a 35-year-old mulatto woman named Hannah White.”

Mr. Morris, the SABR reseracher, found A.J. White’s will in the probate records at the courthouse in Zebulan, Georgia. The will stated: “Item Fourth. All the balance of my Estate, both Real and Personal of Every Kind and description … I do hereby … bequeath unto William Edward White, Anna Nora White, and Sarah Adelaide White, the children of my servant Hannah.”

And there’s the proof. William White was mulatto.

Many people who study baseball history know that two black players – Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday – played in the major leagues for one year, in 1884, before Jackie Robinson re-broke the color barrier 63 years later. The Walker brothers played for Toledo of the American Association, a rival major league that merged with the National League after the 1891 season. The Toledo franchise only lasted that one year, 1884.

The Walker brothers had previously been thought to have been the first black players to play in the major leagues, and the only ones until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Add William White to that list, and call him the first. And credit the SABR, and its dedicated members, with another important find.

I’ve been alerted to what looks to be an interesting new book about the Cubs: The Cubs on Catalina: A Scrapbookful of Memories About a 30-Year Love Affair Between One of Baseball’s Classic Teams & California’s Most Fanciful Isle by Jim Vitti. From the description:

The team was the Chicago Cubs. The island was Santa Catalina. The time was a unique span of 20th-century America – a span that included the sumptuous backdrops of the roaring ‘20s, the Great Depression, and World War II.

Corporate mega-giant William Wrigley owned both the island and the ballclub. And from 1921 to 1951, he put the two together. The result . . . is way better than any fiction . . . .

The Cubs would go to the island each spring to play and get in shape, among other things. The book looks to contain plenty of anecdotes and photos. I haven’t read it, so I can’t recommend it, but as I said, it looks like it might be worth checking out.

The AP reports on a pretty neat find:

A rare scorebook from Game One of the 1907 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs has turned up in Holland.

Hope College senior Michael Douma was doing research at the Holland Museum when he found the souvenir scorebook.
. . . .
Museum officials say a similar scorebook from the World Series in 1903 recently sold for 35-thousand dollars.

But did someone use the scorebook to keep score?? We need details!

In any case, the lesson here is, if you keep score at games (and you should), hang on to those scorecards! 100 years from now, if you fail to instill in your descendants a love for the game and they decide to get rid of the scorecards, at least they’ll make some money in the process.

With Jim Hendry continuing the pursuit of Rafeal Palmeiro despite Palmeiro’s not being interested, we are reminded of Fred McGriff’s taking three weeks in 2001 before he decided to accept a trade to the Cubs. I think that three weeks and McGriff’s naturally easy-going demeanor causes us Cubs fans and the Cubs media to blame McGriff for the Cubs failing to win the division in 2001, finishing 5 games back of both St. Louis and Houston. For instance, here’s Paul Sullivan writing in today’s Tribune:

“I know a few years ago, they brought in [Fred] McGriff, and everybody thought that was the best move ever,” [Eric] Karros said. “And who knew what would happen?”

What happened in 2001 was McGriff had a disappointing 12 home runs and 41 RBIs in 49 games as the Cubs stumbled out of the playoff picture.

(Emphasis added.)

Adam Dennis of cubrants.com repeats this mistake.

There were a lot of reasons why the Cubs were unable to stay with St. Louis and Houston in 2001. Fred McGriff was not one of them. McGriff hit .282/.383/.559 in 49 games for the Cubs, posting an OPS 22% above league average, which is better than his career average. Not bad for a 37-year-old. In other words, McGriff did everything that anyone could have reasonably expected out of him. There were too many other problems on that team – the offensive black holes that were the centerfield and catcher positions, key injuries to both Bill Mueller and Rondell White, Don Baylor’s managing, and Felix Heredia’s being allowed to hold a ball – to put any blame on McGriff.

July 3, 1960, from BaseballLibrary.com:

A day after his wedding in Chicago, Jim O’Toole pitches and loses, as the Cubs pound him for seven runs and nine hits in less than five innings. Chicago wins, 7–5. An unsympathetic manager Hutchinson says, “It was his turn to pitch. I didn’t tell him to get married.”

Cubs blog 94 Years and Counting goes through the unfortunate exercise of writing up a long article arguing that Ryne Sandberg was a better player than Joe Morgan. Reds blogger Shawn Weaver rightly takes him to task.

I’ve had discussions in the past on Cubs message boards and email discussion groups arguing whether Sandberg or Morgan was better. I don’t intend to get into a detailed debate here (though perhaps I’ll do so in the offseason). But I call the linked article unfortunate because, even though Sandberg is my favorite all-time player, by any relevant and objective measure Morgan comes out ahead of Sandberg. 94 Years and Counting spends a lot of time discussing batting average, relatively ignoring the huge difference between the two players’ OBP%. Morgan’s career .392 OBP% is not only 48 points higher than Sandberg’s, but it’s even higher than Sandberg’s single-season career high (.379). Sandberg’s better defense and slightly better power numbers simply cannot make up that kind of difference. And the advanced offensive and defensive metrics bear that out.

I’ve never seen any non-Cubs fan argue that Sandberg was better.

Some of us may not think he’s the best broadcaster in the world, but Morgan could flat out play the game of baseball. And he did so better (both in terms of peak and career values) than Sandberg.

Even so, Sandberg should have been elected to the Hall this past year.

I recently purchased Rob Neyer’s new book Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Lineups : A Complete Guide to the Best, Worst, and Most Memorable Players to Ever Grace the Major Leagues. I haven’t yet had much of a chance to get into it, other than to read the section on the Cubs. In the book, Neyer lists various all-time lineups for each team, including, of course, each team’s greatest all-time lineup. Spinning off from those lineups he writes sidebars and essays about each team.

Reader Michael C. has sent me this link, where ESPN.com has listed the all-time best lineup that Neyer came up with for the Cubs.

The only objection I might have with Neyer’s picks is putting Greg Maddux on the first team (he listed 4 starting pitchers for each team, with Maddux as the 4th starter), given that Maddux “only” gave the Cubs 5 years of good pitching. Neyer has both Lon Warneke and Hippo Vaughn on the Cubs second team, and I’d think they’d compare favorably to Maddux. Even Rick Reuschel, who didn’t make either team, might have given the Cubs more value. Admittedly, I’ve done next to no research to make any of those claims. And I’m sure Neyer did. Perhaps I’ll revisit this issue in the offseason.

In the book, Neyer names Sammy Sosa as the greatest Cub of all-time. After you vote in the ESPN.com poll on the linked page, however, you get a message where Neyer says he won’t argue much if you think he messed up by not naming Ernie Banks the greatest Cub. Another interesting debate.

Related to the book, Neyer has written an article on his website that he published this past weekend on why Mark Grace, who he names as the greatest Cubs first baseman, is not a Hall-of-Famer. I agree.

UPDATE (6/10/2003 1:55pm): The Cub Reporter lists his all-time Cubs lineup.

In Friday’s Chicago Tribune, Paul Sullivan wrote an article on the infamous June Swoon. The Cub Reporter takes a more in-depth look at the June Swoon over the last three decades. It’s actually more of a regular thing that I had assumed.

Bill James participated in an online chat at USAToday.com on Wednesday. One person asked him his take on Ryne Sandberg’s not being elected to the Hall-of-Fame in the last election. James wrote:

He’s obviously a better second baseman than several of the guys in there. Fifteen years ago the Hall of Fame was short of second basemen, but in the last 15 years they have been electing second basemen by the bargeload. Its pretty silly to say that Red Schoendienst was a better player than Ryne Sandberg.