In the End, the Cubs Are Still the Cubs

SAN FRANCISCO —  A week ago, we all felt great. Now we’ve got 24 to 30 guys who feel like they want to throw up. --Rick Sutcliffe, Cub

Hey, I didn’t give up a hit to Mario Mendoza, you know. I gave up a hit to Will Clark. --Mitch Williams, Cub

There’s not a man among us who blames Andre Dawson or Mitch Williams or myself or anybody else for us losing the game. Will Clark won the game. San Francisco won the game. We lost the game. The Chicago Cubs. All of us. --Ryne Sandberg, Cub

I’ve had ups and I’ve had downs. This is a major down. --Andre Dawson, Cub

I don’t think Andre wants anybody to feel sorry for him. --Mark Grace, Cub

Cub means always having to say you’re sorry.

They wear the baby bear on their sleeve; you wear your feelings there. They play; you pay. They live, they die; you laugh, you cry. They win; you grin. They lose; you bruise. They come from Chicago; you get the wind knocked out of you. Either they leave you in stitches or coming apart at the seams.

For 113 years, they have been playing baseball professionally--well, playing professional baseball--and, to this day, they have never won a postseason game west of their city limits. Monday, they concluded a five-game series in which they outhit the San Francisco Giants in Games 2, 3, 4 and 5--and still won only once. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Chicago Cubs, a team from the National League that belongs in the National Lampoon.

Their clubhouse was so quiet, you could hear a pennant drop.

“Call it a crummy ending to a wonderful year,” said Mark Grace, who may go down as the only man in baseball history to bat .647 in a playoff series and still be outperformed at his position. The only reason Americans today are not talking about the spectacle of Grace under pressure is because of this other guy, this Will Clark character, this dangerous man who clubbed the Cubs with his stick as cruelly as though they were baby seals.

Asked what would be the most memorable memory of his first National League championship series, Grace gave thought for only a few seconds.

“Will Clark,” he said.

As your greatest memory?

“Well,” Grace had to admit, “he kind of made himself tough to forget. You know?”

They were the stars of this show, these two first basemen. Together they cranked out 24 hits in five games, each man posting staggering slugging percentages of 1.100-plus, while fielding flawlessly. Herb Caen, a San Francisco columnist of note, summed things up perfectly for posterity, writing: “Will played with grace, and Grace played with will.”

It finally got to the point where the Giants did everything in their power to avoid pitching to Grace, walking him deliberately and daring Andre Dawson to do something about it, while the Cubs made the monumental mistake of walking so many Giants un intentionally that they had to pitch to Clark, who did do something about it.

Mitch Williams was assigned--forced--to pitch to Clark. NBC, for its final baseball telecast of a golden era, was rewarded with a stare-down between Chicago’s finest relief pitcher and San Francisco’s finest hitter with the score 1-1, the bases loaded and two out. How much more color could any peacock ask for?

By coincidence, at this very hour on another West Coast television channel, Williams’ wife was talking to Joan Rivers on a previously taped talk show about the hardships and heartbreaks of being married to a ballplayer, of how when her husband was traded from Texas to Chicago, she “cried for two weeks.” Little did Dee Williams know that when it comes to Cubs, you usually end up crying twice, coming and going.

Mitch Williams never was so sorry not to have to face Mario Mendoza in his life. He got two strikes on Clark but couldn’t find a third. Clark’s single through the box scored two runs, knocked Williams from the box after only one batter and left two lefties acquired from Texas, Williams and Steve Wilson, the pitching staff’s guilty parties of Chicago’s final two games.

Yet, don’t feel sorry for them.

Feel sorry for Andre.

Don’t take Grace’s advice. Go right ahead, feel sorry for Andre Dawson. Feel sorry for this stand-up guy whose knees ache so badly that he can barely stand up. Feel sorry for this 35-year-old Ernie Banks-to-be who has never been to a World Series without a ticket. Feel sorry for this handsome, heroic figure who once put his signature on a blank contract and left the salary line blank, he wanted to play for the Cubs so badly. Feel sorry for him because he played so badly.

“I thought Dawson was gonna burn ‘em,” Grace said.

Instead, Dawson stranded 19 baserunners in five games. He hit .105. He struck out with the bases loaded for the final out of Game 4. He tapped out to the pitcher with two runners on base in the eighth inning of Game 5. He misplayed Clark’s drive in right field that led to the Giants’ game-tying run. Only a Cub could be the league’s most valuable player (in 1987) when the club finishes in last place, then become their least valuable player after the club finishes in first place.

Dawson folded his arms, took a deep breath, took on all comers.

“It’s not eating me up inside. It’s not tearing me up inside,” he said at his locker, assessing the damage. “But of course, it hurts. Of course, it hurts.

“I wasn’t there when they needed me. I didn’t do what I get paid to do. I was over-aggressive. A lot of things go through your mind, but all I can do is accept it. Maybe this will be the last chance I’ll ever have. I’m trying to stay on an even keel because, well, what else can I do?”

You live with the Cubs, laugh with the Cubs, love the Cubs, loathe the Cubs, laugh at the Cubs. Whatever. You wait for next year. You wait for the year after that. You wait and you wait and you wait. What else can you do?