Top Ten Cub Hitters Getting Hit By A Pitch
Last week we presented to you the “Top 20 Blown Saves” Carrying on the “mindless exercises in banal list-making” routine, I humbly present to you this list. I couldn’t make it a “Top 20″–hell I had a hard enough time thinking up 10–but a list is still a list. So grab a beer, sit back and enjoy the top 10 most significant times when a Cub hitter got pelted by a thrown baseball.
10. Long before he turned into an overgrown science experiment, Sammy Sosa was a skinny young player who was still capable of electrifying acts. In Sosa’s first season with the Cubs, 1992, he got plunked on the ankle by Montreal’s Dennis Martinez, knocking Sosa out for 6 weeks. He came back in late July and proved to be the catalyst in a 3-game sweep of the NL East defending Pittsburgh Pirates, giving Cub fans brief hope that their team would contend for the playoffs. Those hopes were dashed one week later, however, when New York’s Wally Whitehurst nailed Sosa on the wrist in the first inning of a game at Wrigley, finishing Sosa’s season, as well as that of the Cubs. And don’t be fooled by the fact that the BB-Ref boxscore says Sosa walked. They’re wrong–or, rather, the individual whose account of that game was wrong–because I remember this like it happened yesterday. Besides, who the hell leaves a game after a first inning walk?
9. Alex Gonzalez will forever be known–justifiably–as the sure-handed shortstop who crapped his pants in Game 6, and failed to let a thoughtless excuse for a Cubs fan off the hook. Almost equally ignominous is the fact that Gonzalez once broke his wrist from a pitch, and didn’t even get awarded first base. I don’t know what this loser is doing today, but I hope it’s not sales-oriented. A guy with a broken wrist that can’t convince the umpire he got hit couldn’t sell water in the desert. Chump.
8. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the fact that he sounds as confused as Jim Morrison on 10 hits of acid, but Ron Santo got badly beaned by New York’s Jack Fisher in a game in 1966, knocking ole’ Ronnie out for for a little over a week. What’s strange is the fact that this occured a half-inning after Cub starter Curt Simmons hit the Mets’ Ron Hunt. I’m not sure if Fisher was retaliating, but if he did, he was a jackass, as Hunt was notorious for getting in the way of pitches, having held the all-time record for being hit by a pitch until future Cub manager Don Baylor broke Hunt’s record (Craig Biggio has since broken Baylor’s record).
7. While not happening in a regular season game, the broken wrist that Ryne Sandberg suffered when Mike Jackson threw high and tight in the first Spring Training game of 1993, shortly after Sandberg had signed the richest deal in baseball, signalled the beginning of the end for Ryno. Even when Sandberg came back later in the ‘93 season, his power was down. The next season, he struggled even more before deciding to retire the first time. Thanks a lot, Mike Jackson, you prick.
6. This one was pretty cool. While Rey Sanchez mostly underwhelmed with the Cubs, he’ll forever have a small place in my heart for the time he refused to get out of the way of a Rob Dibble fastball. Because it was the bottom of the 10th inning of a tie game and the bases were loaded, the rasberry that Sanchez got on his left bicep as a result of the Dibble pitch represented a walk-off Cubs victory.
5. Jerry Morales was a rather undistinguished journeyman for several teams, but he was in the midst of his finest season in 1977 when he was named to his only All-Star team. Sadly for Morales, playing in the All-Star game proved to be a jinx, as eventual Cy Young Award winner Sparky Lyle nailed Morales in the knee in his only All-Star plate appearance. Morales was able to stay in the game and score a run, but the sore knee contributed to Morales’ precipitous second-half freefall, which mirrored the freefall of the Cubs that season. It should also be pointed out that Morales’ Cub teammate–Rick Reuschel–subsequently hit Ken Singleton with a pitch the following half-inning in that same All-Star Game. Attaboy, Whale.
4. While the broken wrist that Sandberg suffered at the hands of Mike Jackson signalled the beginning of the end for Sandberg, the same could possibly be said for Sammy Sosa when Salomon Torres memorably shattered Sosa’s helmet on Easter Sunday, 2003. Sosa still hit 40 home runs and finished 8th in NL MVP voting that season, but he was definitely trending downward. Whether or not the Torres pitch had anything to do with this, or whether Sosa was simply in the midst of a natural decline is debatable, but the image of Sosa’s helmet shattering into a bunch of smaller pieces has nevertheless served to symbolize the beginning of the end for him.
3. 1984. Ahh, the memories. Despite the romance and merchandising still associated with the failure that was the 1969 Cubs, the ‘84 Cubs did their best to exorcise the demons of that heartbreaking season when they kicked the collective tail of those New York Mets from here to Flushing. This dominance was best symbolized when Ed Lynch made the ill-advised decision to throw one at Keith Moreland in frustration after the Cubs had pinned Lynch’s ear back in a game in early August. Moreland–who not only played Division I football but did so at the University of Texas no less–charged the mound and delivered a beatdown on Lynch–not only for the pitch that hit Moreland but for future transgressons that Lynch would commit while serving as the Cubs General Manager.
2. Later in the 1984 season, during the NLCS, the Cubs kicked the holy hell out of the late Eric Show, first in Game 1 and then later in Game 5. Three years after that, they continued to torment Show, and scored their fourth run in the bottom of the third inning in a game in July game when Paul Noce of all people homered off of Show. Frustrated, Show decided to vent, only he picked the wrong hombre to mess with. After nailing Andre Dawson in the face, causing blood to spill all around home plate, Show watched in horror as Dawson managed to get up and, in one of the most bizarre scenes to occur in Wrigley Field, staggered around, like a wounded bear, looking to tear Show in half. Scared out of his wits by being chased by a blinded and bloodied Dawson, Show exercised his only good judgement of the day by voluntarily leaving the game.
1. Adam “Moonlight” Greenberg has a place in history, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Having been called up in July as the Cubs tried to get a message through the forest-thick skull of Corey Patterson, Greenberg made his debut on July 9th in Miami when he grabbed a bat and went to the plate to face Valerio de los Santos. The very first pitch that Greenberg saw nailed him right in the head, giving him a concussion. He was helped off the field and unable to play for several weeks afterward. He was eventually sent back down and, to date, has not made it back to the big leagues. Now Greenberg has been trying his little heart out to make it back ever since, and god bless him. However, if he ever does make it back and get a handful of at-bats, his career will be as undistinguished as thousands of other ballplayers who preceeded him. On the other hand, if Greenberg never does make it back to the bigs, he can brag that he’s had a perfect career–a 1.000 On Base Percentage.
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