100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Jimmy Greenfield

Author:Jimmy Greenfield [Greenfield, Jimmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books LLC
Published: 2012-02-17T06:00:00+00:00

Rick Sutcliffe gets set to deliver another pitch during the first inning against the San Diego Padres in National League playoff action on October 2, 1984, in Chicago. Versatile Sutcliffe later smacked a home run off his opposing pitcher Eric Show. (AP Photo/Mark Elias)

There was something different about Sutcliffe with the Cubs, besides the fact he had jumped 20 games in the standings and had found his breaking ball. He was finally at full strength for the first time all season. A painful root canal earlier in the season that required four days of dental work had left him weak, and although he never missed a start he had lost several miles off his fastball.

Sutcliffe followed up his only loss on June 29 in Los Angeles by winning five straight starts, including two against the San Diego Padres, and finished 16–1 with a 2.69 ERA to win the NL Cy Young Award. He was on the mound in Pittsburgh nailing down another complete-game win when the Cubs clinched the NL East title, their first in 39 years.

The Cubs ended up going 18–2 in Sutcliffe’s 20 starts, and on seven occasions he got a win following a Cubs’ loss. He was the quintessential stopper, something they simply didn’t have in Steve Trout, Dennis Eckersley, or Scott Sanderson.

Unfortunately, it ended too soon. Sutcliffe’s Game 1 win over the Padres in the National League Championship Series, in which he also hit a monster home run onto Sheffield Avenue, was followed by a heartbreaking loss in Game 5 that ended the season shy of a World Series.

In Sutcliffe’s final start with the Indians at Cleveland Stadium, he had pitched before 3,699 fans. Eighteen days later, he pitched before a crowd of 39,494 in his first start at Wrigley Field, and Sutcliffe got swept up in the hysteria that was the 1984 season.

“Being part of that family, being with people like Harry Caray…those people created me,” he told Peter Golenbock in Wrigleyville. “I had done some things in L.A. and Cleveland, but there weren’t many people who even heard my name, could

even spell it. Harry Caray called me the Red Baron. The next thing I knew, it was unbelievable. I get goosebumps just talking about it.”

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