The legend, the lingering mystique of the 1969 Cubs seems disingenuous. To build a shrine of memories to immortalize a second-place ballclub seems to contradict our sporting nation`s preoccupation with worshipping champions.
But here we are, 20 years from that unforgettable, unforgiving season, replaying those final weeks when the Amazin` Mets, a 100-to-1 shot to win it all, overtook the Cubs en route to an improbable World Series triumph over the Baltimore Orioles.
”No, it doesn`t seem like 20 years,” Ron Santo was saying the other day, the heartbreak still discernible in his voice. ”It seems like just yesterday.”
Santo, the hard-hitting Gold Glove third baseman who used to leap off the ground and click his heels in exultation after each victory, is constantly reminded of that season.
”I saw that movie `Field of Dreams` and I could really relate to that scene where those ballplayers get together in that Iowa cornfield and play a game,” Santo said. ”It really touched me. That`s how I feel sometimes. I wish we could play over some of those games against the Mets.”
From pinch-hitter Willie Smith`s dramatic game-winning home run in the bottom of the 11th inning on Opening Day against the Phillies, the Cubs, who had endured 20 consecutive second-division finishes from 1947 to `66), appeared destined for their first pennant since 1945.
Managed by Leo ”the Lip” Durocher, the Cubs led the Mets by 9 1/2 games on Aug. 14. They led by 5 with 25 games to go. But the Mets, behind superb pitching, won 38 of their final 49 games. After Sept. 5, the Cubs were listed in critical condition, losing seven straight, 10 of 11 and 14 of their last 20. They were eliminated on Sept. 24.
”Usually, when you finish second, nobody remembers,” Hall-of-Fame outfielder Billy Williams said. ”But the situation was a little different for the `69 club because we had played together so long. A lot of people in Chicago and a lot of people around the country knew about the `69 Cubs.”
Although every baseball fan had already heard of Ernie Banks, the names of Santo, Williams, Glenn Beckert, Don Kessinger, Randy Hundley, Ferguson Jenkins, Jim Hickman and Ken Holtzman were gaining prominence.
Banks, Mr. Cub, wound up his 17-year Hall of Fame career with 512 home runs and two MVP awards, but no championships. In 1969, at the age of 38 and with wobbly knees, Banks cranked out 23 home runs and 106 RBIs while playing first base.
”I would say there were at least 11 of us who were together nine years, and you don`t find that very often,” said Santo, who hit .289 with 29 homers and 123 RBIs in 1969. ”And Billy, Ernie and I played for 14 years together. We got very close.”
Time has not healed the wounds the Mets inflicted on Santo.
Santo was the only former Cub who refused to play in a ”Dream Game”
exhibition against the 1969 Mets that was staged a few years ago in Phoenix.
”I don`t care what they would pay, I would not play. That was too much hurt,” Santo said. ”I don`t take anything away from them. The Mets had a great pitching staff. I still, to this day, don`t feel they have the ballclub that we had.
”However, they won and they beat the Orioles in the World Series. But they rubbed it in. I`ll never forget that. It wasn`t just that they beat us. They rubbed our face in it.
”There are a lot of good guys on that ballclub and I don`t have anything personal against anybody. But it`s just the Mets, period. It wouldn`t be any fun for me to go to a `Dream Game` against the Mets.”
Hundley, the quintessential competitor and defensive catcher, makes his living from the over-30 fans who adored the `69 Cubs. He runs a fantasy camp in Arizona that provides an opportunity for fans to rub elbows with former Cubs in a training-camp setting.
”Because we didn`t win the pennant doesn`t make us bad guys,” Hundley said. ”Baseball guys sometimes say that because you didn`t win the pennant, you`re a loser. Well, I`ve got news for you: I`m not a loser.
”We gave it all we had. One thing I`m comfortable with 20 years later is that we gave everything we had. If you stop to think, where we would be if we had won the pennant? Who knows? We may not have the friendships on the team that we do today. Those things last a lifetime.”
A Mets hater 20 years ago, Hundley has been forced to shift his stance. His son, Todd, is a promising catcher in the Mets` farm system. Todd was born in June, 1969.
”Maybe the Mets rubbed it in to us, but if it were reversed, would we rub it in to them? Probably,” Hundley said. ”I think they do it in fun. They are a good bunch of guys.
”Not enough people give the Mets credit for what they did. Who would have predicted they would go on and beat Atlanta (in the National League playoffs) and then the Orioles in the World Series?”
Hundley was involved in a controversial play in New York`s Shea Stadium when Tommie Agee was called safe at home plate by umpire Satch Davidson.
Was he out or safe?
”There`s no question about it, he was out,” Hundley said 20 years later. ”He (Agee) finally admitted it a couple of months ago that I tagged him out. I put the tag on him so hard that I almost dropped the ball.”
Fan interest in the Cubs reached its zenith in 1969, not to be rivaled again until the club won the NL East in 1984.
”I only clicked my heels because the fans loved it,” said Santo. ”We had people traveling with us everywhere. We were like rock stars with fans tearing our shirts off.”
With pitcher Dick Selma exhorting the Bleacher Bums by waving a towel and some 20,000 fans arriving early enough at Wrigley Field to watch batting practice, the frolic and anticipation appeared warranted.
”I remember Bill Hands and I went to dinner in St. Louis at Stan Musial`s restaurant and we got a standing ovation when we walked to a table,” Hundley said. ”It was embarrassing as all get-out. But that was an awful lot of fun.”
The Cubs` failure to reach the playoffs or World Series in `69 may have hurt Santo`s and Jenkins` chances to make the Hall of Fame. Santo had a .277 career batting average and 342 home runs while playing in 2,243 games. Jenkins, a sturdy right-hander, had a 284-226 record that included six straight seasons of 20 wins or more and 267 complete games.
”I feel Billy (Williams) should have been in the Hall of Fame a lot earlier than he was. But unfortunately, that (postseason play) is what everybody is talking about,” Santo said. ”Statistic-wise, there are only nine third basemen in the Hall of Fame. And statistic-wise, I`m as good or better. But that doesn`t get you there, I guess. I feel that if we had won in `69, we would have won in `70. It would have been the momentum thing, because we were still young.”
Said Williams: ”You think of Reggie Jackson and Lou Brock and all the things they were able to do in the World Series. I always wonder what kind of player I could have been in the World Series. I always have that in the back of my mind.
”The fondest memory of the 1969 season for me had to be about midway through the year, June 29, when the Cubs set aside a day for me here at Wrigley Field. Along with the special day, a lot was at stake and we were playing the Cardinals in a double-header. It made it a fantastic day because we beat the Cardinals twice.”
The `69 Cubs were led by the irascible yet inspirational Durocher.
”There was no doubt that when Leo came here, in 1966, all of us were awed,” Santo said. ”I mean, Leo Durocher is going to be our manager! I think it had a lot of effect on turning us around because the other teams knew we had Durocher on our side and he was a competitor. You know, winning is a habit and losing is a habit. We were in a losing habit before Durocher turned it around. I very much enjoyed playing for Leo. We had our differences, but to me there wasn`t a better manager.”
Hundley had his share of differences with Durocher as well. Durocher, then 63, constantly second-guessed the pitches Hundley called and irritated him to the point of distraction.
”It was tough to take at times,” Hundley said. ”He wanted me to be the manager on the field. I kept (anger) bottled up inside. Shucks, I was scared to death of him.
”It was a love-hate relationship I had with Durocher. I loved him one day and hated him the next. As a catcher, he was real tough to play for.
”He made me learn the game. I was just fortunate to survive that first year I played for him. I mean, the pitcher could throw the ball down the middle of the plate and anybody could hit it out of the ballpark, but I was the dumb idiot that called the pitch. It was tough to take at times. He was throwing towels on the field to get my attention, second-guessing pitches.”
When did it all fall apart?
Center-fielder Don Young caught more than his share of the blame for the collapse because of a dropped flyball in a crucial series in New York.
”When I got back to the hotel after we lost that game, I got a phone call with a guy sobbing and sniffing on the phone. And it was Fergie, because he had pitched that game,” Williams said. ”He said, `Can you come down and talk, Billy?` We talked about the game and I told him: `You pitched well. It was just a mistake the kid made in the outfield.`
”Santo had said something that day that got in the paper about Young dropping the ball. Ronnie later retracted that statement, but the kid never did play to his potential.
”But we all started making mistakes because we were under pressure and we had never been there before. We couldn`t find anything to get us back in the groove.”
Santo cited a West Coast trip late in the season.
”Players or managers will always say, `I don`t read the papers or look at the scoreboard.` That`s baloney,” Santo said. ”We went into the West Coast with an eight-game lead. I recall that we lost our first two ballgames on the West Coast and the Mets won their first two. Every time we would go into the ballpark on the West Coast to take hitting practice, their game was over and the Mets won. It was just more and more pressure.
”Then when we came back home from that road trip, our lead went from eight games to 3 1/2. Back in Chicago, the game that always stands out in my mind is against the Pirates. With two outs in the top of the ninth, we were leading by a run and the wind was blowing in a gale. Willie Stargell fouled off four or five pitches against Phil Regan before hitting one completely out of the ballpark to tie the score. I was standing there at third thinking,
`Well, what`s going to happen now?` We went extra innings and they ended up beating us. To me, that was the turning point.”
There is nothing the `69 Cubs can do or say to alter the outcome of that bittersweet season. But perhaps the `89 Cubs can extract a measure of revenge by surprising the favored Mets this year.
”It would make me the happiest man in the world,” Santo said.
