Like many Chicagoans back north, Kevin Tapani said he’s going “stir crazy” these days.
He won’t be able to begin throwing again until Tuesday because of the sprained ligament in his right index finger, and he appears headed toward the disabled list.
“It hasn’t been brought up yet,” Tapani said. “But the way it’s getting now, where pitchers are throwing five innings and I’m still trying to get to play catch. . . . It definitely puts me behind. But that was part of the thinking of (shutting the arm down) now. There are a lot of off days in April and May. You actually don’t miss a whole lot of starts.”
Manager Jim Riggleman said it’s “probably likely” Tapani will be on the DL on Opening Day, but added it all depends on how quickly he can get his arm back to full strength. The Cubs already have dismissed notions of Tapani using his split-fingered fastball early.
“If he can grip his other three pitches with strength, then we probably could get him ready to pitch,” Riggleman said. “If we can’t, then they probably are going to look at some other methods of treating this. Obviously, rest wouldn’t be the answer. So they probably would take a more aggressive approach and who knows where that would take us?”
Meanwhile, Tapani is perturbed over White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler’s published comment that the Sox were reluctant to re-sign Tapani because of concerns over the hand injury. Sox doctors had informed Tapani he could pitch through the pain last year, and it would go away with rest shortly after the season ended.
“That sounds like an after-the-fact kind of comment,” Tapani said. “Either that, or they weren’t upfront with me from the start. I read over the winter Schueler had taken some shots at Alex Fernandez for not being loyal after he signed with Florida and then he said something like, `Well, we’ll see if Tap is the same way. Let’s see if he’s just out there trying to get money or whether he’s going to show some loyalty and come back here.’
“So here he was taking some shots at my character, as to whether I’m just a greedy guy or whether I’m loyal and want to come back and play for the Sox. Then to turn around a couple months later and say, `Well, we really didn’t want him because we thought he was going to be hurt.’ There’s a lot of different spins coming from the same mouth.”
Truth is out there: After all these years, the Cubs organization finally will acknowledge publicly that the team is the victim of a curse–specifically, the curse put on the team by William “Billy Goat” Sianis during the 1945 World Series after his goat was denied entrance to a Series game at Wrigley Field. Next Tuesday at the Billy Goat Tavern, the Cubs and Old Style will debut what they term “a new curse-lifting advertising campaign” to end the 52-year-old hex, along with a donation program to benefit Cubs Care. In 1994, after the Cubs had lost 12 in row at home, their worst home losing streak of the 20th century, Billy Goat owner Sam Sianis, a nephew of William Sianis, was invited to walk a goat around Wrigley to try to break the streak. It worked. The Cubs beat Cincinnati 5-2 that day. Yet the Curse of the Billy Goat lives on.
