Ron Santo played alongside Fergie Jenkins and has watched the progress of Kerry Wood since he started in the Cubs’ farm system three years ago.
Santo won’t say Wood is about to become the best pitcher the Cubs ever have seen. No, Santo is taking it one step further, predicting Wood may become one of the best the game of baseball ever has seen.
“I don’t think I’ve ever used the word `special’ before about a player, but he is special,” Santo said. “I’ve never seen anyone throw harder than him without any effort, other than Sandy Koufax. His mechanics are so good and his attitude is so good that if he doesn’t get hurt, he’s going to have no-hitters and more 20-strikeouts games. He’s capable of doing this. Koufax, (Bob) Gibson, (Juan) Marichal, (Steve) Carlton–he’s in that category.”
Santo gets practically giddy when talking about Wood, but he’s only reflecting the feelings of everyone else who lives and dies for the Cubs. A franchise with a long history of failure suddenly has the hottest new pitcher in years, and Wood is drawing comparisons with some of the all-time greats after only seven big-league starts.
Some already believe he will be the greatest Cubs pitcher in the club’s long history. Is it ridiculous to compare the 20-year-old Wood to a Cub immortal such as Jenkins, a Hall-of-Fame pitcher who won 20 or more games with the Cubs six years in a row?
Jenkins doesn’t think so.
“That’s the first thing they do,” Jenkins said Wednesday on a visit to Wrigley Field. “They always compare kids to (Mickey) Mantle, Koufax, whoever. I’m not going to say he’s like any certain individuals, but he certainly has strong characteristics. He definitely has the height and weight advantage. How many successful pitchers are 6-foot-5-plus?
“He has all the ingredients, he has great mound awareness and he’s cool under pressure. The young man has great abilities. If he keeps improving as the season goes on. . . . But he hasn’t faced everyone yet. There still is a lot to learn.”
Of the 40 Cubs players in the Hall of Fame, the only pitchers who spent a significant chunk of their careers with the Cubs are Jenkins, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Dizzy Dean, Robin Roberts and Rube Waddell are also in Cooperstown, but certainly not for their performances in a Cubs uniform. Greg Maddux is certain to be elected once his career ends, and Bruce Sutter has a decent shot of making it, though both of them would represent other ballclubs.
So when arguing whether or not Wood is destined to be the best Cubs pitcher ever, it’s obvious there are not all that many candidates for him to leap over.
“It’s almost unfair to judge him against some of those guys with longevity after only seven games,” pitching coach Phil Regan said. “But I will say this: He has the potential to be as good as anyone. That’s all you can say. He has done things in his first seven starts that no one has done before. It’s just whether he keeps doing it. Potentially, yeah, he has a chance to be that good.”
Regan, who was the Cubs’ closer during Jenkins’ reign in Wrigley, says Wood and Jenkins are comparable in many ways–their size, low-key demeanor, high strikeout totals and combativeness.
“As far as fastballs, there’s no comparison,” Regan said. “Kerry’s fastball is much higher than Fergie’s, though Fergie struck out a lot of guys with that pinpoint control, and that slider and sinker. He never walked anybody. Fergie had better control. Both are good hitters and athletes. They’re really a lot alike.
“Maddux did a lot of things after he left the Cubs. Fergie did them all here. To me, to win 20 games six years in a row in this ballpark, that’s pretty amazing. When he was in his prime, look at the wins, complete games, strikeouts. . . . He probably outdoes Maddux in (Maddux’s) six years (as a Cub).”
Santo believes Jenkins and Maddux are more alike than Jenkins and Wood.
“Fergie is like Maddux,” he said. “He was a great pitcher. Not a dominant pitcher, but he knew how to pitch. He came here as a bullpen guy, and (Leo) Durocher turned him around. Fergie is a great thinker with a good, 90 m.p.h. fastball, but not 100 or 95 (m.p.h.) like Wood.
“With Fergie it was slider, change, curve, delivery, just like Maddux. Changing speed on every pitch, always outthinking the hitter. This kid just goes out there and tells the catcher: `Sit behind the plate and let’s go.’ “
Jenkins won 167 games with the Cubs in 10 seasons, averaging nearly 17 victories a year. He gained 117 more in stops at Texas and Boston. Maddux went 93-71 in his six years with the Cubs and then blasted into hyperspace after signing as a free agent with Atlanta in ’93. Maddux may be recognized as the greatest pitcher to wear a Cubs jersey, but his six years in Chicago may be an afterthought by the time he’s ready to call it quits.
Mark Grace said there aren’t any real comparisons to make between Maddux and Wood.
“Completely different types of pitchers,” Grace said. “Maddux is a finesse guy who doesn’t strike out a lot of guys but gets a lot of one-pitch outs, balls in play, 2-hour games and that kind of thing. Kerry throws a lot of pitches. Maddux may throw 100 pitches in 15 innings, whereas Kerry will throw it in five or six innings. With Greg you know the ball is going to be hit. With Kerry, he may strike them out or the ball is not going to be hit very hard. He doesn’t give up many hits.”
When Wood takes the mound in Wrigley Field, there is an unmistakable feeling in the stands that he is not going to fail, just as there was when Bruce Sutter was fooling hitters with an unhittable forkball during the 1970s. Manny Trillo played with Sutter on the Cubs and was the hitting coach at Double-A Orlando last year when Wood pitched there.
“When a guy is pitching like (Wood or Sutter), he has stuff you’re really going to trust,” said Trillo, currently the hitting instructor at Class A Rockford. “Most of the time last year (in Orlando), Kerry had trouble throwing strikes. He could not hit the plate. He would be throwing a no-hitter for five or six innings, but he would walk about five or six guys too. Now he doesn’t do that. I don’t know what they’re doing with him, but I’m happy for him.”
If Wood had come up a couple of decades ago, chances are he wouldn’t be succeeding at the big-league level at age 20. There wasn’t quite the same rush to push young pitching talent into the majors then, because there were fewer teams and less dilution of pitching talent.
“They don’t want to teach these people at Triple A anymore,” Jenkins said. “So they teach them up here. But Kerry’s learning. After the first few games, he has settled in.”
Whether Wood has settled in for the long haul is unknown after only seven starts. But if first impressions are lasting ones, the day when Kerry met Wrigley may have been the start of a beautiful relationship.
