The church bells chimed, welcoming Kerry Wood to the majors on Sunday.
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But is he ready? The Cubs’ radio analyst, Ron Santo, has compared him to Sandy Koufax, and TV analyst Steve Stone said Sunday he has “the best arm I’ve ever seen come out of the Cubs’ organization.” Yet that latter remark, a cynic might suggest, is damning with faint praise. What other top pitching talents have the Cubs ever produced? Mediocrities like Bill Bonham and Ray Burris have been enough to elicit high hopes on the north side over the years, and if Hall of Famer Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown–the ace of the Cubs’ last championship team, in 1908–were still alive, he could count the top-flight pitchers to reach the majors with the Cubs over the last 40 years on three fingers: Ken Holtzman, Bruce Sutter, and Greg Maddux. None had the stuff Wood has, but Holtzman was a complete pitcher, Sutter had the trick pitch–the split-finger fastball–and Maddux made up in his head for what he lacked in his arm. Stone went on to compare Wood to Dwight Gooden when he first arrived in the majors, but to judge from one start, Wood at 20 isn’t the finished product Gooden seemed at 19.
In 1985 I paid a scalper $15 for a behind-the-plate seat at Wrigley Field during Gooden’s 24-4 sophomore season (what a bargain that was in hindsight), and the game is still one of my treasured baseball memories. He was mixing a brutal high fastball with a sharp-breaking curve and the occasional change-up, and to get the Cubs hitters begging for mercy he also threw a cut fastball that made him nearly unhittable. That cut fastball is probably what led to his arm trouble later on, but at the time he was just about the perfect pitcher–awesomely talented, but also composed and in control.
But it’s unfair to blame Cordero for the continued ennui on the south side. I took the train down for opening day a week ago Monday, arriving shortly after the game was to begin, and as I stepped out of the 35th Street CTA station all I could see were empty blue seats in the upper deck of the new Comiskey Park. “We’ll just have to spread out,” said one big beefy guy to another as they walked past me. “Everybody take a row.” Not even that would have done it, however. The Sox drew a measly 25,358 for the game, the smallest opening-day crowd in over 20 years–fewer than the new Chicago Fire soccer team drew for its home debut, fewer than even the Expos drew for their home opener. And Montreal is frequently mentioned as a franchise that may be on the move to another city.
