The Cubs have put together a comfortable ball club, and in this turbulent sports age comfort is an underappreciated quality. Others have called general manager Ed Lynch cynical for assembling a patchwork team last year that was just good enough to reach the postseason without really threatening to go on to the World Series–and for making only minor alterations this season. It’s hard to argue with cynical, especially with Lynch standing pat though Kerry Wood is out with a reconstructed elbow and the other Cubs pitchers have suffered a D day rate of casualties–no fewer than seven have been on the disabled list in this young season. Watching what’s left of the Cubs staff on TV has been difficult at times; the Cubs don’t have a pitcher (or a team) to strike fear in the heart of anybody, much less class teams such as the Atlanta Braves, who dispatched them last October in three straight games. But the Cubs have something other teams don’t. The temptation is to quote from Damn Yankees and call it “heart,” and if the Cubs manage to hang around in the playoff race again they may prove deserving of the label. But for now I think a better word is “character,” especially if denuded of moral implication to mean simply a group rich in personality. The Cubs have character where better clubs have talent, and while this may not exactly be Lynch’s intention I’m not sure that isn’t how Cubs fans prefer it.
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It took me one full day at Wrigley Field this year to come around to the Cubs’ way of thinking–and playing. What baseball fan could ever resist Wrigley, especially on a beautiful spring day in May? While the White Sox remained cursed with cold, wet weather and struggled to draw 10,000 fans a game even as they ended April at 11-9 and in second place in the American League Central Division, the Cubs returned home from a short road trip last Friday to clear blue skies and rising temperatures. This reprised the teams’ weather fortunes on opening day, and one must wonder if some greater force is at work punishing the Sox and rewarding the Cubs for the different ways they’ve treated their fans.
That understood, the Cubs were doing well to finish April at 10-10 by winning five of their last six. They began May last Saturday with a game that epitomized the team’s strengths. De facto pitching ace Kevin Tapani–another veteran, this one hardened by years of pitching in the even more treacherous environs of the Minnesota Twins’ so-called Homer Dome–came off the disabled list to face the San Diego Padres’ hard-throwing rookie Matt Clement. It was a classic confrontation of styles. Tapani, working with the calm dispatch of a dad spooning up ice cream cones at a church picnic, mixed his pitches, changed speeds, and took a perfect game into the fifth inning. Clement, a tall, thin phenom with a simple rock-and-fire motion and what might be called a “flying elbow” if his windup were a golf swing, took a no-hitter into the fourth throwing almost nothing but his live fastball. Yet by that time he had also walked three men, and in the fourth–his second time through the lineup–the Cubs started timing that fastball. Grace, Rodriguez, and Hernandez all got out in front of pitches and pulled them for singles, scoring Grace and putting runners at first and second. Trying to jump-start the struggling Santiago, manager Jim Riggleman called a hit-and-run. Santiago missed a fastball that buzzed in on his hands, but San Diego catcher Greg Myers skipped his throw past third baseman Dave Magadan and Rodriguez scored. Santiago eventually struck out, and Gaetti popped out to end the inning, but the Cubs had the only two runs they’d need.
