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Cubs past and present can't avoid curse
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NEW YORK -- For Ryne Sandberg, it was the 1969 collapse. For Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Williams, it was the Game 7 loss in the 1945 World Series at Wrigley Field.
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The Cubs Hall of Fame players know all about the curse. They just knew it in different forms than the Cubs of today do. Different faces, but the same general theme.
And as the present-day Cubs head out of the All-Star break tied for the best record in baseball, it's the same question that Sandberg and others remember: Is this finally the year?
"I know that the players with the Cubs, they hear about that," Sandberg said Tuesday as several dozen Hall of Famers talked with the media during All-Star Game festivities. "It has nothing to do with them. This goes back a hundred years but, you know, it's all about getting that first one under your belt."
The general theme around this year's All-Star Game was the final season of Yankee Stadium before it comes down. But for all the Cubs there, the questions they faced were more centered on Chicago and bringing down the so-called curse, a full century after the team's last World Series title.
These Cubs legends know all about 1908, because they had to hear about it when they played. The only difference is it wasn't quite as long ago back then.
Time, obviously, has not healed the wounds.
"I don't think it was brought up as much," Jenkins said. "Now, it's the 100-year anniversary, so now it's big time. It's something that plays on your mind."
It's almost impossible for it not to. It's not that the players think about it on their own, they said, but that they hear the questions regularly from the press and the public. It's unavoidable, and it's something every great Cubs team in recent years has had to stare down.
"They hear it," Sandberg said. "And I went through that in '84 as we were coming down the stretch. It was all I heard about, and I got a history lesson about the '69 Cubs, how the Mets stole it from them and the black cat on the field and all these things happened. So I witnessed that a little bit.
"And once we clinched, it was like a huge sigh of relief just to win the pennant, let alone go on and make it to the World Series. That's kind of what these players are up against, but it's kind of their job to put that aside and just play baseball."
The 1969 Cubs team is a little more distant history to these current Cubs. Jenkins and Williams, of course, lived through it.
Those Cubs went into the All-Star break with a five-game lead on the Mets in the National League East. The lead ballooned to nine games as late as Aug. 16 before the balloon burst. By the season's final day, the Cubs were nine games back before winning their finale.
"The goat thing, we had that a couple different times," Jenkins said. "Somebody brought the goat out to the ballpark, said that now the curse is broken."
It's something those players have to hear about, of course, long after their playing careers are finished. Williams, however, doesn't think it has to be a distraction for the current club.
"When you talk about 100 years, only when they read about it do guys think about it," said Williams, who currently works with the organization as a special assistant to the president. "They don't think about it, because you've got a lot of guys coming from different organizations that just think about winning, playing winning baseball.
"In Spring Training, they talked about getting off to a good start, which they did. We're getting good production. We're playing good at home. [Ryan] Dempster is winning over Wrigley Field. Kerry Wood is throwing the ball real well. But I think the guys just go out and play baseball. I think the fans' support is great. We're getting 41,000 people in the ballpark every day. I think everything is in our favor this year. We've got a good baseball team and the guys are just going out and playing sound baseball."
That's the hope that the Cubs legends see in this year's team. It's not just their record, but their makeup. It's a club with an All-Star in virtually every facet of the game -- starting pitching, relief, catching, infield and outfield.
"You know what? I think there are a lot of pieces in place," Sandberg said. "That's the thing this year that stands apart from some of the other years is that they've actually put together a pretty good, talented team with everything -- left-handed hitting, power, the pitching's solid. They've got a closer. So all the pieces are there. Now it just comes down to momentum. If they stay hot, those intangibles sometimes you can't predict, but the talent is there."
Williams points to four factors working in the Cubs' favor: Geovany Soto's presence behind the plate, Dempster's performance at home, Kosuke Fukudome's patient hitting and solid defense, and Wood's ability to shore up the closer's job and allow Dempster to move back to the rotation.
Jenkins sees a solid mix on the roster.
"There were more veterans in the '60s," Jenkins said. "Now they've got a mix of second- and third-year players. They're a good ballclub."
They're good enough to win. None of the Cubs legends, of course, are going to predict whether they will. One thing they could predict, though, is how wild the city could be if they do win it all.
"If I had to guess, it's not going to be a week or two [of celebration]," Williams said. "It's going to be the whole winter. We've waited so long. Everybody will look at it and say, 'Hey, we did it.' It will be just like Boston. They partied for weeks."
Sandberg actually thinks it could be even bigger.
"They talk about the Red Sox Nation," he said, "but I think where Chicago and where the Cubs are located centrally in the United States and having WGN for all those years, I'd have to say that Cubs Nation would really be something. I think there'd really be people coming from all over the place to celebrate that, which they have. Really, since 1984, when we went to the playoffs for the first time, I witnessed it firsthand. There's Cub fans everywhere."
Moreover, there are underdog fans everywhere.
"I think right now they're somewhat pulling for the underdog," Sandberg said. "There's a lot of just-baseball fans that watch the Cubs, whether they're Cubs fans or not. They've watched the Cubs over the years, and they realize they haven't seen the Cubs in the World Series. I think there are those Cubs fans, rooting for the underdog and wanting to witness that, wanting to see what that's like for the Cubs to win, wanting to be a part of that, whether they're huge Cubs fans or not. "After that, what happens? There will be certain Cub fans that will be like, 'Wow, now what do I do?
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Cubs past and present can't avoid curse
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