100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Jimmy Greenfield Read Free Book Online

his blazing speed was always present.
    Brock stole 50 bases in 72 attempts during parts of four seasons with the Cubs, a 69.4 percent success rate. Not as good as the 75.7 percent success rate (888 stolen bases in 1,173 chances) he had with the Cardinals, but not too far off.
    The strikeouts continued with the Cardinals, as well; he averaged 112 whiffs in his first eight seasons in St. Louis. The big difference was that the Cardinals didn’t care. They played in a huge ballpark at the time—Busch Stadium—and told him to run, run, run. And that’s what he did, all the way to the Hall of Fame.

    Greg Maddux
    Unlike Lou Brock, Greg Maddux had some great years with the Cubs. He went 19 –12 to help them to the NL East title in 1989, won 20 games and a Cy Young Award in 1992, and returned in 2004 to win 38 more games in a Cubs uniform at the tail end of his career. But he’ll always be most remembered by Cubs fans for what he did in an Atlanta Braves uniform and how Larry Himes thought three allegedly above-average players were equal to one superstar.
    Maddux was baseball’s top free agent during the winter of 1992, a situation that should never have come to pass. A year earlier, Maddux’s agent, Scott Boras, and the Tribune Co. had agreed on a five-year, $25 million contract before the Cubs corporate owners yanked it off the table.
    The deal would have been a bargain as Maddux responded by winning his first Cy Young and sparking a bidding war for his services. The main pursuers were the Cubs, Braves, and New York Yankees, who at the time could only outbid teams by millions instead of tens of millions.

    Greg Maddux throws against the Cincinnati Reds in the first inning of a baseball game on Friday, June 9, 2006, in Cincinnati. Four-time Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux was traded from the Chicago Cubs to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, July 31, 2006, for infielder Cesar Izturis.
(AP Photo/Al Behrman)
    The Yankees, who hadn’t finished above .500 in four seasons and were not a perennial playoff team, weren’t Maddux’s first choice and he ultimately turned down a five-year, $34 million offer from them. Boras turned his attention to the Braves and Cubs.
    Himes, to his credit, offered Boras a five-year, $27.5 million deal before free agency began, and Boras rejected it. Shortly after, Himes announced he was on the prowl for other pitchers. The problem, which Boras recognized and Himes didn’t, was that Maddux was a rare pitcher.
    “The Cub franchise is in dire straits without Greg Maddux,” he told the Chicago Tribune . “There is no one in this existing free-agent market that can replace him.”
    As offers were being knocked about, Himes announced on December 1 that he had signed right-hander Jose Guzman to a four-year deal worth $14.35 million, money that had been earmarked for Maddux. Eight days later, Maddux signed with the Braves. But not before Boras called the Cubs one last time. It was too late, Himes told him. The Cubs had just signed closer Randy Myers to a three-year, $10.7 million deal and the last of the Maddux dollars had been spoken for.
    So to sum up, Himes elected to go with Guzman, Myers, and Dan Plesac over Maddux.
    “If this had been a trade,” Himes told Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome in the spring of 1992, “I would have had to take it.”
    Hindsight’s a funny thing, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got. And hindsight tells us that Maddux went 89–33 with a 2.13 ERA during the course of his first contract with the Braves, and the three players who got his money did, shall we say, far worse.
    Guzman actually pitched a one-hitter in his first start as a Cub but finished the season a mediocre 12–10 and started only four games in 1994 before a shoulder injury ended his career. Plesac had a 4.68 ERA in 111 relief appearances, gaudy stats that only several hundred, if not thousands, of other players have produced during the course of a career.
    Only Myers, who saved 112 games, lived up