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

to his contract. Himes, who was removed as the Cubs’ GM less than two years after letting Maddux go, did not.

    Joltin’ Joe Should Have Been a Cub
    Think about how different Cubs history, not to mention baseball history, might have been if Joe DiMaggio had played his Hall of Fame career at Wrigley Field. It almost happened.
    The Cubs had obtained Augie Galan from the minor league San Francisco Seals in 1933 and, as Warren Brown wrote in his seminal 1946 book, The Chicago Cubs , were content to deal with the Cubs when it came to DiMaggio, a rising star.
    The only problem was that Joltin’ Joe had hurt his knee and the Cubs weren’t sure he was still healthy. So according to Brown, the Seals made the Cubs an offer.
    “Take DiMaggio on trial,” a Seals representative told the Cubs. “Give us so many players and so much cash. Keep DiMaggio until July and give him a thorough looking over. If you are not satisfied that he can make the grade, the deal’s off.”
    The Cubs said no. A short time later, the Yankees said yes.

12. Take the Immortal Mike Royko’s Annual Cubs Quiz
    “This is not an easy quiz, even for the most loyal fan. I wrote the test and every year I miss half the answers.”
    —Mike Royko, April 9, 1969, Chicago Daily News

    For many years, the start of a new baseball season in Chicago brought boundless hope, renewed dreams, and legendary newspaper columnist Mike Royko’s annual Cubs quiz. Royko’s Cubs quiz first appeared during the 1960s when he rose to fame at the Chicago Daily News . The questions were ridiculous, the answers more so, and they often comically referred to players as being “immortal.”
    As in, “What did the immortal Wayne K. Otto hit?” The answer: “Nothing. But Hack Wilson once hit him. He was a sportswriter, so he probably deserved it.”
    Royko would sarcastically tout his quiz as being just as important as Opening Day. In 1969, he wrote, “Today is the big day for Cubs fans. That magic moment has finally arrived. Yes, today is the day they get to take my annual Cub fan quiz.”
    Royko was born on September 19, 1932, just a few months after Cubs owner Phil Wrigley inherited the team. Royko loved the Cubs as much as anybody and poked as much fun at them as anybody. They were an easy target, sure, but Royko could have made the 1927 Yankees whimper with his biting wit.
    For Royko, being a Cubs fan was a tortured existence and many of his wonderful columns were not really about the Cubs so much as how painful it was to live and die by them. In 1980, after he had moved to the Chicago Sun-Times , Royko announced he was becoming, of all things, a White Sox fan. It didn’t take, and the following year another column announced his allegiances had returned to the North Side.
    The last column Royko ever wrote appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 21, 1997, and fittingly it was devoted to the Cubs, specifically Phil Wrigley and the curse of the Billy Goat. The column was a historical look at Wrigley’s failings, which, he wrote, included not signing African American ballplayers until long after Jackie Robinson’s debut.
    “So what might have been, wasn’t. It had nothing to do with a goat’s curse. Not unless the goat wore a gabardine suit and sat behind a desk in an executive suite. Yes, I know, so don’t grab your phone: The corporation that owns this paper has owned the Cubs since 1981. So why, you ask, haven’t they made it to the World Series?
    “Because they haven’t been good enough. But I do know that if they thought a three-legged green creature from another planet could hit home runs or throw a 95 mp h fastball, they’d sign it.
    “And we’d cheer.”
    A few weeks later, after Royko passed away on April 29, 1997, his wake was held at Wrigley Field.
    Here are five questions from Royko’s 1976 Cubs quiz, some of which were used many times over the years. If you’re compelled to look up more of his wonderful quizzes, and there really can be no greater use of