The Quintessential Cub

There is perhaps no single participant in their long and tortured history that more epitomizes the Chicago Cubs than Kerry Wood.

Wood’s career, which came to a stunning halt last Friday afternoon is a microcosm of baseball’s most cursed franchise. It arcs and falls just like a typical Cub season. Which is to say it started with unbridled optimism, peaked early, crashed and burned late and ultimately fell spectacularly short of expectations. The often repeated mantra of the Cub fan, the promise of next season being “the year” became inextricably linked to the promise and failure of Wood being healthy.

Chicago’s long suffering, north-side baseball fans suffered the demise of two brilliantly talented pitching phenoms within one presidential administration. Understand however that you will find little sympathy in Chicago for Mark Prior’s parallel meltdown. Not with Prior’s surly personality and resounding rumors that he was chemically enhanced. The Wood story by comparison is a Greek Tragedy, in a strictly athletic context.

Kerry Wood was everything you want an athlete to be. He was a superior talent with a warrior mentality. He seemed to get how lucky he was to play baseball for a living and was a genuinely committed professional. He wanted to win and possessed the perfect mix of talent, work ethic and determination to make it happen.

Alas that perfect mix was all too frequently spoiled by his imperfect right arm.

I am by no means a baseball historian. There are many whose knowledge of the game dwarfs my own. With that caveat I will say this; the greatest game I ever saw pitched was by Kerry Wood in May of 1998. Kid K earned his nickname that day by striking out 20 Houston Astros, allowing just one hit in the process. If you believe that only a no-hitter or perfect game is subject to the accolades I’m giving this performance, I beg you to find a copy of the game. You will see that for nine innings, Wood made a baseball defy every conceivable law of physics.

I cannot remember who but one Houston player said simply, “we could not touch him today.” And he was right. For nine remarkable innings, Wood turned major league hitters in to over-matched little leaguers. If I did not know better, I would have thought Jim Rigglemen one of those unscrupulous little league managers that doctors birth certificates to use over aged players in Williamsport.

Wood’s performance created meteoric expectations for a hundred years of drought stricken Cub fans. His brilliance fueled Cubs fans to dream the impossible dream; a World Series championship.

As is so often the case on Chicago’s north side, the reality never matched up.

Before the season ended Wood was clutching his overworked elbow in pain. Even as it was brutally obvious that their prized prospect’s arm was breaking down the Cubs irrationally let him start a playoff game after six weeks on the shelf. Before the 1999 season started the great Kid K was undergoing Tommy John surgery on his damaged limb.

The whole surreal story seemed so “Cub-like.”

He returned in 2000 and struggled for three seasons to regain his form. And for one magical season in 2003 he did just that. Right up to doing was here-to-fore consider impossible, leading the Cubs to a playoff series victory over Atlanta in the first round. At that moment it seemed Kerry Wood was back to being the savior he was expected to be.

A week later the impossible dream (or sign of the apocalypse depending on your perspective) was one win away. The Cubs lead the NLCS 3 games to 1 and Chicago, at least north of Madison Street, was dancing with an electricity not seen since the Michael Jordan era. The century long prayers of tormented fans were on the verge of resolution, with Kerry Wood front and center.

Four days later they completed an epic collapse; with Kerry Wood front and center in game 7.

It’s debatable whether the Cubs as a franchise ever recovered from that nightmarish breakdown. What is not debatable is that Wood was never the same. The Cubs spent the next five years recklessly trying to purchase their lost glory through free agency. Wood spent much of that time on the disabled list as his arm continued its systematic breakdown.

By the time Jim Hendry’s $120 Million nightmare of a team rekindled the naive hopes of Cub fans in 2008, Wood was volunteering his way to the bullpen to salvage his failing career. I consider his willingness to endure the indignity of pitching in middle relief a sign of his character; a man willing to do whatever was necessary to help his team and stay in the game he loved. I also believe it one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen on a major league field.

Only the Chicago Cubs could turn arguably the greatest pitching prospect of this generation in to an 8th inning set-up guy. Only for that franchise could such a talent win just 86 career games; excruciatingly extended over 15 seasons. And only the Cubs could break the spirit of the ultimate competitor so much that he would walk off the field and retire at mid-season.

Even Wood’s swan song epitomized Cubs baseball. It was 41,000 fans basking triumphantly in an essentially hollow moment of glory. Don’t get me wrong, Wood deserved the ovation and the adulation for his heart and dedication alone. That said, nothing says Chicago Cubs baseball like an over the top celebration for a meaningless play by a last place team. That it was achieved against their hated rival and equally floundering measuring stick on the South Side only furthers the comparison.

The moment was remarkably fitting a franchise whose fans dance and sing in the isles, celebrating victories triumphantly to the ridiculously hokey “Go Cubs Go” song while they are mired in last place.

For my money, Kerry Wood deserved better than that. The man had the talent and the drive to be an all-time great. Sadly he spent his formative years testing the limits and endurance of the human arm, elbow, and shoulder. There is a reason he was able to make a baseball perform miraculous acts that May day in 1998. It’s the same reason he was under a knife six months later. The human elbow is just not built to continuously snap off 92 mile per hour sliders

It seems pointless and anti-climactic to state the obvious; that Wood never got the Cubs to a World Series let alone broke the longest championship drought in the history of professional sports.

To his ultimate credit, Wood battled to the very end. Unlike Prior, he never acted like a pampered superstar; never thought he was too good for the game. He never complained about being blatantly overworked by the bullpen challenged Dusty Baker even though that likely contributed sharply to his demise. And he gave the Cubs at least moments of brilliance; far more than they got from failed prospects Corey Patterson and Felix Pie.

Wood deserves credit for that. Glorifying it sets the bar far too low in the context of his potential. In the end, Wood will be remembered far more for what he was not, than what he was.

Kerry Wood the person is a hall of famer. Kerry Wood the player is the quintessential Chicago Cub