Maybe you had forgotten the Cubs have their charm.
But that’s how Stanton Cook subtly portrayed his boys dressed in dark, depressing blue before Cincinnati hung these Prince Charmings Tuesday with their 12th straight home loss.
The Cubs chairman emphasized before the 5-2 loss that winning and losing streaks are “part of the charm of the game, but it’s gut-wrenching for the guy who is losing.”
Does he still have confidence in his general manager and field manager?
Cook gave a one-word reply, and neither Larry Himes nor Tom Trebelhorn was mentioned by name.
“Sure,” he said, adding that “a certain amount of patience is needed.”
At what point do you run out of patience?
The response: “I’m not sure yet.”
“You want to win every day, but we can’t win every day. Every once in a while you lose more than you want to lose. It’s frustrating for the fans, to the players and to management.”
Then he added: “This is a fun business, You want to make it fun. That’s what we’re hoping to change. We’re in the pit right now. We’ve got to get out of the pit.”
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Because the Cubs don’t have any players to bring up from their farm system, Cook reached into baseball’s executive suite. He extended a Wrigley Field invitation to Leonard Coleman, the new National League president. Coleman arrived two hours before game time and immediately pledged his assistance.
“What can I do?” Coleman asked.
Cook explained: one month into the championship season and the Cubs had yet to win a home game.
Could Coleman put the whammy on the Reds?
Coleman was hesitant. He had to go by the book and remain impartial. It wouldn’t be good form to root for one of his teams against another. It was a privilege reserved only for the All-Star Game and World Series.
Eventually, Coleman relented-but not completely.
“Mr. Cook,” he said, respectfully, “I’d like to see the Cubs win a home game.”
Coleman didn’t say when.
Whatever, Tuesday wasn’t the day of triumph. Adding to the embarrassment was Chuck McElroy. Traded away last winter, this Red squelched the possibility of a comeback with two scoreless innings of middle relief against his former Cubs teammates, just as he did in Cincinnati last week when he also faced the minimum six batters.
Cook held a 20-minute dugout press conference while waiting for Coleman to check in. As could be expected, the thrust of most questions dealt with the likelihood of a change. Himes is in the last year of his contract.
What were Cook’s thoughts on Trebelhorn’s recent firehouse chat? After last Friday’s loss, Trebelhorn answered questions from the fans on the steps of the Waveland Avenue fire station.
“I think that was fine,” Cook said. “I wouldn’t discourage it. I applaud him for it.”
Should the players be asked to follow Trebelhorn’s lead?
“That’s up to them. You want to be accessible. Tom and Larry are accessible.”
Pointing toward the field, Cook said: “Basically, you have to do it out there.”
Cook braced when the word “panic” was mentioned.
“That doesn’t accomplish anything,” he said. “Everybody has to step up. Twenty-five guys are needed.”
But it is the Reds who are stepping up their game. They are 17-8, in first place in the NL’s Central Division and now 10 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs. And in the dog-eat-dog world of professional baseball there was no expression of sympathy.
Said Bret Boone, the Reds’ young second baseman and the first third-generation major leaguer:
“We’re just trying not to get out of sync ourselves. If we go into a losing streak nobody’s going to feel sorry for us.”
Erik Hanson, the winning pitcher, revealed that when he went to the mound in the first inning, he found a penny painted blue with a W: a win for the Cubs, not for the Reds.
“I kicked it off the mound,” Hanson reported with delight.
Saddled with a loser, Trebelhorn insisted he detected a so-called silver lining: Starter Mike Morgan had “good stuff;” the bullpen was effective; Kevin Roberson, pinch batting, had an RBI-single.
Trebelhorn said his players weren’t buckling under the pressure.
“I don’t think when a pitcher is pitching and a hitter is hitting they’re thinking about the losing streak,” he said. “They’re not consumed by this.”
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Trebelhorn said that he met Coleman before the game.
“He wished us luck, and I wished him luck,” Trebelhorn said. “It’s not good to be luckless.”