A Chicago baseball season highlighted by a corked bat and a firehouse chat was scheduled to come to a close this weekend.
Had the unthinkable not occurred on that Sept. 14 afternoon, when 26 owners signed a resolution that canceled the remainder of the season “with enormous regret,” the White Sox might have been getting their rotation in order for the playoffs.
And had the season continued uninterrupted, the Cubs might have been able to break the team record for home losses in a season-49.
They were two teams going in opposite directions in ’94. The White Sox were supposed to play in Kansas City, Mo., this weekend, in a series that would likely have had playoff implications for one or both teams. The Cubs would have ended their 49th straight year without a pennant Sunday in Wrigley Field, finishing up against Pittsburgh at the confines that were anything but friendly to Tom Trebelhorn’s ballclub.
The arrival of October actually brings a certain sense of normalcy back to Chicago baseball fans. If truth be told, it’s simply another in a long, long line of Octobers in which neither the White Sox nor the Cubs will participate in the World Series. Thanks to the cancellation of the World Series, however, at least Chicagoans won’t have to watch other teams play the series on TV.
For the Sox, it was the season that could have been. After last Monday’s players union meeting at the O’Hare Hilton, pitcher Jack McDowell thought about what he would rather have been doing.
“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “We’d still be playing the season right now and this would be a pressure-filled situation for us, probably the most fun we’ve had in our career. That is the part that’s really frustrating.”
The Sox were 32-15 from June 20 until the strike began on Aug. 12. They led the American League Central by one game over Cleveland despite the bad fortune of having to play 17 of their final 20 games on the road.
The corked bat episode in July starring Cleveland’s Albert Belle and Sox manager Gene Lamont added a touch of intrigue to a season in which several Sox players had career years. Darrin Jackson (.312, 51 RBIs) and Julio Franco (20 homers, 98 RBIs) proved to be the best free-agent pickups by GM Ron Schueler. Lance Johnson had a career-high 54 RBIs and became the first player in major-league history to win four straight triples titles.
Wilson Alvarez won eight straight decisions until May 27, when his consecutive wins streak ended at 15. Jason Bere earned an All-Star berth in his second season, went 12-2 and tied McDowell for the team lead with 127 strikeouts.
And then there was Frank Thomas, who was on pace to break eight team records, including Shoeless Joe Jackson’s 74-year Sox record of 336 total bases. Thomas finished with the sixth-highest batting average (.353) in Sox history, and the highest since Luke Appling’s .388 in 1936.
The end of the season meant the end of Thomas’ run at the triple crown.
“Everbody’s talking about money we lost,” said shortstop Ozzie Guillen. “But I think about careers-Don Mattingly and Ken Griffey and Frank Thomas. And teams like the Cleveland Indians and New York (Yankees). It’s a lot more than money. Sure, we lost a lot of money. But what if this is the last chance for Mattingly to be close to a pennant race? Or maybe it’s the last year for Frank to have a year like that. It could be a lot of last chances.”
Only the unexpected surprise of rookie starter Steve Trachsel (3.21 earned-run average) saved the Cubs’ season from being a complete disaster. Tuffy Rhodes hit three home runs on Opening Day, but finished with eight home runs and 19 RBIs. Sammy Sosa had the offensive numbers (25 homers, 70 RBIs) to qualify for star status, but his mental mistakes in the field and on the basepaths kept him from earning widespread raves. Ryne Sandberg had enough of losing baseball, and retired on June 13.
Perhaps the most memorable day of the 1994 season came in the opening month, when Trebelhorn held his firehouse chat with Cubs fans in front of the Waveland Avenue station during their club-record 12-game home losing streak.
Only after an on-field visit by an out-of-state goat, imported to help break the hex put on the Cubs by William “Billygoat” Sianis during the 1945 World Series, did the Cubs finally win a home game. It happened on May 4 against Cincinnati.
“One win does not a season make,” Trebelhorn said afterward. “But one win, right now, may have saved a life.”
Now Trebelhorn hopes to save his job. The Cubs finished 20-39 at home, and wound up in last place (49-64) for the first time since 1987. This followed an 84-78 season under Jim Lefebvre, who was promptly fired by GM Larry Himes.
New team President Andy MacPhail came on board last month, and will attempt to help rebuild a franchise that has seemingly been in a rebuilding mode for most of the latter half of the 20th Century.