It was one of those rare games in which the entire season appears to rest in the balance. That it was the Cubs who were involved dictated that “the entire season” at stake did not mean the world championship or even just remaining alive, but instead meant simple respectability over the next six months and the very slightest possibility of contending for first place. Those are the terms we speak in when we refer to the Cubs’ fortunes. That this game took place on opening day, however, meant that the drama was high in spite of the inherent meaninglessness of the outcome. It was probably the most exciting opening-day victory the Cubs have earned since Willie Smith hit his pinch home run in the 11th inning against the same Philadelphia Phillies 20 years ago. If the game a week ago last Tuesday portends the same sort of roller-coaster season, we are all in for a fine summer.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Rick Sutcliffe, the veteran ace, made his fifth straight opening-day start for the Cubs, an event that was clearly in doubt over the winter as he faced competition on the team from Greg Maddux for the honor as well as the possibility of being traded. Sutcliffe is an old hand on a young team–a team that has gotten even younger as general manager Jim Frey has refashioned it to his own tastes–but he has responded to the departure of old friends and to his own advancing age by throwing himself back into the game with more intensity. He is as fit as he’s been with the Cubs, and his arm is reported to be as strong as it’s been since he hurt it favoring a hip injury in 1985. In this game he looked, for a while, to be the Sutcliffe of old–ignoring a rookie error in the second inning to work out of a bases-loaded jam–until he tired early, as one might expect in his first start of the season, and left the game in the sixth. It was enough work to earn the victory if the Cubs held their lead.
Andre Dawson, the team’s lone slugger, padded the Cubs’ lead with a two-run homer in the following inning. Once hit, there was never a doubt about this ball. It carried in a high arc against the sky and the massing clouds overhead and smacked into the fence behind the bleachers. For Dawson, who hit 49 home runs two years ago and a mere 24 last season, it was an almost necessary beginning.
That little bit of tension was nothing compared to the ninth. The Cubs had a one-run lead and three outs in which to preserve it. The Phillies had put in their bull-pen ace, Steve Bedrosian, so if the Cubs lost their run advantage they probably would not regain it for at least another two or three innings. Williams–their prime new weapon and, perhaps, nothing less than the fate of the season–was on the mound. The first batter, our old friend Bob Dernier, dribbled one up the middle. Then he and Tommy Herr performed a fine hit-and-run except that Herr’s lofted single to left was too shallow to allow Dernier to get to third. This was important, as the next batter, Von Hayes, hit another bleeder, in the hole between third and short, that Shawon Dunston barely managed to keep out of left field, forcing Dernier to hold up at third and loading the bases.
