The Chicago baseball season didn’t deserve to the way it did. By that I’m not referring to the third-place finish of the White Sox or the Cubs’ fourth-place finish–no, those were both fully deserved–but to the last Chicago game of the year. Andre Dawson homered to give the Cubs a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Expos. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as his home rim in his final Wrigley Field at-bat in 1987, when he earned the Most Valuable Player Award with 49 homers, 137 runs batted in, and a .287 average after joining the Cubs during spring training as a free agent, but it was almost as uplifting. Dawson, it should be remembered, signed with the Cubs for a paltry $600,000 during the owners’ ill-fated collusion campaign, simply because he wanted so to play in Wrigley Field. This year he has had to go out of his way once again to convince the Cubs to sign him. Although management was coy about negotiating a new contract–his old one expired with the end of the season–Dawson was busy with 22 homers, a team-high 90 RBI, and a batting average of .277, and the front office began noises, at last, that they wouddn’t mind having him back.
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This very disappointing and apathy-inducing campaign was, indeed, much like 1987, a year marked by disappointment on both the north and south sides and redeemed by great individual performances. That was the year Bobby Thigpen emerged as the bullpen closer for the White Sox, and Jack McDowell debuted with three September victories; the Sox finished hot, rising from last place at the All-Star break to a semirespectable fourth with 77 victories. Dawson, meanwhile, won the MVP Award, and Rick Sutcliffe, who won 18 games, made a stab at the Cy Young Award, won by Philadelphia reliever Steve Bedrosian in what was clearly an off year for starting pitchers. Thus the Cubs almost pulled off both of the league’s top individual awards while finishing last.
Otherwise, the year was fairly boring for the Cubs. Mark Grace had his best season–9 homers, 79 RBI, and .307–and Ryne Sandberg had another stellar campaign–26, 87, .304–while Mike Morgan won 16 games with a 2.55 ERA and Frank Castillo established himself in the rotation with 10 wins (he moved into double figures by earning the victory on that last afternoon) and a 3.46 ERA Derrick May emerged as the player we knew he’d be in left field, batting .274 with 8 homers and 45 RBI in part-time duty. Yet the team lacked a leadoff man and a bullpen closer throughout the season, and it cost them.
Let’s make this clear. A number of Chicago baseball ignoramuses have criticized Thomas for taking too many pitches, for being too disciplined at the plate, for leaving Bell the dirty work of driving in runs. Nothing could be stupider. Walks are important; not only has Thomas driven in 100 runs in both full major-league seasons, he has scored 100 runs in both. The numbers he is putting up at the age of 24 place him in the baseball pantheon. If he gets much better–and next year, with a diluted talent pool brought on by expansion, he won’t have to get much better to get a whole lot better–he’ll be frightening. With warmer weather and weaker pitching next season, Thom could begin to put up some monster numbers. He is already the best ball player to come to Chicago in at least 30 years, the sort of player a team builds around.
