1981 was a huge year in baseball history, for some
unfortunate reasons, and the same could be said of the Cubs themselves. In MLB,
a players’ strike that began on June 12 and lasted until August 10 resulted in
the cancellation of 706 games and reduced teams’ schedules to just over 100
games each. When the season resumed, the owners decided to reset all teams’
records at 0-0 and guarantee the teams in first place in their divisions on
June 12 a place in the postseason, thus instituting a split-season format for
the only time in MLB history. At the end of the regularly-scheduled season, the
first-half winners in each division would take on the second-half winners in a
best of 5 series to decide who would advance to the League Championship Series.
The result of this was that the team with the best overall
record in the NL, the Cincinnati Reds, did not make the postseason, while in
the AL, a team with an overall losing record, the Kansas City Royals, played in
the AL West Division Series. The 1981 Royals were the only sub-.500 team
to ever play in an MLB postseason series until the COVID-wracked seasons of 2020. The decision also made temporary
contenders of several other mediocre or bad teams, including the Cubs.
In contrast to the mainly quiet offseasons following the
1977, 1978, and 1979 seasons, the winter of 1980-81 brought major changes to
the franchise. In the smallest move, the “interim” label was taken off Joe
Amalfitano’s title and he would serve as the manager for the entire 1981
season. Unfortunately for him, though, it would be simply as a placeholder
overseeing a much more fundamental change.
As expected, one of the big transactions of the winter
involved the jettisoning of Dave Kingman. “King Kong” was sent back to the
Mets, the team for which he had first attained stardom, on February 28, 1981
for a promising young outfielder named Steve Henderson and an undisclosed
amount of cash. Opening Day, April 9, 1981, would find bleacher fans at Wrigley
throwing snowballs at Kingman as he took his position in left field for the Mets.
By the time Kingman was traded, though, the big transaction
of the winter, one of the most significant trades in Cubs history, had already
been made. On December 9, 1980, the Cubs traded their franchise player. Bruce
Sutter, who started a career in Chicago that would carry him to the Hall of
Fame, was sent to the Cubs’ archrivals, the St. Louis Cardinals. In return the
Cubs got veteran third baseman Ken Reitz, who was considered a superior
defensive player with a decent bat.[1]
They also got Ty Waller, a promising young minor league infielder. But the
centerpiece of the Cubs’ side of the trade was Leon Durham, a first
baseman/outfielder who was considered an outstanding prospect, a possible
future superstar possessing both speed and power.
The trade was motivated partly by Bill Wrigley’s financial
problems. Sutter had won a raise in arbitration before the 1980 season, and
Wrigley believed he simply could no longer afford the star closer, who would
one day leave as a free agent, denying the Cubs any return for him. But, also,
the 1980 Cubs were a terrible team and simply didn’t have much use for a
closer; they rarely had the lead in the late innings. They desperately needed
more hitting, especially power, now that Kingman was gone.
1981 Opening Day
Lineup
De Jesus, ss
Strain, 2b
Buckner, 1b
Henderson, lf
Durham, rf
Reitz, 3b
Thompson, cf
Blackwell, c
Reuschel, p
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By the time that the players’ strike stopped play on June
12, the Cubs were a shambles. They were 15-37, and their record was only that
good because they actually swept a three-game series from the Giants right
before the stoppage. They were in last place in the NL East, 17.5 games out of
first place, and 12 games out of fourth (amazingly, the fifth-place Mets were
nearly as bad as the Cubs). Despite a 2-for-2 effort in the victory over the
Giants on June 11, De Jesus was batting an unbelievably dismal .160 and Reitz
was hitting .234. The new right fielder, Durham, was doing his part, hitting
.312, but had missed the first two weeks of June with an injury. Tidrow, a
reliable setup man in 1979 and 1980 had been installed as closer in Sutter’s
place. He was awful, carrying a 4.29 ERA into the enforced break. He did save
all three games of the sweep over the Giants, but that represented half of all
his saves to that point in the season.
On the day the strike stopped play, the Cubs made another
significant deal. They traded Rick Reuschel, who had been their ace for a
decade, to the New York Yankees for veteran pitcher Doug Bird, $400,000, and a
player to be named later, who turned out to be pitcher Mike Griffin. Once again
in 1981, Reuschel had been pitching well, but with a bad team behind him, had a
losing record. He was 4-7 with a 3.47 ERA.
Just four days after the beginning of the strike came the
bombshell. After 60 years of full ownership by the Wrigley family, the Cubs had
been sold. The Tribune Company, the owners of the Chicago Tribune newspaper and
WGN, the TV and radio home of the Cubs, bought the team for $20.5 million. The
Wrigley era had begun well for the franchise, with four pennants in the ten
years between 1929-1938, although with no World Championships. After one
wartime pennant in 1945, followed by another World Series loss, the club
entered a long era of futility. Disastrous experiments like the “College of
Coaches” in the early 1960s made the Cubs a laughing stock, but P.K. Wrigley’s
refusal to develop a strong farm system was far more fundamental to the club’s
failures. The only island in the sea of despondency was the six consecutive
winning seasons between 1967-1972, but even that short run of success was
tainted by the club’s failure to ever make the postseason. Divisional play
began in 1969, so the Cubs would only have had to finish first in the NL East
to play in October, but they always fell short.
The players’ strike ended in August and games resumed on
August 10. It was the beginning of a new era for the Cubs and, in some ways, also
a new season. Under the owners’ split-season format, the Cubs began play with a
0-0 record. If they could somehow find a way to finish with the best record in
the division from August 10 on, they would get their first taste of postseason
play since 1945.
They lost their first three games of the second half to the
New York Mets, but then, astoundingly, went on a hot streak. The Cubbies
salvaged the last game of the Mets series, then took two of three from the
Pirates and two of three from the Dodgers. They lost two to San Francisco, but
took the last game of that series when Durham worked a bases-loaded walk with
two outs in the bottom of the 9th. The next day, against the Padres,
they won again when Mike Tyson doubled in De Jesus in the 9th. After
a 4-3 victory over San Diego the next day, the Cubs got their third walkoff
victory in a four-game span when utility infielder Steve Dillard knocked a
two-out, two-run homer in the 9th on August 26. The final score was
9-7 and that was also the Cubs’ record in the second half of the season. They
were one game out of first.
Of course it couldn’t last and no one expected it to. In
fact, the Cubs’ status as even a very temporary contender was seen by many as
symbolic of the ill-conceived nature of the split schedule. When the season
ended, the Cubs were 38-65, which translates to 60-102 over a full schedule.
The players’ strike almost certainly saved the team from a 100-loss season.
Once again, a few individual performances were all Cubs fans
had to hang on to. Buckner hit .311 with 75 RBIs, which was more than anyone on
the team had in a full season in 1980. Durham hit .290 and tied Buckner for the
club lead in home runs with 10. Henderson hit .293. The Cubs debuted a young
catcher named Jody Davis, whom they had acquired from the Mets in the minor
league draft. He would solidify a weak spot for the club, becoming arguably the
Cubs’ best catcher since Gabby Harnett and certainly their best since Randy
Hundley. Lee Smith pitched in 40 games, 39 relief appearances and 1 start, with
a decent 3.51 ERA. Like Durham and Davis, he would be a frontline contributor
to the team that finally broke the Cubs’ postseason drought.
But the bad definitely outweighed the good in 1981. The
infield, except for Buckner, was historically bad. De Jesus, after four years
as a decent-to-good player, was suddenly the worst regular player in baseball.
His .194 average, 0 home runs, and 13 RBIs gave him the dubious distinction of
finishing last in the league among batting championship qualifiers in all three
categories. Astonishingly, he still led the team in runs scored with 49. Mike
Tyson, who was expected to take over second base, hit .185, and lost his job to
Pat Tabler, who was marginally better at .188. Reitz, the third baseman, had a
slash line of .215/.261/.281, making it evident that his glove could no longer
support his bat. Tidrow, the nominal closer, was 3-10 with a 5.06 ERA. Mike
Krukow’s 9-9 was the best record on the staff. The Cubs finished 11th
out of 12 teams in runs scored and also 11th in ERA.
1981 Cubs Batting
Leaders: R – Ivan De Jesus, 49; H – Bill
Buckner, 131; HR – Leon Durham &
Buckner, 10; RBI – Buckner, 75; BA –
Buckner, .311; OBP – Steve Henderson,
.382; SP – Buckner, .480
1981 Cubs Pitching
Leaders: G – Dick Tidrow, 51; IP
– Mike Krukow, 144.1; W – Krukow, 9;
SO – Krukow 101; ERA – Reuschel, 3.68; SV – Tidrow, 9
[1] I
say “considered” because advanced defensive metrics, developed long after Reitz
retired, suggest that he was actually not a very good defensive player; he had
a steady glove, but lacked range. Also, his lack of power, and his habit of
never walking, meant that his lifetime .260 batting average was almost
completely empty. His lifetime OBP was .290.
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