Cubs Historic Photos: Seventh In A Series

He had a really good year in 1976 — 15-13, 3.11, threw four CG shutouts and had an ERA+ of 123. He was 24 years old, people thought he was going to be “the next Jenkins”.

He never had a year anywhere close to that — well, one, nine years later with Oakland.

my college friends from Drake University who lived in the Chicago area and I had many Old Styles that day….and continued to try to consume most of the beer in Palatine that night. Thanks for the link, Al!!

…on the last sad act of Phil Wrigley’s 45-year tenure as owner and team president. As the head of a great multinational and publicly traded consumer goods firm, he always had a lot more to lose than other old-line owners who depended on baseball for a living.

His family name was on the door and on every piece of gum his company produced. Understandably, he was risk-averse, and when owners such as Rickey, MacPhail I, and Walter O’Malley were relatively free to experiment, he held back. Any conflict between baseball and his other business interests inevitably would be resolved in favor of Wrigley Company shareholders. And yet, knowing he was unable or unwilling to compete, he stubbornly refused to sell, perhaps because of the enormous value of the free advertising on the ballpark marquee that his heirs still enjoy.

We all know his policies: no lights; foot-dragging on scouting, signing and playing minority talent; cronies-only hiring in the front office, field management, and broadcast booth; virtually no farm system before ‘46 or after ’52. With all this, it’s amazing the Cubs didn’t have more than two 100-loss seasons in that era. As Jimmie Dykes famously said in the midst of the Cubs postwar, pre-Durocher disaster: “Without Ernie Banks, the Cubs would finish in Albuquerque.”

Perhaps it was Gussie Busch’s success as head of both a successful multinational and a winning team that prompted Phil to relax his hidebound approach long enough to hire Durocher. And, whaddya’ know, with an aggressive and knowledgeable baseball man in charge, we suddenly had a winner.

But when the organization’s other built-in handicaps proved too much even for Durocher and the ’69 Cubs to overcome, Wrigley threw in the towel. By late ’73, he was 80 years old and apparently content to cut costs, play out the string, and mothball the Cubs once again, along with the Packards and Duesenbergs at his estate in Lake Geneva. Hiring Jim Marshall as manager certainly was a step in that direction, as was trading Fergie for Vic Harris and Bill Madlock.

And, speaking of Madlock, Phil Wrigley’s final insult to loyal fans, taken a few weeks before his death in ‘77, was all too typical: end a contract dispute by trading two-time reigning batting champ Madlock for a washed-up and indifferent Bobby Murcer. "There’s no ballplayer worth $200,000," Phil said, as he proceded to pay Murcer as much or more.