Randy Hundley: Durocher Blew '69 By Not Resting Regulars

Randy was speaking before a group in Bloomington, Illinois, yesterday and gave this answer to the inevitable "what happened to you guys?" question.

The problem was, Durocher had no bench in 1969. The Cubs' reserve position players were probably worse than the 2009 bunch.

about 2 years ago Al Yellon 10 comments 0 recs |

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Holy Cow what a revelation

you mean Paul Popovich, Willie Smith, Al Spangler, Jimmy Qualls, Nate Oliver weren’t good?

Piniella: "This is a tougher job than I thought it would be, I'm going to be honest with you."

by Ivy Walls on Dec 23, 2009 1:02 PM CST reply actions

Popovich was OK.

Willie Smith – so-so in the OF, could pound the living hell out of the ball on occasion. Spangler was old by then, Nate Oliver…meh.

The one good thing I can say about Jimmy Qualls was it was him who broke up Tom Seaver’s perfect game. (Presuming my memory is still what it was…wait, what were we talking about again?)

by MN exile on Dec 23, 2009 2:03 PM CST up reply actions

Yes, Qualls broke up Seaver's perfect game.

Boxscore

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al Yellon on Dec 23, 2009 2:08 PM CST up reply actions

The starting line-up played every game

Durocher needed to rest his regulars every now and then, but he didn’t. So, you rest one guy per game. You didn’t have to clear the bench every game. But, old-school Leo decided that what worked in 1955 would still apply in 1969.

I too, blame Durocher.

Spangler and Smith were decent players. It wasn’t the greatest bench, but, so what? You use what you have.

by San Diego Smooth Jazz Man on Dec 23, 2009 1:27 PM CST reply actions

The thing is...

… Durocher as a younger manager used to rest regulars and platoon quite a bit. For example, his 1951 Giants — the ones that came back from the huge deficit vs. the Dodgers — had only three regulars who played virtually every day.

Five of the 1969 Cubs played 151 or more games.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al Yellon on Dec 23, 2009 1:47 PM CST up reply actions

but i thought it was the black cat's fault

/sarcasm

baseball is a game of outs......pop out, ground out, line out, pitch out, strike out, fly out, and Fox and Bud's favorite black out

by Cubbie-Tim on Dec 23, 2009 1:42 PM CST reply actions

The fact that the Mets lost like 15 games after the All-Star break did not help either.

Starters or no starters, not sure the Cubs would have held off that kind of pace anyway.

"Don't complain to me about the stormy weather, boys. Just bring the ship into port." --Steve Stone, September 2004

by ctcoff99 on Dec 23, 2009 3:59 PM CST reply actions

I will accept that from Hundley

as he has a valid point. The bench was poor, and rather poorly used.

But when you walk into a season as a legit pennant contender and your presumed centerfielder hasn’t played in the bigs in 4 years, wasn’t very good then, and hadn’t had opportunities when he was rather bad…. that was inexcusable. The Cubs should have traded for a legit centerfielder leading up to the season. Plug in a Jay Johnstone, Ed Stroud, Buddy Bradford, or a Manny Mota for Don Young, and it’s all different.

by tim815 on Dec 24, 2009 7:29 AM CST reply actions

Or, let Adolfo be Adolfo.

by ernaga on Dec 24, 2009 7:55 AM CST reply actions

It wasn't just position players - Durocher basically had a 6-man pitching rotation

4 starter plus 2 relievers. On position players, only 2 guys outside of the 8 regulars got as many as 200 PA. By August, most of the key players on that team were cooked.

by ClarkFan on Dec 25, 2009 9:22 PM CST reply actions