you had to remind me of this year .. the year that I began to really BELIEVE since the 69 debacle.

I was a kid in 1969 and had the innocence of childhood that buoyed my newfound faith in the Cubs. In 1977, I was a teenaged buck who’d been half heartedly following the Cubs – having watched those great Cubs teams come up short and die the death of attrition by 73 and 74 .. with only a Burt Hooton and Milt Pappas moment now and then.

This was the team that made me think that THIS WAS THE YEAR .. for the first time .. THIS was it. And no one can ever tell me that the Reuschel brothers weren’t studs. They looked like overgrown 10 year olds but those boys could play the game better than few other pitchers could in the Cubs’ bullpens for years.

Dang, I’m young again .. Let’s hit Rocky’s Disco in Steger .. and boogy oogy oogy

1 year old, dont recall much about the season lol

I told my brother I will never buy Wrigley gum again. I was really mad then and to this day I still have not bought Wrigley gum.

as the Tribune dubbed them.
Like so many others here, 1977 was my first real experience with Cub heartbreak. I’d been a diehard since 1971, but this was the first (seemingly) really good Cub team in my lifetime.
Still, I’m left with several great memories. Foremost was probably watching Bruce Sutter suddenly become the most unhittable reliever in the game. I still remember the excitement in Jack Brickhouse’s voice as he’d describe Sutter’s splitter as “rolling off the table” as he racked up another strikeout.
    If memory serves, I think he missed almost six weeks (and appearing in his first all-star game) due to his heavy workload. The Cubs clearly weren’t the same team without him.

…except ’77 was the year hell froze over:

Wednesday 19: Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that this occurs.

For another internet group I belong to I wrote an essay about how while I can remember Cubs stuff starting when I was 4, 1977 is the year when this girl fell in love with the Cubs and baseball. (I turned 9 that summer).

I remember them needing a police escort when they came home from a road trip at Ohare.

I remember going to the Park Ridge Metra station where Sutter was appearing and something like 1200 people showed up.

And I also developed my first famous person crush on Bill Buckner who was my favorite player until he was traded and is still in my top 5 faves all time (FTR the other 4 are Sandberg, Sutcliffe, Dawson and Wood).

Also 1977 was a very rare year where the Cubs and Sox both were in contention at the same time.

It was a completely wild summer in Chicago.

I turned 12 the summer of ‘77. This was one of my all-time favorite Cubs teams. You didn’t even mention Jose playing in the infield in that wild game against the Reds. That was one of the few games I got to watch that year … my family moved to Indiana and for the first time I couldn’t watch the Cubs on Channel 9 (and couldn’t until 1984, when cable finally came to Indianapolis). Fortunately, the Reds were televised a few times a year and that was one of the games. At that time, I thought “great, the Cubs finally win something and I can’t watch the games.” Anyway, what a great year …. I can still name all the players and know most of the stats …. Buckner .284 11HRs, Biitner, .299 12HRs. Mitterwald, .238. Burris 4.75 era. Willie Hernandez 3.03 era, the recently deceased Dave Roberts was on that team, Morales, Trillo and Sutter in the all-star game …. I could go on and on and be even more boring …. just wanted to say “thanks Al.”

In your next post, can you recap the highlights of the career of Carlos (not Sixto) Lezcano?

The Cubs were 51-30 in the first 81 games of 1977. The Cubs haven’t had a better “half season” since then. The Cubs were 50-30 in the last 80 regular season games of 1984. One game was rained out. They posted a 50-31 in the last 81 regular season games of 1989. Of course, in the second half of 1977, the Cubs went 30-51.

The only team in recent history that I know of that fell off nearly that much between the first half and second half was the 2005 Washington Nationals. They went 50-31 in the first half, only to finish up 31-50 in the second half. Ironically enough, the 2005 Nats finished at 81-81 just like the 1977 Cubs did.

That 23-6 game was very important in my family history.

That day my mom and me and my older brother went to the game with the man she was dating the first time we met him and it was the man who would become my stepfather.

Herman was a real estate magnate and could FLIP flop the batting order with the best of them.

in honor of that team.

The Madlock trade was forced because Madlock was “playing out his option” in 1977. The Reserve clause was still in the contracts, but the Seitz decision meant that contracts were only renewable for one season, not in perpetuity as the owners had been interpreting the clause. So Madlock was going to be a free agent at the end of the season if his demands weren’t met. PK Wrigley hated free agency and hated ungrateful employees of any color (although he did seem to give white players the benefit of the doubt a lot more than black players—although Phil Cavaretta might remember differently in the 1950s.) So the decision was made to trade Madlock and they got Bobby Murcer, whom the Cubs no doubt remembered from ten years earlier when he was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle. The problem was that either the Cubs didn’t realize that Murcer was also playing out his option or that they figured the good white kid from Oklahoma would be more reasonable in his demands than Madlock was. He wasn’t, he asked for more than Madlock was asking for and because of the trade, he had Cub management over a barrel. Unlike Madlock though, he wasn’t worth it.

PK Wrigley died in April of 1977, and it was like a curse had been lifted from the team. All of a sudden, guys were playing the best ball of their careers. Reuschel and Sutter were the stars of that team, but Jerry Morales played out of his mind for a while to, until he got hurt in the All-Star game.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention this game which looks like an unremarkable 5-2 Cubs win in July, but it was actually the suspended game during the NYC Blackout. I was watching that game on TV when the power went out. Not at my house, of course, but the power for the broadcast. I also remember that all the network TV signals in those days went through NY, so TV in Wisconsin was pretty much out except for some local public access stuff on cable.

1977 has gotten a lot of attention lately with “The Bronx is Burning” and “Summer of Sam” as well as the kiddies today all being into the early punk/new-wave music (and a lot of today’s popular artists heavily influenced by that period.) Most of the stuff is centered in NYC (which was on the brink of collapse) but it’s good to remember that the Cubs had a magical summer that turned into a horrible fall that year too.

1977 is the reason why I became a Cub fan. I was 9 and I think I learned what it meant to have your hopes dashed. It’s been a love/hate relationship ever since.

I hate you. Please don’t leave.

The Cubs went 3-9 during that time, and the Phillies won 12 in a row. Chicago went from 2.5 games up to 6.5 games out in the span of 12 days. Ouch!

If it takes the sting out of the 1977 collapse, then think about what happened to the Expos in 1989. The 1977 Cubs were 62-42 at the end of play on August 2 and were only 19-39 the rest of the way to finish at 81-81 in fourth place.

The 1989 Expos were 63-44 and 3 games up at the end of play on August 2. The Expos were only 18-37 the rest of the way to finish at 81-81 in fourth place. Of course, the Cubs won the NL East in 1989. That regular season had a happy ending.

I never liked him in a Cubs uniform. Maybe it was my imagination back then but he seemed to hit a lot of warning track flyballs.

The Cubs lineup on opening day was a mostly a average group of regulars with nobody performing close to an All Star level, except maybe Bobby Murcer. If you use the Bill James Win Share standards (10-19 is an average player season; 20-30 is an All-Star season; and 30+ is a Hall of Fame Season) you get the following results for this bunch:

1B: Larry Biittner (11); 2B: Manny Trillo (14): SS: Ivan DeJesus (15); 3B: Steve Onterveros (18); LF: Jose Cardenal (3); CF: Jerry Morales (15); RF: Bobby Murcer (19); C : Steve Swisher (3); P: Ray Burris (10).

The studs on this team were Reuschel (26) and Sutter (27) and the reasons they won 81 games. The first half of the season with these guys was pretty interesting, but they were clearly unable to replace Bill Madlock with Bobby Murcer. And Trillo drops from .362 at midseason down to .280 – it was that kind of season.

It was my first summer home from college. I had a minimum-wage job in a warehouse in what we now call the West Loop. At least I was able to bring along a transistor radio and listen to Cubs games while I pulled merchandise for the shipping clerks.

I remember when the game started, when Vince & Lou mentioned 1) that Ray Burris was pitching and 2) the wind was blowing out. That meant some balls were heading into or over the bleachers, and indeed they did — 3 HRs, 6 runs, in the top of the first.

But the comebacks were amazing.

The game was still going on at quitting time, and I rode the “Evanston Express” north to Howard Street, still listening to the radio. I remember passing Wrigley as the game was still going on. People were crowding around to get game updates; I remember saying “Sutter struck out the side!”. I didn’t remember (but see on that baseball-reference link) that the strikeout victims were named Griffey, Foster, and Bench.

Remarkably, even by the time I got to Howard Street, caught a 97 bus west, and walked home to my family home in West Rogers Park, the game was still on, and I was able to see the finish on channel 9.

The next day’s Sun-Times headline was “The Most Exciting Game” and I’d heartily agree. I always wondered why that game isn’t replayed on ESPN Classic, while that 23-22 Phillies game (which the Cubs lost) is.

About that warehouse job: the other memory I have, which would have been a few weeks later, was being told by the security guard that Elvis Presley had died.

And that building? Now it’s been reborn as an office building, “River Center”, with polished marble walls at street level. But in 1977, it was a dump.

(even in a crazy 13 inning game) so I had to check the box score of the July 28th game. At the risk of being picky and detracting from a great story, Reuschel was in the game pitching (not as a pinch runner) and pitched 2/3 of an inning in the top of the 13th. He was up in the bottom of the 13th, singled, and eventually came around to score the winning run..

Anyway , thanks for a bumpy ride down memory lane.

But its interesting reading articles about Cubs seasons from the past. Keep em coming!