This time it's for real
I know, I know it, baby, this time it's for real
-- Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

The song "This Time It's For Real" came out in the summer of '77 and those of us who watched the Cubs roar out to an unbelievable start could have been forgiven if we had adopted that as the team's theme song that year.

Consider the context: we hadn't quite gotten over the crushing disappointment of 1969 and the subsequent failures of our childhood heroes, including 1973 when, as in 1969, they raced out to an 8.5 game lead in June, only to collapse -- at one point in July and August going 5-27 -- and finish fifth. GM John Holland backed up the truck after 1973 and the '74 through '76 editions of the Cubs were pretenders, not contenders.

A former member of the late and unlamented College of Coaches, Bob Kennedy, had been hired as GM on November 24, 1976, and he immediately got busy remaking the franchise. He sent the popular Rick Monday to the Dodgers for the sore-kneed and sore-ankled Bill Buckner and a kid SS named Ivan DeJesus, shipped the underperforming Bill Bonham to the Reds for Woodie Fryman (OK, that one didn't work out so well), and in a controversial move, traded popular and productive third baseman Bill Madlock to the Giants for Bobby Murcer and Steve Ontiveros. (Ontiveros was an acceptable 3B, but his hitting was atrocious -- despite hitting .299 with 32 doubles and 81 walks in 1977, he scored only 54 runs.)

On the surface, the deal made no sense -- why would you ship a 25-year-old 3B who had won two batting titles for a 31-year-old outfielder? The purported reason was Madlock's salary demands. Then the Cubs gave Murcer more money than Madlock had supposedly been asking for. Without making any accusations, it was widely assumed at the time that Madlock wasn't the type of black player the Wrigleys liked... even though it was the 1970's, black players like Oscar Gamble, Bill North and Madlock had been shipped away for virtually nothing, even though they went on to have productive years elsewhere. It was the wrong thing to do from the standpoint of equal rights, and the wrong thing to do from a baseball standpoint, too.

And probably the key change in the 1977 team was new manager Herman Franks' decision to use reliever Bruce Sutter, in his first full major league season, only in games where the Cubs were leading in the late innings. He wasn't a closer in the modern sense, since he often threw more than one inning, but Franks was the first manager to use someone in this sort of role. And Sutter dazzled, until August, when the workload caught up with him and he missed three weeks.

The team got off to a mediocre start, standing 7-9 on April 30. And then they started winning, and winning, and winning some more. On May 17 they set a team record with seven homers and beat the Padres 23-6 at Wrigley Field. Eleven days later they beat the Pirates 6-3 to go into first place and, as they did on July 2, 1967 when the Cubs took over the top spot in the NL for the first time that late in the year since 1945, fans refused to leave until the Cubs flag on the scoreboard was moved to the top spot in the NL East.

They lost a pair at St. Louis to end May 28-16; that still made it a 21-7 month, one of the best in team history. June started off just as well as May -- there was a winning streak of six and another of eight, and the last of the eight-gamer was a 4-2, 10-inning win over the Expos in Montreal. The Cubs' record was 47-22 and their division lead was 8.5 games.

In those days not every road game was televised. That happened to be one that wasn't; those of us listening on WGN radio heard an exuberant Lou Boudreau say, "They can kiss the .500 mark goodbye!"

Oh, poor Lou. If he had only known what was to come.

But despite losing their last two games of June to finish the month at 47-24, that meant that the Cubs had gone 40-15 for the months of May and June. That still stands as the best 55-game stretch any Cubs team has had since 1945, when they had a 43-12 stretch at one point. Even during the great regular season the Cubs had in 2008, their best 55-game stretch was 37-18 (April 5-June 3).

July turned tough, but the Cubs still ended it two games ahead, with a 61-41 mark. On July 28, they played a game for the ages at Wrigley, erasing deficits of 6-0, 10-7 and 14-10 to win 16-15 in 13 innings, with Rick Reuschel, of all people, scoring the winning run as a pinch-runner.

It seemed at the time to be the kind of game that you'd remember forever when your team went on to postseason glory. Instead, it was the beginning of the end. The Cubs fell out of first place when they lost the first game of a DH to a bad Padres team on August 7, and a week later got swept in a four-game series by the eventual division champion Phillies, falling 6.5 games out in third place. On August 22, Bobby Murcer's 24th homer of the year helped seal a 3-2 win over the Giants, putting the Cubs briefly back in second place, 7.5 games behind. On that date, Murcer had 24 HR, 83 RBI and was hitting .280/.374/.492, seemingly on his way to his first 100-RBI season.

And then he almost literally stopped hitting. From August 23 through season's end he hit .216/.288/.328 with 3 HR and 6 RBI in 35 games. It wasn't the only reason the Cubs went 11-28 from then to the end, but it was a big one.

The home season ended on September 28 with a 5-2 loss to the Phillies in front of 5,116. The Phils had clinched the division at Wrigley the day before. And as for Lou Boudreau's proud boast on June 28? After winning the first game of that Philly series 11-7 on September 26 with a 20-hit barrage, including a too-little-too-late homer from Murcer, the Cubs stood 81-76.

They lost their last five games to finish exactly at .500.

There were good things that happened in 1977. Rick Reuschel won 20 games -- the only Cub pitcher to win 20 between Fergie Jenkins in 1971 and Greg Maddux in 1992. Bruce Sutter saved 31 games, tying what was then the team record, and had an amazing WHIP of 0.857. Two years later he saved 37 games, which stood as the club record until Randy Myers saved 53 in 1993.

But it wasn't enough, and it wasn't "for real". The Cubs edged around the margins of contention with much the same cast of characters in 1978 and 1979 before collapsing to a 98-loss year in 1980, and it would have been worse in 1981 if not for the strike. When Dallas Green came in the next year, he began the renaissance that led to the 1984 division title.

No surprise here, I'm sure -- this HR is not only the most famous in Cub history, the "Homer in the Gloamin'" is one of the most famous in all of baseball history and one of the most memorable monents in team history.

The Cubs came into the game one-half game behind the Pirates for first place, with six games remaining. Mike picks up the story in the top 100 profile of Hartnett, posted one year ago tomorrow:

It was their ninth win in a row, but it took two more days before the Cubs clinched the 1938 NL pennant. Courtesy of Mike (who also sent me the facsimile of Gabby's autograph you see at the top of this post), here's a reproduction of the 1938 scorecard you'd have seen if you had been at this game:

1969.

Could have, should have, been a magical season, especially for those of us who lived through it.  The Cubs had come off a good second half of 1968 -- they were 35-45 after losing to the Pirates on July 5, 1968; they went 49-33 the rest of the way to finish 84-78. This is the only time in franchise history that the Cubs have come from ten games under .500 to finish with a winning record (they nearly matched that last year, coming from nine under, 22-31, to finish 85-77).

And so there was much anticipation when they opened 1969 at home against the Phillies on April 8. They roared out to a 5-1 lead on the strength of two HR by 38-year-old Ernie Banks, who hit a three-run job in the first inning and a two-run shot in the third, and Fergie Jenkins was mowing down Phillies, walking no one and striking out nine. Even a Don Money HR in the seventh didn't bother Fergie much -- no one was on base, and so the Cubs entered the ninth inning leading 5-2.

In 2008 baseball, that situation would automatically prompt a manager to bring his closer in. Not then, and not with Fergie, who would throw 311.1 innings that year, the second of four straight years he threw over 300 innings. But he was tiring. Future Cub Johnny Callison singled. Future Cub coach Cookie Rojas singled. And then Money hit his second HR of the game, tying the score at 5.

Only then did Leo Durocher bring Phil Regan into the game. Regan got three outs without incident, and the game went into extra innings. Regan and the Phillies' Barry Lersch (who was making his major league debut that day) soldiered on through the tenth and into the 11th, something else which would be unheard-of in 2008, in the age of seven-man bullpens.

In the top of the 11th, Callison singled again, was sacrificed to second by Rojas, and scored on a double by Money (who matched Banks with 5 RBI that day -- he'd have only 37 more the rest of the year). It silenced the sellout crowd of 40,796, some of whom left, figuring the Cubs had lost 6-5.

Those who did missed one of the signature moments in Cub history. Ernie Banks led off the last of the 11th against Lersch and struck out, but Randy Hundley singled, putting the tying run on base. Willie Smith was sent up to bat for Jim Hickman, and he slammed the first pitch into the right field bleachers for a walkoff HR, the crowd going wild.

In this note posted on Len & Bob's WGN blog two years ago when Willie Smith passed away, they quoted Glenn Beckert's remembrance of that win:

That win energized the season. The Cubs started 4-0, lost one, then won 7 more for an 11-1 start. We won't go through what happened at the end of the season, but the beginning was "wonderful" -- appropriate, as that was Willie Smith's nickname.

Boxscore from April 8, 1969 from baseball-reference.com

Here's one you probably didn't expect to see on this list.

Or maybe you did -- if you read the top 100 profile of Kiki Cuyler that I wrote a year ago. The 1932 Cubs, who won the pennant by four games, had to come from behind -- as late as late July, they were 5.5 games out of first place. But they had a 22-6 August -- one of the best months in Cub history, capped by a 14-game winning streak which put them as many as 8 games ahead, and they were never seriously challenged after that.

The winning streak was, in large part, due to an unbelievable sequence of hitting by Cuyler. Here's what I wrote about it last year:

Read that August 31 description again. The Cubs had come from four runs behind to tie the game in the ninth, then gave up four runs in the top of the tenth, and got to within 9-7 with two runners on base when Cuyler hit a three-run walkoff -- not too dissimilar to Aramis Ramirez' two-run walkoff last June 29. If a game like August 31, 1932 happened today, it would be legendary. Bill Veeck said it was the greatest game he ever saw; this quote from his book Veeck as in Wreck was also in the Cuyler profile:

Veeck didn't get the details quite right -- it was a three-run walkoff, not a grand slam, and it wasn't to break a first-place tie (the Cubs were already 7.5 games ahead going into August 31) -- but he captured the mood perfectly. If only there were film existing of this moment. Cuyler is one of the most forgotten of the great Cubs of the 1930's, likely because he died so young (at age 51, of a heart attack, in 1950). He's in the Hall of Fame, and if not for several serious injuries might have wound up with 3000 hits. His .325 average as a Cub ranks fourth all-time on the team list.

The Sandberg Game, as it was almost instantly tagged, burst Ryno on the national scene -- as this game was an NBC Saturday Game of the Week -- and also legitimized the Cubs as contenders for the first time in several seasons.

Quick -- without clicking on the boxscore link above or scrolling down. Who drove in the winning run in that game? (Answer below, but don't cheat!)

Sandberg actually hit two game-tying HR in this game, both of Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter, and if you've seen the replays, one of the indelible images of them is Sutter getting another ball from the umpire after the second one with a look of pure anger and disbelief on his face. Sutter was having one of the best years of his career -- up to June 23, 1984 he had 16 saves in 18 opportunities and a 1.16 ERA.

If I had to choose one of the two HR to be more significant, more stunning, I'd have to choose the second. The first, hit in the ninth inning, led off the inning. The second was hit with two out and Bob Dernier on base, and brought the Cubs back from two runs down. What a lot of you might not remember is that Dernier walked on a 3-2 pitch that was very, very close to being a called third strike -- and that would have ended the game.

There were all kinds of wild things that happened on June 23, 1984. Cub starter Steve Trout had nothing -- he allowed seven runs and didn't make it out of the second inning. Trailing 7-1 going into the bottom of the fifth, the Cubs chipped away; Sandberg had an RBI single and Gary Matthews an RBI double, making it 7-3. The Cardinals tacked on two runs off Dickie Noles in the sixth on a Willie McGee HR, but the Cubs scored five in the bottom of the inning to close within one at 9-8. McGee, incidentally, hit for the cycle and drove in six runs that day, and barely got noticed for doing it, due to Sandberg's heroics. That is, to this day, the last time a visiting player has hit for the cycle at Wrigley Field.

That's how it stayed until Sandberg's first HR. At 9-9 in extra innings, Jim Frey called on Lee Smith, who promptly gave up two runs, leading to Sandberg's second round of heroics in the bottom of the 10th.

There's one difference from modern baseball -- in a game like this, would a manager wait till the 10th to call on his closer, as Frey did? Or leave his closer in to throw three-plus innings, as Whitey Herzog did? The game has really changed in the last 24 years. Also, Smith was left in to pitch a second inning in relief, the 11th, and handled the Cardinals easily, despite a walk to Andy Van Slyke, setting up the winning rally in the last of the 11th.

Leon Durham led off the inning with a single off Dave Rucker, who had replaced Sutter. Durham stole second and advanced to third on Cardinal catcher Darrell Porter's throwing error. Herzog then ordered Keith Moreland and Jody Davis intentionally walked to load the bases, bringing up the pitcher's spot.

The last guy on the bench was little-used backup infielder Dave Owen. Facing Jeff Lahti, who had replaced Rucker, Owen lifted a soft little flare over second base, a clean single into RF, scoring Durham and winning the game -- one of only 16 career RBI Owen had.

Herzog called Sandberg "Baby Ruth" and said he was "the greatest player he'd ever seen" and he was being sincere, not overhyping him. Sandberg was having a good year -- .321/.371/.531 up to June 22 -- but this game, and the rest of his season, sent him to a MVP award and helped the Cubs win the NL East. They'd been in first place briefly into early June, but by June 23 had fallen out. Still 1.5 games out after winning that day, they went 9-4 and back into first place by the beginning of July; falling back later, a 12-2 run starting July 28 put them in first place to stay.

This game is one of the greatest regular-season games in the last quarter-century, not just Cub games, but from any major league team. Twenty-four years later, it still feels like just yesterday.

"Everybody on your feet! This is it!"

That's what Jack Brickhouse yelled into his WGN microphone on a gloomy, cool Tuesday afternoon, May 12, 1970, the day Ernie Banks hit his 500th career HR.

A meaningless game? Sure. The Cubs were in first place at the time, with a 16-12 record, but ultimately fell short of the division title for the second year in a row.

A meaningless HR? Not at all. First, the Cubs needed every run they scored that day; they had to come from behind in the bottom of the 9th on a Billy Williams HR to tie the game, and then won on a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 11th by Ron Santo. So the Banks HR gave them a run they needed.

But its meaning is beyond that, and may have been dulled by the passage of almost 38 years. Ernie is now tied for 19th on the all-time HR list (with Eddie Mathews, a great player nearly forgotten today), and will likely be passed by two or three players in 2008 (Jim Thome is only five behind, and Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield both have a chance to pass him). On May 12, 1970, though, only eight players in major league history (Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Mel Ott and Mathews) had hit more home runs than Ernie Banks. In writing about Ernie a year ago in the top 100 Cub profile on him, I noted that Ernie was a far greater player than people today might remember:

Serious injuries derailed Ernie from becoming a Hall of Famer as great as Aaron or Mays -- had he continued on the path he'd paved from 1955 through 1960, he might have hit 600 or more home runs and rank fourth or fifth on the list even today.

Only 5,264 witnessed Ernie's 500th in person that rainy Tuesday. But Ernie had had a HR stolen from him on June 30, 1969 in Montreal. Read the play-by-play of how this happened:

Ernie Banks' greatness cannot be overstated. This HR represents an entire career of achievement.

Someday, perhaps I'll do a list here at BCB called "The Ten (or Twenty) Greatest Games In Cub History".

This game would almost certainly make that list, probably high on the list. I just wrote quite a bit about this game just four days ago, as Sammy Sosa's game-tying HR in the bottom of the ninth tied this game up; it was a game that the Cubs had blown a big early lead.

With two out in the bottom of the tenth, Mark Grace put an Al Reyes pitch out of the yard. I wrote on January 27 that Grace's walkoff on July 30, 1989 had made Sheffield; I think I had that blast confused with this one.

In any case, this was the kind of game that makes you want to run home when you're at the ballpark and watch the highlights over and over again. When I did see Grace's HR, a closeup of him showed him with one of those funny looks on his face, as if he were saying "I did that?!?!"

September 11-13, 1998, was perhaps the greatest weekend of baseball in Wrigley Field history. The only regular-season series that could rival it for thrills and excitement (and importance to a playoff race) would, in my mind, be the September 2-5, 2003, five-game series with the Cardinals. In fact, there was a HR hit in that series -- Sammy Sosa's walkoff in the 15th inning of game one of the day-night DH on September 2 -- that could have made this list.

But that 1998 series -- in which both teams scored ten runs in all three games -- gave all of us enough thrills to remember forever, and was a key weekend in the push to the wild card.

Orlando Merced had only ten at-bats as a Cub.

But one of them cemented him in Cub lore forever; on September 12, 1998, Merced hit a three-run walkoff HR to win a game against the Brewers, the second of three heart-stopping wins in what can, even ten years later, arguably be viewed as the most exciting regular-season weekend in Wrigley Field history.

The Cubs and Mets entered that weekend tied for the wild-card lead with 82-65 records. Both teams lost on Friday -- the Cubs, 13-11 to Milwaukee in a game that saw the Cubs blow a 3-0 lead, trail 10-5 before coming back to make it 10-9, then give up three more runs before making it 13-11 and having Mickey Morandini come to the plate in the last of the 9th as the potential tying run, before Bob Wickman got Morandini to ground out to end the game.

The next day wasn't any less exciting. The Cubs took a 2-0 lead, but coughed it right up; Mike Morgan, who had been acquired to try to recapture his 1992 success, allowed eight runs in the third, including home runs by Geoff Jenkins, Jeromy Burnitz and Bobby Hughes. The Brewers extended the lead to 10-2 in the fifth, but the Cubs brought it back to 10-5, partly on the strength of a Jose Hernandez homer.

It was 12-5 in the 7th when Sammy Sosa hit his 60th HR, a three-run jack, and Glenallen Hill followed with a solo job: 12-9. A Tyler Houston bomb in the 8th made it 12-10, setting up a dramatic bottom of the 9th, with Wickman again throwing for the Brewers. Sosa and Hill led off with singles, putting the tying runs on base. Jim Riggleman had Gary Gaetti sacrifice both of them into scoring position.

It was Gaetti's only sacrifice hit in 492 PA in 1998, and the last one of his career, and it worked. Morandini walked to load the bases and Houston singled Sosa and Hill in, tying the game and sending Morandini to third, representing the winning run with only one out. Riggleman then sent Merced up to bat for Manny Alexander; why Phil Garner didn't counter with a LHP like Mike Myers I'll never know.

We can all be thankful he didn't. Merced sent a fly ball to right; at first, we thought he'd just singled over the pulled-in outfield, since one run was all the Cubs needed. The ball, though, had made the bleachers for a three-run homer and a wild 15-12 win.

Merced was allowed to leave the Cubs as a free agent after the 1998 season. Too bad, too -- I thought he would have been a valuable spare-part outfielder and pinch-hitter. He had three more good years as a backup in Montreal and Houston before hanging it up after 2003. He helped the Cubs out one last time that year -- on September 27, 2003, the day the Cubs clinched the NL Central and needed a Houston loss and a doubleheader sweep at home vs. Pittsburgh to do so, Merced pinch-hit in the last of the ninth, again against Milwaukee. Dan Kolb struck him out, and one out later the Astros had lost.

Only ten at-bats as a Cub for Merced. But that at-bat, and that game, will forever rank high on a list of memorable Cub moments.