FanPost

Cubs who hit 1 homer, a grand slam, Part 4

Fourth in a series of posts about players whose only home run as a Cub was a grand slam.

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On Sept. 7, 1937, pitcher Ox Miller became the third Cub whose lone homer came with the bases loaded.

Two days after Miller hit his slam, teammate Cliff Aberson hit one. That was the first of 66 slams that the Cubs would hit over more than 35 years, through Sept. 15, 1972, when Jim Hickman connected against the Mets.

Each and every one of the player who hit those 66 slams either had homered previously as a Cub or did so again afterward.

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Only 3,441 fans saw Hickman's slam at Wrigley Field that Friday afternoon in 1972. The following day, there were 20,192 in the stands on Saturday, when the Cubs faced Mets ace and future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver.

Three years earlier, at New York, Seaver had retired the first 26 Cubs in order and finished with a 1-hitter. This time, the Cubs got a leadoff double in the first inning from Don Kessinger, who scored on a pair of groundouts.

The Cubs then loaded the bases on a walk, a single and a walk before Seaver got out of the inning.

That was a far cry from what the Cubs' starter, Burt Hooton, had done in the top of the first: strikeout, groundout, strikeout -- the last, against Willie Mays.

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PITCHING PRODIGY

Burt Carlton Hooton seemed destined to do great things as a baseball player.

Born in Texas on Feb. 7, 1950, Hooton excelled as a pitcher in high school and was drafted at age 18 by the Mets, but did not sign, instead continuing to hone his skills at the University of Texas.

After his junior year, in 1971, at age 21, he was drafted again, this time by the Cubs, as the overall No. 2 pick.

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START AS A CUB

The Cubs immediately placed him on the Major League roster, and on June 17 he made his big league debut: 3.1 innings, 3 runs, 3 hits, 5 walks and 2 strikeouts.

Hooton then was dispatched to the Cubs' Class AAA team in Tacoma of the Pacific Coast League. He made 12 starts, racked up 9 complete games and 3 shutouts, went 7-4 and compiled a 2.11 earned run average. Along the way, he struck out 135 and walked only 19 in 102 innings.

Those eye-popping numbers earned him a return to the Cubs in September, and this time he was as good as advertised.

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On Sept. 15, he pitched a 3-hitter against the Mets in New York, striking out 15 and walking only 2 in a 3-2 victory.

His 15 strikeouts tied a Cubs single-game record that had stood for more than half a century, having been set by Grover Cleveland Alexander on Aug. 2, 1919 and equalled only once since, by Dick Drott on May 26, 1957.

Six days after Hooton's 15 strikeouts in 1971, he shut out the Mets at Wrigley, 2-0, on 2 hits -- leadoff singles in the first and seventh innings. He chalked up 5 strikeouts and 3 walks as he outdueled none other than Seaver.

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EFFECTIVELY WILD

The sky seemed the limit for Hooton going into 1972 -- especially after his first start, at home against the Phillies on April 16. He struck out 7. He also walked 7. But he retired the side in order in the ninth, striking out the final 2 batters, to complete a no-hitter in just his fourth big league start.

In his next start, 5 days later at New York, Hooton surrendered a double to the first batter he faced.

He held the Mets scoreless in that inning, but gave up back-to-back RBI singles with 2 out in the fifth and lost another duel with Seaver, 2-0. In 7 innings, Hooton gave up 6 hits, walked 3 and struck out 9.

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By the end of May, Hooton was 4-4 with a 2.71 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 69.2 innings. He also had walked 35, more than 4.5 per 9 innings.

He had 4 complete games in 9 starts, but 4 or more walks in 4 of those 9.

On June 2, he worked 7 innings without a walk. Starting with that game, he allowed more than 3 walks only once in his final 24 starts. In a 5-1 win over the Dodgers on June 7, he walked just 1 and managed a complete game despite allowing 13 hits.

Then, on Sept. 7, he gave up 12 hits but walked only 1 and went the distance to beat the host Pirates, 4-2.

Five days later, at Wrigley, the Pirates chalked up 12 more hits against Hooton, in only 6 innings. The Cubs lost, 7-0, and Hooton's record dropped to 9-13.

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LOST LEAD

The 1-0 lead that the Cubs gave Hooton on Sept. 16 did not last long. He walked 2 in the top of the second, then served up a game-tying double before fanning Seaver to strand 2 runners.

In the bottom of the inning, singles by Hooton and Kessinger, a sacrifice fly by Cardenal and a home run by Williams, No. 350 of his career, put the Cubs in front, 4-1.

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After Hooton retired the side in order in the top of the third, Seaver walked 2 batters, then threw a wild pitch before coaxing a popup. With Hooton on deck, the Mets issued an intentional walk to load the bases.

It was a logical thing to do. Hooton's single in his first at bat had raised his average for the season to just .107.

His only extra base hit, a double, had come more than 2 months earlier, and he had managed only 3 singles since then.

His RBI total was 4.

He had struck out in 34 of his 65 at bats.

So, naturally, Hooton blasted a grand slam -- on an 0-2 pitch no less -- to give the Cubs an 8-1 bulge and knock Seaver out of the game.

The Cubs went on to win, 18-5, thanks to 17 hits and 15 walks off. All the runs, 15 of the hits and 13 of the walks came against just 3 pitchers, in 5.2 innings.

Glen Beckert was the only Cub who missed out on the fun. He managed to make 2 outs in both the third and seventh innings, when the Cubs scored 7 and 5 runs, respectively.

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Hooton was gone by the time the Cubs came to bat in the seventh, lifted after 5.1 innings, during which he allowed 5 runs, 4 earned, on 7 hits and 3 walks, while striking out 5.

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AFTER THE SLAM

Hooton did not start again for a week, until Sept. 23, when he outdueled Cardinals ace Bob Gibson by hurling a 6-hit shutout.

It was the first time all year that Hooton won back-to-back starts. He lost his first start, also against the Cardinals, to end the year 11-14 with a 2.80 ERA, 132 strikeouts and 73 walks in 218.1 innings.

He batted .125, with 6 RBI -- all but 2 on his grand slam.

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Hooton had a similar won-lost record, 14-17, and similar strikeout/walk totals, 134-73, in 1973, but his ERA rose by nearly a run, to 3.68.

The following year, it went up more than a run, to 4.80, as he finished 7-11. He had only 94 strikeouts and 51 walks.

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When Hooton started out 2-5 with a 4.70 ERA through 13 starts in 1974, he was sent to the bullpen, where he relieved for 14 straight games.

Given 3 starts in the second half of July, he allowed 5, 8 and 5 runs in a total of 12.2 innings. He lost his spot in the rotation again and made only 2 starts in his next 13 games.

Then, on Sept. 14, Hooton started against his favorite foe, the Mets and responded with a 4-hit shutout. He won 2 more starts over the next 10 days to wind up 7-11, with a 4.80 ERA.

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But Hooton could not repeat that late-season success when 1975 began. In 3 starts, he yielded 12 runs, 10 earned, in just 11 innings, for an 8.18 ERA. In the last of those starts -- against the Mets, of all people, he lasted just 1.1 innings, in which he gave up 6 runs, 4 earned, on 6 hits.

He would not pitch for the Cubs again. On May 2, he was traded to the Dodgers for 2 fellow pitchers, Eddie Solomon and Jeff Zahn.

In parts of 5 seasons as a Cub, Hooton won 34 games and lost 44, with an ERA of 3.71. He completed 23 games, 7 of them shutouts.

He batted .104/.177/.129, with 18 singles, 2 doubles and his grand slam in 202 at bats.

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AFTER THE CUBS

Hooton found the success in Los Angeles that had eluded him in Chicago. Over the next decade, he was 112-84, with a 3.14 ERA, 61 complete strikeouts and 22 shutouts. In his best season, 1978, he was 19-10, 2.71, and runnerup for the Cy Young Award.

He also went 6-3, 3.17 in post-season starts and was voted the Most Valuable Player in the 1981 NL Championship Series after allowing the Astros 1 unearned run in 14.2 innings. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

When he retired after spending 1985 with the Rangers, Hooton's career record was 151-136, 3.38, in 480 games, including 377 starts. He had 86 complete games, 29 shutouts and 7 saves.

He fell 9 strikeouts short of 1,500.

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Hooton also fell 8 hits short of 100 as a batter, compiling a final average of .123 in 748 at bats.

After his grand slam for the Cubs in September 1972, he drove in 45 more runs, for a career total of 49. Five of those later RBI came on home runs: solo shots in 1975 and 1982, and a 3-run homer in 1980.

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TOMORROW: Fifth and last Cub with a slam as his only home run

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