Tag / Twitter

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Another One Bites The Dust

For the second time in less than 4 months, the Twitterverse has exploded with confirmed reports of a confirmed trade involving the Cubs, only to have it fall apart within hours of being confirmed.  The first, back at the trade deadline at the end of July, involved Ryan Dempster being sent to the Braves for one of their top pitching prospects.  Word broke on Twitter after someone in the Braves front office leaked the news, but before Dempster had been told of the trade.  He got angry and ultimately witheld his approval despite previously agreeing to waive his no-trade rights if a deal was made to the Braves.

The second occurence went down Friday night, when Twitter exploded with reports that Carlos Marmol was being traded to the Angels for Dan Haren.  This time, the source was Marmol himself, who had waived his no-trade rights and was giving interviews in his native Dominican Republic about the trade.  The only problem was that the trade was not completed and was eventually scrapped, with the Angels ending up not picking up Haren’s option, making him a free agent and leaving Marmol as a member of the Cubs.

In both cases, the Cubs were not to blame for the trade details leaking before the deal was complete, but they did still come out of both situations with a little egg on their face.  They eventually ended up trading Dempster to the Rangers, but got a worse return than what they were going to get from the Braves.  Time will tell if they will eventually end up moving Marmol this winter and if they can get anything close to Haren.

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Godspeed, Kerry Wood

On April 12, 1998, Kerry Wood pitched in his first major league game, a 4-1 loss to the Expos.  Yesterday, he pitched in his last, a 3-2 loss to the White Sox.  Along the way, he, and Cub fans, experienced plenty of highs (the 20 strikeout game, 3 division championships, 1 wild card birth, the 2003 NLDS victory over the Braves) and lows (injuries, the 2003 NLCS collapse against the Marlins, injuries, 9 straight playoff losses, injuries).

Word started to leak out early Friday morning that Wood was planning on calling it quits, following an errant tweet from his wife.  Things had not been going well for him this season, and his aching arm did not seem to be up to the challenge of bouncing back day after day in the bullpen.  Because of the meltdown in his last appearance, where he was booed off the field and tossed his glove into the crowd in anger, Wood wanted to pitch one last time.  He got his chance in the 8th, with the Cubs down by one and Dayan Viciedo at the plate.

Like the Wood of old, he struck out Viciedo and, like that, it was over.  Acting manager Jamie Quirk came to the mound and Wood left the field to a standing ovation, right into the arms of his son.  After the game, he officially announced what everyone already knew, that he was walking away from the game, and team, that he loved.

I first saw Wood pitch in person on May 2, 2000 against the Astros, his first game back after elbow reconstruction surgery wiped out his 1999 season.  Besides winning the game, Wood also thrilled the crowd with a home run off of Jose Lima.  I saw him pitch 57 more times over the years, first as the ace of the Cubs staff, then as their closer, as an Indian and Yankee, and, finally, back home as a set up man, expected more to sell tickets and put butts in the seats than to get batters out.

Highlights include the showdown he won against the Yankees and fellow Texan Roger Clemens as the Rocket tried for win number 300, a few epic meltdowns in crosstown games against the White Sox, the home run and ultimate failure in game 7 of the NLCS against the Marlins, and, sadly, the injuries that robbed him of much of the promise he showed as a fresh faced 20 year old back in 1998.

Wood’s numbers in games I attended were:

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